This bunch is a bunch of robots

that will click if you give them some mechanical work

and step by step

like calculating maths

They will enjoy their work

appreciate your effort

and think they have achieved success

So

how do you make the learning of English

something mechanical

Design small steps they can follow

Listening to teacher's talk is definitely out

Retyped newspaper worksheets are definitely in

and then

all you have to do

is

One:

Take away some words

of some HKCEE like articles

like today's 'banning smoking'

and substitute the words with Chinese translation

and ask them to fill in the originals

Two:

Design grammar tests,

give them the infinitves

and ask them to give you back the gerund, infinitives or participles

the active or the passive, the appropriate tenses.

Then:

Word form

give a different part of speech for the nouns the adjectives and the adverbs

let them change the word back

into the original

In doing these mechanicals

they will be reading a lot of good examples

learn a lot of new words

and your class will be made quite simple.