Perhaps, you could do storytelling in your teaching and make your teaching more hands on like getting students to do a role-play based on a particular historical context . Besides that, bring in video clips to enhance their understand. Graphics too can help promote their interest.

Very interesting question! I suggest, you need to follow a small template that comprises baseline assessment of each student, your and students involvement, link with real-life tasks and activities and finally use of active language practice. With these in mind just go for comparative study bringing in history. For example, they used to eat simple food, we eat a variety of foods. Catch word/phrase is 'used to' . Please formulate related differentiated tasks and activities and teach the comparative history instead of plain isolated history. You may like to see my postings for more elaborations. I hope it helps!

Perhaps, you could do storytelling in your teaching and make your teaching more hands on like getting students to do a role-play based on a particular historical context . Besides that, bring in video clips to enhance their understand. Graphics too can help promote their interest.

 Yes dear Malini... it is a good idea to do a role-play on particular historical contexts... Secondly, now my task is to collect short documentaries and Movies on the historical backgrounds of Anglo-Sexon, Anglo-Normans, Elizabethan, Alexanderian and Victorian etc. ages.. 

Further use of graphics... and pictures... ppt slides.. all are effective..

Besides, the idea of Mr. Arif to teach history by comparing different ages and to involve students in different activities seem effective.Thanks.

Dear Colleagues,

Good Day,

"Effective Teaching Strategies: Six Keys to Classroom Excellence

By: Maryellen Weimer, PhD

What are makes an effective teacher?

This particular list of teaching characteristics appears in an excellent book that is all but unknown in the states, Learning to Teach in Higher Education, by noted scholar Paul Ramsden. In the case of what makes teaching effective, he writes, “…a great deal is known about the characteristics of effective university teaching. It is undoubtedly a complicated matter; there is no indication of one ‘best way,’ but our understanding of its essential nature is both broad and deep.” (p. 88-89). He organizes that essential knowledge into these six principles, unique for the way he relates them to students’ experiences.

1: Interest and explanation

2: Concern and respect for students and student learning

3: Appropriate assessment and feedback

4: Clear goals and intellectual challenge

5: Independence, control and active engagement

6: Learning from students

Please, see the link for more detail.....

http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/effective-teaching-strategies/effective-teaching-strategies-six-keys-to-classroom-excellence/

Dear Colleagues,

Good Day,

"Effective teaching: 10 tips on what works and what doesn’t

Here are 10 salient points to take away:

1. Know your subject

2. Praise can do more harm than good

3. Instruction matters

4. Teacher beliefs count

5. Think about teacher-student relationships

6. Manage behaviour

7. There’s no evidence that setting works

8. Don’t worry about learning styles

9. Learning should be hard at first

10. Build relationships with colleagues and parents."...

Please, see the link for more detail...

https://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/teacher-blog/2014/oct/31/effective-teaching-10-tips

Dear Sabah,

   I understand your concern regarding teaching the history of English Literature and Linguistics effectively. You have to use certain teaching techniques, for instance, motivation can be raised via positive thoughts and behavior, comprehension can be raised via using visual, aural, etc. learning styles. I hope the following papers can give you certain insights in this respect.

   Good luck!

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/286624705_FOR_THE_IMPROVEMENT_OF_TEACHING_FOREIGN_LANGUAGES_ON_THE_UNDERGRADUATE_LEVEL_ON_THE_EXAMPLE_OF_THE_REFORMS_CARRIED_OUT_AT_THE_FACULTY_OF_HUMANITIES_OF_IVANE_JAVAKHISHVILI_TBILISI_STATE_UNIVERSITY_GEOR

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/286625219_THE_PROCESS_OF_GLOBALIZATION_AND_ITS_EFFECT_ON_THE_TEACHING_OF_FOREIGN_LANGUAGES_AT_THE_INSTITUTIONS_OF_HIGHER_EDUCATION_ON_THE_EXAMPLE_OF_IVANE_JAVAKHISHVILI_TBILISI_STATE_UNIVERSITY_GEORGIA?ev=prf_pub

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/276542671_SOME_STRATEGIES_OF_THE_EFFECTIVE_TEACHING_OF_FOREIGN_LANGUAGES

Article FOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF TEACHING FOREIGN LANGUAGES ON THE UND...

Article THE PROCESS OF GLOBALIZATION AND ITS EFFECT ON THE TEACHING ...

Article SOME STRATEGIES OF THE EFFECTIVE TEACHING OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

The teaching of history of literature can present a great difficulty because of the long stretch of time to be covered and the sheer amount of information available. English literature goes back at least to the seventh century AD; and so has usually been presented in about six or seven phases: Old English Literature, Middle English Literature, Renaissance English Literature, Neo-Classical English Literature, Romanticism, Victorianism, Modernism, and Post-Modernism. Some of these seem to me to be designed to capture a historical period, while others centre on a literary movement, or a grouping of literary movements. I would classify the Renaissance, Neo-Classicism, Romanticism, and Modernism as pertaining to literary movements. Old and Middle English, Victorianism, and Post-Modernism seem to me to be aimed at accounting for a historical period in which there may be no clearly dominant literary movements. But often ingenious critics and literary historians have sought to characterize the name used for the period as a descriptive notion to which works of the period are to be referred for intelligibility.

Another way to approach the problem would be to focus on the literary facts themselves as they have occurred over time, together with their producers. The major works would be presented, alongside the lesser ones, the literary movements and literary ideas that may have inspired or sustained these, periods of change, the structure of these changes, evidence-based connections between socio-cultural changes and literary productions, and evidence-based literary influences. The teaching of history in this format will be effective if spread out over the entire duration of a normal degree programme in literature. It will probably give the student of literature a stronger sense of literature as a preoccupation rather than as a secondary and derivative process, where the central and dominant event is socio-political or socio-economic history.

I think that students learn better if they see that what is being presented to them is important in itself and that this knowledge is worth having as part of the expected learning outcomes of their programme of studies.

Thanks Dr. Amechi Ackwanya for your good response. 

How can we teach the subject of history (of English Literature and Linguistics) effectively?

Remembered I loved & scored high marks in history during my primary & secondary school times.  Would like to share the following how I learned history - not sure they are applicable to other individuals:

Dea  Sir (Han Ping Fung), I'm very much interested in the subject of history. I choose to teach it as per my own interest.. I myself follow your first four suggestions at learning history individually..

Thanks for your great contribution.

It is indeed challenging to take history to the students! From my experience as a student sitting in history classes, I have realized that the approach of the teacher to the subject is very important. Secondly, it is also important to understand the approach students have to the subject. Screen documentaries and videos, take timelines rather than themes, take periodical tests to make it easy for them to comprehend, and most importantly, make the material easily understandable in order to help them retain.

 If you teach in English, use more online resources  in history. I am sure , you know about  https://www.khanacademy.org/   or http://www.history.com/ and others... What about  English literature- there are also some videos-http://www.zaneeducation.com/Videos/Literature/The_History_Of_British_Literature.php. You can use also online quizzes from the same links. Hope, it will be useful...Good luck! 

https://www.khanacademy.org/ http://www.history.com/. http://www.zaneeducation.com/Videos/Literature/The_History_Of_British_Literature.php.

It is a real challenge in terms of the volume of information to deal with, but the colleagues above have given  excellent advice!  History as mere memorization of data is boring and ineffective. History of English is basically a cultural subject. So, you may also take a cultural stand -- culture as problem solving -- and make the topics relevant to the present. To what extent do we have  the same language experiences? Is our language the result of encounters of cultures? Did it change from synthetic to analytic?  How is the linguistic, cultural and social past alive or relevant to the present?  When it comes to the lexical level, for instance, the students  will probably enjoy the Indoeuropean perspectives accounting for the origin of  some of the  words in their present vocabulary... I am still struggling with the best way to teach it, and glad to hear about other teacher's experiences. 

Dear Sabah,

Kindly consider the students majoring subjects, they may take interest depending on their area of interest in history. However, you can plan teaching by dividing history into periods on account of major works, trends, movements, and authors.

you can add handout to your teaching plan for the description of a particular period, trends, books, and authors.

You can further involve students into that period by devising objective type test and presentation on that period. 

I hope, it would work well if you could use slide to show some graphs along with text for creating interest among the learners.

Regards