✅ Checking Without Asking “Do You Understand?”

⏱ 5 minutes · 📚 CELTA methodology · 🏫 Micro-lesson

📖 From the teacher’s desk: “Do you understand?” — I must have asked this dozens of times in my first observed teaching practice. And every student nodded. And then not one of them could do the task. My CELTA tutor introduced me to Concept Checking Questions (CCQs), and everything changed. CCQs don’t ask if learners understand; they prove it.

🎯 By the end of this micro-lesson, you can: design effective CCQs to check concept understanding without using “Do you understand?”

🔥 The Problem (1 min)

Why is “Do you understand?” useless?
→ Learners nod to save face, even when they don’t understand.
→ It’s a yes/no question with no way to verify understanding.
→ It puts learners on the spot and can cause anxiety.

📖 What Are CCQs? (2 min)

Concept Checking Questions are simple, targeted questions that check the MEANING, not the form.

Good CCQs are:

• ✅ Simple language (simpler than the target structure)
• ✅ Yes/No or short answer (not “explain” questions)
• ✅ Focused on the key concept (time relationship, meaning, reality vs imagined, etc.)

Bad CCQs:

• ❌ “What does this mean?” (too vague)
• ❌ “Can you translate it?” (doesn’t check the concept)
• ❌ “Is it clear?” (same as “Do you understand?”)

✏️ Practice (2 min)

Write 2 CCQs for each of these:

1. “She used to live in Paris.” (= she doesn’t live there now)
2. “If I had more money, I would travel the world.” (= she doesn’t have the money now)

Cambridge CELTA course completed — 120 supervised teaching hours, 4 written assignments passed at the required standard.

Independent project; not affiliated with, endorsed by, or accredited by Cambridge University Press & Assessment. Confers no qualification.

✉️ Questions? sourovdeb.com