A new teacher support plan for how to build, review, and evaluate your lessons.
It is difficult to give advice about teaching, because it is so individual, so dependent on your particular school, students, personality and experience. Lesson preparation on the other hand, is the first obvious place to start investing all your hard work as a teacher in order for it to have best effect.
You can’t prepare a lesson very much in advance but you can lay a general scheme of what material you want to get through in a term or year. Each individual lesson has to be prepared the day before it is given, not very much previously, because it depends so much on what happened the lesson before.
Think. A lot of my preparation time goes by while gazing at my son or musing over the dishes. Don’t think that if you aren’t physically active, you aren’t working.
Write. The minute you make time to write it down, it will quickly fall into place because you have given it much thought. But write it down even if you don’t actually look at the lesson plan during the course of the lesson.The mere fact of writing it down makes you plan more carefully.
Plan extra activities. Plan at least three or more different items for any lesson (with the younger classes, at least) and make sure they are varied in nature. Prepare one extra item in case you find you have extra time.
Collect extra materials. Over the years , I have collected board games, flashcards, worksheets, posters and other language learning items. I laminated them and still use them till this day. Keep your materials in good working order and they will serve you. Plus, you will save money as well.
The Lesson
Your activity in class.
This is where you work the hardest. You have to give 100% of yourself the whole time. The lesson is where most of the learning goes on. Use every moment to teach – every moment is of value.
I tend to move around the class a lot physically and keep the activity going the whole time. The more energy you put into a lesson, the more they will stimulated to work. Make sure the students know what is coming next. Write the lesson plan and the order of the activities on the board. Tick off what you have already finished.
Discipline Problems and Tips for preventing Them.
Watch out for slow/apathetic/potentially disruptive children. Have a ‘reaction’ plan at the first sign of inattention. Call on them personally to participate, make sure they understand, add a few extra words of explanation, or another repetition , aimed specifically at them. Since they are the ones who need the extra teaching, let them get it.
After the Lesson
It’s worthwhile reviewing your lesson. What went well? What didn't? I still keep a notebook and I jot down what went well and what didn’t. A teacher’s learning is meaningful only if she or he can apply it.
