Optimum Lesson/Session Length

[Ric]

Hi, New to teaching English however 9 years as corporate trainer. I have a request to teach English to a company group for six hours on a Saturdays. I think six is too long and three would be better particularly from a student fatigue and retention/learning point of view. Anyone have an opinion on optimum lesson times/length for a single weekly session or research on "knowledge retention" related to amount of information given at one time. From my corporate training experience information retention is usually poor due to information overload and student's 'afternoon fatigue' regardless of how much fun the 'game' was. Ric

[eslweb]

I agree that there is no way you are going to get business people to study for six solid hours on a Saturday... However most of the courses I teach say 6 hours, but this tends not to be the case. Imagine the following: 2 x 15 min breaks and 1 hour for lunch. That has already reduced your teaching time down to 4 and a half hours.

Now it maybe the case that you are expected to do 6 hours of actual teaching and yes I have taught those courses. In these circumstances, I would leave the last session for doing a group project or something much more student centred.

The last time I looked at the research, it seemed to suggest that the maximum effective learning time is about 4 hours per day. (Sorry I can't remember the sources, but I am sure another fine teacher can fill in the details.)

James

P.S. You are welcome to use my business materials to help your class, available at: http://www.jamesabela.co.uk/bus/