Job Discussion Forums

[Glenski]

[saint57]

[gaijinalways]

I agree, it would be overkill. I don't do anything as detailed as that, though I do have that in mind for the activities I do.

[Gordon]

My lesson plans are for me alone, as should they be. No one in my current school has ever asked to see my lesson plan, nor will they ever ask. If they did, they are more than welcome to peruse my notes, but they probably wouldn't understand much of it.

The notes are scant, have my ideas, more of a list of what I will be doing and in which order.

At the beginning of the year, I must submit a very basic course syllabus which is then posted on the net for prospective students to read to help them decide if they wish to enroll in my course.

[mondrian]

As I walk to my first class of the week, I am thinking: "Oh God! what am I going to do with them this week?"
Then the miracle happens on the steps up to my classroom. There is a great light shining down into my synapses. A lesson materialises!
The result is a lively and successful lesson (admittedly most of my students are at the advanced level of EFL).
Whenever I have carefully planned a lesson, or followed a set text-book, the result has been total boredom on their part, as exhibited by their body language.
Admittedly I have been teaching EFL for a LONG time, and have made every mistake in the book (which I remember).
I suspect very EFL teacher is unique in his/her approach to this problem.
Certainly whenever (on those rare occasions) I look at my TESOL notes, I smile and think that my teachers got paid for all this, so some good came from them. BUT I paid for them, so do not throw them in the trash can, where most belong!

[John Hall]

Right on! Spontaneity! Creativity! Inspiration! That's what our lessons need. Lesson plans tend to kill those things.

[ddeubel]

[John Hall]

No, I am not confusing lesson planning with lesson delivery. Neither am I advocating total spontaneity, which is basically the same as winging it. Yes, I at least plan in my head before going into class. I also have to do the photocopies for the students in advance, and that sort of thing. But I prefer, if I can, to come with photocopies for all students of several different exercises, and then go with what feels right once I am in the classroom.

As I have already stated, I teach company and university classes. I have a lot less freedom with the university classes, where, of course, I have to follow a syllabus which is not very flexible. The company classes are much more elastic, and require me to be so.

With the company classes, I frequently get situations like the following: I go to class thinking that I am going to do a class on language target A. But when I arrive in the classroom, I face a panic-stricken student who tells me that he or she had a phone call from an English-speaking client yesterday, and there was a terrible series of misunderstandings. There is a lot of money riding on this account, and maybe even the student's job, so first I have to calm the student down, deal with the emotional/psychological aspects of the situation (which is pretty intense), identify what kinds of communication errors took place, and then figure out how to teach language targets F, Q, U, X, and Z all in the same lesson. Basically, I have to know how to teach anything and everything spontaneously.

With the university courses, I like to be able to use spontaneity as well, but of course in a much more restricted manner. It's all part of having a student-centered approach to learning English. Let's say the textbook's lesson for a particular day is on the subject of sports. The textbook has articles and listenings about bowling, skiing, and gymnastics. Of these three, it is likely that my Costa Rican students have only done bowling. Skiing may be interesting to them because it can't be done in Costa Rica, but how are they going to talk about something they have never done? Although I wouldn't completely ignore the text by any means, it would be so much better for them to talk about their own sports experience, and for me to get them to incorporate new language targets into their discussions about them.

But what can I say? I guess the fact that I don't always know what I am going to do in class keeps things interesting for me. After twelve years of teaching, I have never suffered burn-out, and I think this is one of the reasons why.

[gaijinalways]

John Hall, these kinds of expansions are usual when teaching. You described a typical example of personalization, which often as teachers we try to do. I often have students who have never traveled out of Japan, so also when we look at traveling we often talk about issues related to traveling in Japan (rather than abroad). We of courselook at where students have traveled to specifically.

All my lessons are a combination of spontaneity and plans. Most of us are disagreeing on how much planning we should do.

Business and university language classes are very different animals, though they do share certain aspects. Some business classes do have more set syllabi, so the types of things John Hall talks about doing might really be possible only in individual lessons, not group lessons, unless all the individuals are working in the same department and thus have a vested interest as they are more likely to deal with the same situation.