Job Discussion Forums

[rel]

Greetings a new member here. I wanted to know whats the average amount of prep time one has to/needs to put in an average week.. for example, say you taught for 20hours a week, would your prep time amount to 5 or 10 hours, and I think its unpaid also? Any info is appreciated, thank you

[Spiderman Too]

For me, it's not the amount of hours per week that I teach, but the number of levels I teach that dictates the length of prep time.

I teach 10 lessons per week. Each lesson is a double period, i.e. 40 min + 10 min break + 40 min. So, I teach 15 'real' hours (including breaks).

I teach 2 different levels, freshmen & sophomore, and use 2 different study books. Thus, I prepare 2 lessons plans each week. Each lesson plan takes me around 2 hours.

[kev7161]

In addition, there are a couple other factors. For example, to what extent is your school asking for when it comes to lesson plans? Do they want detailed plans with goals and outcomes ("Upon completion of this lesson, the student will . . .") or do they just want a general idea of what you are going to teach?

Are the lesson plans solely for your own benefit so you will have a guide to follow? As Spiderman Too said, how many different levels/classes are you teaching? I have 3 Senior Two classes so the lesson plans are all the same. Have you taught/taught-ESL before? I carry around a lot of my ideas in my head from previous years of teaching. I jot down the barest minimum in my lesson planning book because I generally know the steps I need to take in order to teach the lesson. This week, my Senior One students are doing a Tongue Twister competition, so I have in my planner: "TT Comp." I already know that the first round will take up pretty much all my period and the second/third/final rounds will take up the next. I make a list of materials I will need: tongue twister copies, prize ribbons, candy for all participants. Obviously, this is a "fun" thing we're doing and not "real" lessons, but you get the idea.

If I'm doing a more detailed lesson, such as grammar, then I write down the "rules" I need to make sure I cover, along some sample sentences as examples, and maybe some board work I want some students to do.

If I am going to do/teach something I never have before, then my lesson plans will definitely be more detailed, but as long as I'm organized, review the material beforehand, and have all teaching materials on hand, things tend to go smoothly.

[ekirving]

Like the previous posters have indicated the quantity of prep time is highly dependant upon the number of different class levels that you teach (e.g.. Junior 1, Senior 2, etc.), however, I would also suggest that it depends greatly upon the resources that your school provides.

In my case, my employer provides all the FTs with a set of text books (one for each year level) that we are required to teach from (it's in our contracts). As such, my prep time is almost non-existent. I teach 5 different year levels, so before the first class from each year level I spend 5 minutes reading over the lesson that I am going to teach.

I have found that coming to class with a highly detailed lesson plan is a waste of time, as the level of English language competency in a single year level varies greatly within classes, between classes and even more so between schools (I teach at four different schools). What works for one class will NOT work for all.

Personally I prefer to have a flexible approach so I can better respond to the largely unanticipatable needs of my hundreds of students.