Job Discussion Forums

[Lorean]

On average, for every hour of class time how long do you spend preparing?

[fitzgud]

Second year using the same text books (In detail books 1 and 2) but I find lots of ways to improve my lessons in the second year. about 30 mins

[Sonnet]

Pretty much the "golden" 1/3 ratio - 1 "real" hour of class requires, on average, 20 minutes' prep time

This reaps the benefits of previous experience, training and activities, however.

In my first couple of years, the prep time was double this. Sticking around has its benefits!

[Anda]

I spend up to a day preparing for one lesson but then I teach the one lesson all week and can reuse it when I get new students.

[Nemesis]

I'm a handouts fiend, and have amassed a good amount of supplementary activities for almost any situation.

I chose <=15 minutes. Usually, it'll involve a quick scan of the day's teaching points, the selection of a supplementary exercise (if necessary), and a few scribbled notes for sake of organizing my flow.

However, I don't always prepare, and too often end up "winging it". Doable, but if I hit a block of dead time with no plan to fill it, that's when I lose my minty cool.

Hence, my love of handouts.

[arioch36]

Well the bus ride to my school takes 40 minutes ... but sometimes I sleep. But after six years, for many classes it is just a matter of remembering/noting where we left off. When I have a multimedia room to use, prep time is now very little.

Correcting homework for oral and writing english takes longer. Homework is a must to me ... even for oral. Doesn't anyone give vocabulary tests?

[beautification]

It depends, but for the most part I have no prep time. My school usually just wants me to read out of the text book and have the children repeat the words. Sometimes I prepare an activity sheet but the school doesn't care for the kids actually understanding the language just being able to repeat the words in the text is good enough. I do teach primary school which more than likely has something to do with this and I'm sure if I taught higher levels more prep time would be needed.

[simrishamn]

prep time what's that!?

[jeffinflorida]

[therock]

Some teachers preparation time consists of choosing 5 songs and practising the dance they are going to do.

During my first year in China I was spending up to 3 hours preparing for a lesson. However one lesson plan was used for a week and also my classes had no text books to follow. After that first year my lesson prep time has been considerable less. First due to having a bunch of lessons already planned and second the school wanting me to follow a text book.

[latefordinner]

My first year I was doing 30-40 minutes for a 50 minute lesson. I was at a language mill, Saturday I had 7 different lessons. I was up at 4:30 every Saturday morning finishing. But of course there were doubles, lessons that got recycled, shortcuts found. I think by the end of that year I was averaging 20 minutes prep per class hour. And since then it has come down even more, simply because I've used so many lesson fragments over and again. Isn't that the same for most of us?
Now I spend between 20 and 40 minutes on one double lesson (90 minutes) that does 8 college classes. Died and gone to heaven, eh? Not quite, there are other issues to deal with in teaching, but as far as prep time goes, I gotta wear shades. I know my text backwards (It's one of the worst written in China, but that's one of those other issues I mentioned), I know what my targets are for each lesson, I know what I will and won't use from each unit, and what outside materials I'm going to use to fill in (not to mention fix, patch, repair, overhaul and sometimes replace) the text, what my activities are. And sometimes I still come away thinking, "Why didn't that work? How could I have done that better?" That's what lesson evaluation is for. Does that count as prep time too?