I've been teaching ESOL part-time for a year now but lesson-planning still takes me ages; I have to plan, which includes doing the exercises in the coursebook myself to make sure I have all the answers in my head. The teaching of ESOL in the UK requires a lot of additional paperwork to be completed i.e. Individual Learner Plans and Schemes of Work.
It has taken me a long time to get going as a teacher and am still way behind where I want to be, for example, co-ordinating lessons and having all that I want to teach clear in my head .
I'm my own worst critic but my team leader told me last week that if I can't get my lesson-planning time down then I should think about changing careers. I know she has my best interests at heart but nevertheless this advice was a little hard to take.
In all the classes I have taught (including 6 months in Cambodia) I have enjoyed an excellent rapport with the learners and I really seem to connect with them and they evidently get a lot from my lessons. The thing about the lesson-planning time has discouraged me somewhat so my question is what to do, either jack it in at the end of term or stick with it and hope things improve.
All advice greatly appreciated
Career advice
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Sally Olsen
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There are a ton of lesson plans on line. Make yourself a template on the computer from the one you like best and then just fill it in every day after you have taught. You will get standard phrases from the book and keep them in a file so you can cut and paste. Cut and paste from other resources as well as there are a ton on the Internet. Once you have done it after you have taught your lessons you will get a better idea of what you need to put in before.
Unless someone is checking them every day, you should be up to speed by the end of the month and can start to plan ahead for a couple of months. You just need to adjust the future ones as you go along and see what you actually accomplished in class.
I did a journal each night and read it over at the end of the week to see what I was really doing and what the students were doing as well. It is great to see how things progress over the school year and see where you have missed out and what went wrong so you can fix it for next year.
Most teachers have lessons plans they did years ago and so don't have to do them every night. You will build up a store that you can use in the future. But in real life, a class doesn't go the exact way that you want and so you have to adapt.
If you love teaching, don't let one person's fondness for paper work put you off. There are plenty of experienced teachers who don't even remember how to make out a lesson plan but whose students learn more than anyone would think they could.
There are lesson plans that come with book series if you are using some recommended series in your classroom and you don't have to do anything but put them in your computer and print them out or show them to whoever it is that cares.
It is like learning to drive a manual car. At first you are concentrating on the clutch, the gears and hardly notice the steering. It all comes together with practice and you will be filling out the forms in no time.
Be sure to keep everything though so you can use it again with cut and paste with adaptations to the situation of course, but with the basics the same. It will save you loads of time. If you can catagorise them somehow it will make it even easier to cut and paste.
Unless someone is checking them every day, you should be up to speed by the end of the month and can start to plan ahead for a couple of months. You just need to adjust the future ones as you go along and see what you actually accomplished in class.
I did a journal each night and read it over at the end of the week to see what I was really doing and what the students were doing as well. It is great to see how things progress over the school year and see where you have missed out and what went wrong so you can fix it for next year.
Most teachers have lessons plans they did years ago and so don't have to do them every night. You will build up a store that you can use in the future. But in real life, a class doesn't go the exact way that you want and so you have to adapt.
If you love teaching, don't let one person's fondness for paper work put you off. There are plenty of experienced teachers who don't even remember how to make out a lesson plan but whose students learn more than anyone would think they could.
There are lesson plans that come with book series if you are using some recommended series in your classroom and you don't have to do anything but put them in your computer and print them out or show them to whoever it is that cares.
It is like learning to drive a manual car. At first you are concentrating on the clutch, the gears and hardly notice the steering. It all comes together with practice and you will be filling out the forms in no time.
Be sure to keep everything though so you can use it again with cut and paste with adaptations to the situation of course, but with the basics the same. It will save you loads of time. If you can catagorise them somehow it will make it even easier to cut and paste.
Thanks for such an in-depth, encouraging reply Sally. My issue is actually being able to stop 're-inventing the wheel' by using existing available resources rather than trying to plan from scratch. This is my first class at this level (E2 - elementary) and am keen to give my learners as much variety as I can.
Lesson plans are always hand-written at the school I work; don't know why but everyone does it this way. The plans themselves don't take me too long to write - it's just putting the actual lesson together that take me so long.
It always takes me a long time to figure out the exercises myself before I can teach them which is something that surfaced during my CELTA course. The lessons at the school are 3 hours long, comprising of 2 ninety-minute sessions.
I know there's no 'quick-fix' but I do need to find a method of speeding things up soon.
Lesson plans are always hand-written at the school I work; don't know why but everyone does it this way. The plans themselves don't take me too long to write - it's just putting the actual lesson together that take me so long.
It always takes me a long time to figure out the exercises myself before I can teach them which is something that surfaced during my CELTA course. The lessons at the school are 3 hours long, comprising of 2 ninety-minute sessions.
I know there's no 'quick-fix' but I do need to find a method of speeding things up soon.
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Sally Olsen
- Posts: 1322
- Joined: Thu Apr 08, 2004 2:24 pm
- Location: Canada,France, Brazil, Japan, Mongolia, Greenland, Canada, Mongolia, Ethiopia next
I'm sorry. I was away and missed your reply. Please hold on. If the students like you, you must be doing something right.
The first time through a course is always the hardest. You are learning along with the students so of course, it takes you longer. I remember being up until midnight every night my first year. But it gets much easier and in fact, boring if you teach the same thing all the time. You will want to change after awhile I'm sure although no two classes are ever the same no matter the materials.
I don't see why you have to know the answers to the questions. Isn't there a teacher's book with the answers? I realize that you will want to know the reasons for the answers just in case but you will know most of them and just have to puzzle out a few that you might have to look up.
It is great that you want to give them variety and in 90 minute sessions you can do a lot with groups. They will puzzle out the answers for you and can come up with ideas once you have given them the basics. If you teach them the reasoning and structure behind the exercises, games and puzzles, they can start to make their own and then you can share them with other groups which makes it a lot easier on you, more motivating for them and an all round good feeling in the class.
I don't know what books you are using but there are always lots of activities in the teacher's manual, usually more than you can use.
Don't ever mark things yourself after the class either. Do it during the class in a variety of ways. You can get them to put answers on the board, you can have a sheet with just the answers they can check themselves, or you can pair them off and get them to check each others answers or you can pass the books one behind with the back row coming to the front and read off the answers for them to check. They learn so much by seeing the wrong answers and puzzling out why they are wrong. They usually remember their own answers or at least look at them when they get them back and will ask questions. Most students will never look at them if you mark them, just at their mark.
Ask other teachers at your level what they do about all these problems. There will be many great ideas. Of course, you just take the ones that appeal to you.
I would campaign to have the lesson plans standardized and put on the computer. It is done everywhere now and saves so much time. Our boards even provide a range of options for comments that keep everyone out of trouble. Nice ways to put messages to students that aren't doing well and such.
The first time through a course is always the hardest. You are learning along with the students so of course, it takes you longer. I remember being up until midnight every night my first year. But it gets much easier and in fact, boring if you teach the same thing all the time. You will want to change after awhile I'm sure although no two classes are ever the same no matter the materials.
I don't see why you have to know the answers to the questions. Isn't there a teacher's book with the answers? I realize that you will want to know the reasons for the answers just in case but you will know most of them and just have to puzzle out a few that you might have to look up.
It is great that you want to give them variety and in 90 minute sessions you can do a lot with groups. They will puzzle out the answers for you and can come up with ideas once you have given them the basics. If you teach them the reasoning and structure behind the exercises, games and puzzles, they can start to make their own and then you can share them with other groups which makes it a lot easier on you, more motivating for them and an all round good feeling in the class.
I don't know what books you are using but there are always lots of activities in the teacher's manual, usually more than you can use.
Don't ever mark things yourself after the class either. Do it during the class in a variety of ways. You can get them to put answers on the board, you can have a sheet with just the answers they can check themselves, or you can pair them off and get them to check each others answers or you can pass the books one behind with the back row coming to the front and read off the answers for them to check. They learn so much by seeing the wrong answers and puzzling out why they are wrong. They usually remember their own answers or at least look at them when they get them back and will ask questions. Most students will never look at them if you mark them, just at their mark.
Ask other teachers at your level what they do about all these problems. There will be many great ideas. Of course, you just take the ones that appeal to you.
I would campaign to have the lesson plans standardized and put on the computer. It is done everywhere now and saves so much time. Our boards even provide a range of options for comments that keep everyone out of trouble. Nice ways to put messages to students that aren't doing well and such.