When I read Emma Herrod’s post on planning a lesson, I started thinking about my own style. Emma’s post asks a lot of useful question to the teacher and there are wonderful contributions to the post in the comments sections. I really do agree with most of them and I had some more ideas how to organize myself while reading those contributions.
Now let me tell what I can advise the teachers ‘in their first three years’ as Emma asked.
Planning yourself and your time should be a must but I’m sure you will soon apply your own planning method. In the first years of my teaching, I also wrote everything on my lesson plans but soon I learned how to organize myself.
- Routines are important so have a routine.
- Start each lesson with a fun activity, preferably related with the thing you are about to do.
- Finish your lessons before the bell and have a few seconds to unwind with your students.
- Spend some time with the homework you have given, otherwise; they will stop doing them.
I tend to plan my lessons weekly but sometimes I act according to a flow. I can change my plans even in the lesson when something interesting comes to my mind.
Unfortunately I can’t write my lesson plans on computer as I need a pen to hold while thinking or brainstorming so I have notebooks where I write my routes of that week and I keep post-it notes in my pencil case to add an idea when it comes so the course book I use is usually full of sticky-notes.
However, one fine summer, years ago I sat and filed all the exercises I wrote on my computer so I have tense files, activity files, relative clause files with some teaching ideas on my computer.
This year I bookmarked so many great ideas and links on delicious and it helped me a lot before planning my lessons.
For more ideas on planning your TEFL life you can read the followings:
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The A-Z Files: The Secret to Organising your TEFL Life! (by Janet Bianchini)
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“Failing to plan is planning to fail”? by Emma Herrod (great ideas on the comments)
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Cybrary Man’s Educational Web Sites
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Edutech wiki
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Powerpointing My Office by Kareene Sylvester
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Let’s rock our classrooms a lesson plan as a result of a sudden flow
Great post, Eva! And sound tips for teachers. Starting the class with a motivating task contributes to the creation of the class mood and it’s also important to finish the class with explanations as to how the students should practise the topics dealt with.
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Hello!
Thank you for your your input regarding organization.
I just finished my first year as a French teacher and would like to use the summer to organize all the activities, plans and projects I have created in the course of the year.
You are telling a little bit about the way you organized the info you have for your classes. I’d love to learn more about an efficient way to store, arrange and prepare information to make next year easier!
Thank you