Video transcript - The Lesson Planning Mistake That Trips Up So Many Teachers
Here’s a situation you’ve probably experienced. You’re going through the feedback to an exercise and a learner asks: Why is that the answer?
…and you suddenly realise… you’re not entirely sure.
This doesn’t feel comfortable under any circumstances, but if you’re in CELTA TP with your tutor and your peers watching, it can be excruciating... AND it’s totally avoidable.
Hi, I’m Jo Gakonga from ELT-Training.com and today I want to talk about one of the most important and sometimes overlooked parts of lesson planning. Knowing the answers!
Now, you can’t always know the answer- especially as a novice teacher- maybe a learner asks a question that’s a bit out of left field. BUT you should absolutely be able to answer questions about the language you’re teaching or the exercises you’re using because you’ve had the chance to prepare! Your tutors are going to expect this.
So when you’re planning a lesson, it’s not enough to just look at the exercises and think “that’ll work.”
You need to know the answers.
Yes, yes, you say- of course I know the answers- these exercises are easy for me. I speak English fluently - I’m the teacher. And anyway, there’s an answer key here.
All of that’s true, of course, but you still need to be able to answer this question:
Why is that the right answer?
For every single item.
This is often tricky with grammar.
If a learner asks:
Why is it I’ve been working here for 5 years and not I work here for 5 years?
You need more than:
Because that’s the answer. It says it here in the teacher’s book.
Or even worse and I’ve heard this so many times: Because it sounds right.
Remember your learners don’t know what sounds right. You need a simple, clear explanation.
In this case, something like:
We use present perfect continuous here because we see it as a longer action and we use this with a time. It started in the past and is still happening now.
Not a lecture but clarity and the bottom line is that if you don’t understand it clearly, you can’t explain it clearly. So make sure you can answer the question WHY for every question.
This isn’t just about grammar, either. Take a reading or listening task. If the answer to question 4 is B, you should be able to say:
How do you know?
Which words in the text tell us that?
I remember early on in my teaching career thinking:
I’ll just follow the book, it’s fine.
And then a learner asked a perfectly reasonable question……and I realised I hadn’t actually processed the exercise myself.
That’s not a great feeling.
So here’s a simple rule for your lesson planning.
Before the lesson, go through the exercise and ask yourself:
Can I explain why every answer is correct?
Can I do it simply?
Can I point to the evidence if it’s a text?
If the answer is No, that’s your planning time well spent.
If you found this helpful, I’ve got loads more practical teaching tips like this on my website, including a Lesson Planning Made Easy course that will lay out all the fundamentals of lesson planning for you including useful frameworks and helpful downloadables. Check it out at the link above.
