Lesson planning tips
Do you find that the lesson has often ended and you haven’t got to the end of what you’ve planned?
This is a common phenomenon with novice teachers and it can be a problem because the more authentic practice of language is often at the end of the lesson so it tends to get chopped off.
I’m Jo Gakonga from ELTtraining and in this short video I’m going to give you a couple of useful tips to help stop this happening.
The first thing to remember is that, as with many things in life, less is often more. Plan fewer exercises so that learners get a decent amount of time to do them without rushing and you have time to give feedback. This part is crucial – you want to make sure they have understood, you want to address errors and you also want to deal with any useful language that emerged while they were doing the task. So that’s tip number 1 - Do less- do it properly.
Now, you might be thinking.. but what if I plan less and run out of material to teach them? Well, tip number 2 is that if you’re feeling nervous about not having enough in your plan, you can plan flexi stages- these are useful extra practice activities – they could be controlled or freer practice- that you can do if you have time but which won’t affect your lesson if you leave them out. Mark them on your plan in some way so that they’re easy to see and remember.
Finally, a useful piece of advice is to plan from the end of your lesson. If you start by allocating enough time for your practice activities and then work backwards, you stand a better chance of seeing how much time you realistically have.
If you want more useful advice about lesson planning, especially for CELTA, this course is designed to give you lots of helpful tips, walk you right through the process and take the headache out of it. There’s even a money back guarantee on it- what’s not to like?
Have fun with your lesson planning and see you on the site.
