I just wanted to take a minute out of all our busy schedules and talk a little about lesson planning.
As you may know, teachers back home spend at least as much time as they do teaching planning what they are going to teach. Often, in our teaching situations abroad, we are encouraged to just chat, or improvise with our students.
Of course, if you take your students’ best interests to heart, you know that’s not enough. You also know that they are paying good money for their English lessons!
Here are a few ideas to help you plan lessons:
Take Notes - Write stuff down during the lesson. Whenever you notice some particular thing that your student has trouble with, or an activity or topic that they enjoy, scribble it down. Later, when you are trying to decide what to cover next, these notes will come in handy.
It also helps if you write a short lesson report after each lesson. Again, this will give you ideas for the future.
Always Have More Stuff Than You Need - You never know when an activity or assignment may go quicker than you expected. I have a file for each student, and in it I keep way more than I need. This way, I can always pull something out if there’s extra time left at the end of a lesson.
Make A Routine - Every lesson can follow basically the same format, as long as the content is always changing. You can always change your routines around, but a routine is good for both you and the student. For you, it makes lesson planning easier. For them, they know what to expect each time.
Lesson planning is a big part of teaching, but it doesn’t have to be a big headache!