S . ESL Teaching

(bunting - activity. Examples from kids 4, 6, 10, 11 yo) When I do my teacher training, I often come across new teachers who have never written a lesson plan in their lives. Especially when teaching small children they are often a bit lost and don't know what kind of activities to do with children or how long an activity should last (please, don't plan an activity that takes 40 minutes ....) among many other things . So here is an idea on how you could start (see at the bottom of the post). It can easily be adapted for different ages. For beginner teachers, I often advise them to do a detailed plan. It takes a loooot of time and you may feel like it's nor worth it. After all the goal is not to plan for 4 hours just to teach 1 hour (and only get paid for that one hour!). Been there, done that! But believe me, at the beginning it is really worth it (I will write another blogpost about why you should have lesson plans), with time it will get easier and you will teach more...

We often think that greeting is something that the children do automatically, when they enter the classroom.  But this is not necessarily the case, especially when you are teaching very small children.  You will find kids that might just walk past you, as if you are not even there, staring blankly and running towards the toys they want to get to as soon as they can (who wouldn’t run to the cool stuff!!). If you are lucky, you will see some children smile at you. If you are very lucky they may say good morning. And if you are very very lucky, they may even shake your hand, look you in the eyes and say good morning. But those are usually very few (ok, reeeaaalllyy few). So it is on you to teach them. First of all, you should always stand in the door and greet the children with a big smile on your face.  Don’t do the mistake being busy with something in the classroom, preparing some last minute things  and waiting for everybody to come in and sit down. Help th...