S . ESL Teaching

This week I sat down with one of my trainees and we discussed how a lesson for small children should look like. She will take over a class of 3yo. Our lessons are 90 minutes long and this is what we came up with. This plan is one that she will keep for the rest of the year, just changing up the   songs, games and activities for each lesson. Cuts down planning time quite a bit. 1. Routine: Circle time: - singing hello song - asking "how are you", always adding more feelings throughout the year - weather chart - once they are a bit older, the today's day - TPR - show the children a box with a puppet inside (the puppet is scared when there is too much noise, so they have to be quiet in order for it to come out of the box. And of course, it only speaks English!) - have a conversation with the puppet and with the kids (good time to repeat old vocab and questions and get the kids talking) - repetition of old topics through old song, vocab game etc - repetition of l...

Time: about 45-60 mins  (notice that the time can be very different according to class size and abilities of the students) Routine: (5mins) Make a circle, have a small soft ball. Pass the ball and ask the child on your right side “What’s your name?" or any other question you want to teach them. The child answers and then passes the ball to the next child and asks the same question and so on. After one round spice it up and take the time the children need to finish one circle (I usually take my cell phone as a stopwatch) and encourage them to be quicker. I usually tell them that another group did one circle in 10 seconds (not true, but they don’t know that, so you change the time according to which results the children had in the first round and take away 1,2,3 seconds), and ask them if they can do better. Intro (5 mins) Have a set of flashcards (or simple construction paper in every color). Hold up the first card and elicit the color....

(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...