3686. How Flexible Are You as a Teacher, eh?

 So you have heard me that we teachers ought to plan our lessons, so they may really help our students learn a lot of things in class and at home with homework. 

Today I wanted to share some things with you online, things that might perhaps help you plan your lessons effectively and in a rather short time. 

If you teach a second or foreign language, you could start the lesson with a warm-up set of questions to those students, like for example asking them today’s date, having some discussion about the weather, and practicing some grammar patterns they’re learning or any stuff about lately lessons. That may be a nice occasion to communicate with your dear students in the target language, with authentic communication, and by using the vocab and grammar you’re dealing with. 

Then in class you may carry out activities where the four language skills are combined: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Or otherwise if you utilize a text- or a course-book, well those books bring a quite balanced set of activities about those four skills, or you may cover them along a series of two or three lessons. 

And at the end of the lesson don’t forget to assign some homework, not too much anyway, letting them carry out some other activities if they want more practice, or if they’re high-achiever students. 

Something I often do when we finish the lesson – I teach English to adults – is I thank them for their cooperation to the class, and that, believe me, makes up some nice rapport with them. 

Something else. I think the teacher in class must feel how his or her students feel. I mean, that teacher should be aware about how such and such activities are influencing in those students. If we want to have somewhat relaxed lessons, we have to pay some attention at how our students are feeling with such an activity. 

We want our students be educated with fortitude and working capability, but if we now feel that such an activity doesn’t work with our students, perhaps we have to shift that activity, or change something about what we had planned for that lesson. In no way will we stumble against a wall: if we see an activity is not working well, let’s change into something else or into the next activity from the lesson plan. A teacher must have a sensitive skin, so as to say. Let’s be flexible. 

I wanted to tell you something else, yet I’ve already told you a lot today, and the post shouldn’t be too long. Have a nice day.