Time is Short and the Noise Level Rises

It's amazing how short forty-five minutes can be.

When that's the length of your lesson, time mangement is important. You need to watch the clock carefully and be prepared to curtail activities quickly so that you can move on. Throw out activities altogether if things are going slowly.

You also need to think about how long things are going to take for YOU.

Do you have a list of twenty questions that you need to write on the board?

Perhaps you are intending to get the class to sing a song and need to show the words.

Maybe you want to draw a map of the UK to show where the main cities are.

These things take time - a lot of time. No matter how fast you can write legibly on the board, it won't be fast enough. Writing twenty questions can take five minutes or more. Not only is that five minutes you can't spare, it's five minutes when the noise level rises, students have nothing to do, inattentiveness soars and discipline flies out of the window.

The solution to all of these problems is simple.

If you have something long to write or something complicated to draw do it before the lesson. Put it on a poster. It takes two seconds to pin up a poster that you have already prepared. Moreover it will be legible, can use as many colours as you like and the class find it more interesting.

I also  recommend reinforcing the edges with tape so that it is more durable. You might want to use it in twenty classes. 

It might seem like more effort to go to in preparation, but it's worth it when you get into the classroom.