Way back when I used to work in an
office environment as a computer analyst we often got sent on courses
for things like time-management, personal development and such.
Inevitably, especially in the time-management courses, the trainer
would write SMART in capitals on the board and proceed to explain how
all our targets needed to be Specific, Measurable, Achievable,
Realistic and Time-Limited. (Occasionally some of the letters would
stand for something else, depending on who was doing the training.)
That was usually the tipping point for me, where I found myself
doodling elaborate geometric patterns over my notebook instead of
listening to yet another variation on flogging a dead horse. People
do seem to like to apply simplistic notions to complicated
situations.
All the same, you should think about
some of the underlying concepts even if you don't need to bother
yourself with trite acronyms to do it. It applies especially when you
are planning a lesson. There are key questions you need to ask for
each activity you plan.
The first, most obvious, and most
easily overlooked is this.
Can it be done?
I once observed a lesson where the
teacher was doing a reasonably standard activity. He had split the
class (a small group of about twenty) into groups and written on the
board “Animal, Food, Country, Colour, Job” and given each group a
different letter. They had to find a word for each heading starting
with that letter. One group had the letter “F”. I stood at the
back with another observer trying to come up with colours starting
with “F”. We managed “fawn”, “fuschia” and “firetruck
red” but this was a beginners class who could hardly be expected to
know the first two and the last one was just being silly.
The teacher hadn't really though
through the question of whether the task could be done at all by that
level of student.
The second question is one that
everybody thinks about but that most inexperienced teachers get
wrong.
How long will it take?
Estimating how long a task will take is
not as easy as you might expect. It only comes with experience and it
depends on various factors such as the level of the class, the size
of the class, the physical layout of the classroom, the interests of
the students, whether it's a familiar or unfamiliar type of task...
among many others. One way to make an estimate is to give the task
to someone else (say another teacher) and see how long it takes them,
then add on extra time because your students won't be as proficient,
add on more time for how long it will take to set up, add on more
time for how long it will take to feedback and check. Occasionally (as discussed in an earlier post) teachers overestimate the time needed but most of the time they
underestimate. If you haven't taught before you will certainly
underestimate. A task you think should take five minutes might end up
taking the whole 45 minute lesson if you aren't careful.
A large part of the problem is that
teachers underestimate the answer to the next question.
How will I set it up and how long will
it take?
Instructions MUST be given in language
at a level lower than the task itself. You can't begin the task until
the students understand what the task is. Digressing for a moment, I
was once teaching in England and the students were doing an external
exam. These were low level students. They had been in college for a
year but were still beginners. There was a question on the paper that
showed a map of part of a city and said “If you were standing on
the bridge what would you be able to see?” A second conditional
sentence was something that hadn't been covered yet in their lessons
so the students struggled to work out what was required. *
Don't underestimate how long it will
take to set up an activity. If possible demonstrate it rather than
explaining it. If explanation is needed, plan in advance exactly what
you will say and exactly what you will write on the board. Use the
simplest language possible... then simplify it some more. Practice.
You might feel silly speaking the instructions aloud in your empty
apartment but it will pay off when you get to the classroom. Give
your instructions to a colleague and see if they understand them.
Two other important questions go
together.
What can go wrong?/What's my fallback
position?
All sorts of things can go wrong even in
the most meticulously planned lesson. Equipment failure; students
don't understand the task; task is to complicated or too simple; students just not into it. You need to plan each activity keeping the
potential problems in mind and think about what you will do about
them if they occur. And you need to be prepared to improvise when
something totally unexpected happens. I keep a few simple tasks in
mind to substitute whenever something like this happens but
occasionally something will happen that you just don't know how to
deal with. In one lesson last year I found myself completely unable
to teach because the noise from the nearby building site was so loud
that I couldn't hear the students and they couldn't hear me or each
other. In another just last week the day was hot so all the windows
were open but the wind got up and all the windows started banging
back and forward and the students wanted them open but I had to
insist on closing them both for safety and to be able to continue the
lesson. There is always something you didn't think of.
Finally there is the most important
question of all and the one you should ask yourself as often as
possible.
Why?
Whenever you put something on your
lesson plan ask yourself why you are doing it. If the answer is “to
use up ten minutes of the lesson” then take it off and think of
something else. Everything in your lesson should be done for a
reason. It might be checking existing knowledge, developing
vocabulary, demonstrating a particular language point, practising
social interactions or any one of a thousand things but it must HAVE
a purpose. Activity for its own sake should be avoided.
Those are some of the questions you
should ask yourself when planning your lesson. You don't need to
worry about SMART targets but you do need to think about what you are
doing and why you are doing it. In the beginning you will get it
wrong but the more you think about what you are doing, the easier it
will become to actually do it.
In the next post I will look at the
features that make an activity good (and by implication the ones that
make it bad.)
* Not to mention the conceptual
difficulty of the question. Would “people” be an acceptable
answer. What about “the sky” or “my shoes”? The question
wanted the names of other things identified on the map but that was
in no way clear.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.