Teaching English lesson ideas, help and guidance

Have you taught before or had any experience of teaching? If you have then you will probably find that teaching English is not a huge challenge to you. If you have no experience of teaching or teaching English, try starting of at a low level, perhaps a small group of younger children. Look for ideas to use as props; puppets, cereal packets, photographs, books, clothing, toys, crayons and paper for getting familiar with colours. Using props during your lessons and games and activities are all good ways to keep your class interested.

Plan your lessons meticulously and with care. To start with, expect to spend around three to four hours of planning for every hour you teach. Obviously if your classes are repeated throughout the day, then those three or four hours of prepping will account for more of your teaching hours.

If you are teaching students with small variations in level, you will probably be able to make some minor adjustments to your planning and not have to spend hours on each and every lesson. However, don’t be tempted to skimp on planning. Students are watching you and will soon realise and see through your lack of content; this applies to students of all ages too. They will get restless and irritable and when you feel you are faltering you will begin to lack confidence in yourself.

Spend time looking at what other people are doing, I love watching people teach as you can learn so much from them. Good teachers make the lesson seem effortless and the time goes very quickly. Poor teachers are embarrassing to watch and you want to keep looking at your watch, or fall asleep!

Use lots of visual focus and if you can, try moving students around at least a couple of times in a lesson. Look at games, even for older students. Get them to laugh at themselves by doing exercises such as acting out little scenes, it improves their breathing and will keep them alert to learning even on a hot afternoon.

Don’t be afraid to do things not normally seen in the classroom. Students are there to learn and they will love coming to your lessons if they are different from other classes and they are learning. Some of the best teachers we have employed have used drama and humour. Even a large group of students who are only in classes because their parents sent them can be made to join in and laugh because of a well planned lesson. Its wonderful to see 16 year old kids coming out of a lesson smiling and telling you the lesson was great.

 

 

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