Retro Digital Learning Unit

Dmitrenko Natalia

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Authors: Mary Gorman and Lucy Norris British Council advisers: Kirsteen Donaghy and Zoë Tysoe

Managing the lesson

A PLAN

Managing your lessons effectively is the key to the success of the lessons and courses you plan. - how you use the classroom space, - about giving clear instructions to set up activities - how you check that learners have understood. - how you manage learner behaviour and how you respond to what’s happening in the classroom by making small changes to your lesson plans, too. According to the authors from British Council, there are 6 features of successful classroom management

2. Setting up classroom activities that include a variety of interaction patterns

6. Controlling the pace and timing of activities

5. Making appropriate decisions about which languages are used by the teacher and learners

4. Establishing and maintaining classroom discipline

3. Checking understanding

1. Explaining learning aims and content appropriately

1. Explaining learning aims and content appropriately

Learners want to know ‘Why am I doing this activity?’ Helping your learners understand the aims of a lesson allows them to join in tasks, reflect, make connections to previous learning and get a sense of progress as they achieve each lesson aim. Reflecting on how well your lesson aims have been achieved also helps you plan for future lessons.

Here are some examples of lesson aims. By the end of the lesson you’ll be able to: • use language to talk about distances • read a text and complete a table about the solar system • use adjectives, comparatives and superlatives to compare planets • produce descriptions of the solar system. By the end of the lesson you’ll be able to: • match, name and sequence parts of the body and the face • organise information according to categories • work in groups to plan how to build a human skeleton. By the end of the lesson you’ll be able to: • use adverbs of frequency to talk about household jobs • rank household jobs from favourite to least favourite and give reasons for your opinions • design a questionnaire to find out how often people do jobs around the house.

Module Presentation

Interaction patterns are the different ways that learners work with each other and the teacher. You need to think about the best way for your learners to do learning activities. Will they read or write alone? Or speak in pairs, or small groups? Will they sit, or stand, or move? When you have different ways of working in a lesson, you can increase learners’ understanding, provide opportunities for sharing knowledge and improve group dynamics. Your learners won’t be bored.

2. Setting up classroom activities that include a variety of interaction patterns

Look at these classrooms. What are the differences between what’s happening in each? What problems could the teacher have setting up each activity? Think about how the learners might behave during the activity. What problems might this cause for the teacher? Where do you think more learning is happening?

Activity

Match the types of interaction patterns with their descriptions:

3. Checking understanding

Making sure your learners understand what to do, or what a new word or language point means, is essential for their language learning, and for the success of your lesson. Knowing which learners have understood and which are finding it difficult helps you to change your lesson and know when to provide more practice or move on to a new learning point. Making sure your learners have understood is essential to their progress, motivation and enjoyment.

Learning Sessions

Look at three teachers who are checking that their students understand some new language.

ACTIVITY

There are six different ways you can check that learners understand new language

Read and underline the discipline challenges. Which are the biggest problems? Why? • Why do some learners behave like this for their teachers? Make a list of possible ideas. • What advice can you give the teachers? • Which of these classroom challenges do you sometimes have? Who do you ask for advice?

4. Establishing and maintaining classroom discipline

How you manage your learners’ behaviour, establish classroom discipline and use classroom management skills to maintain it will often depend on the age of the learners, your learning space and your class size. When your learners know what you want them to do, what you expect from them and why, they will usually behave more positively. Without effective classroom discipline techniques you may not be able to create the conditions for learning to take place.

Can you advise these teachers?

Activity

5. Making appropriate decisions about which languages are used by the teacher and learners

How much English is used in your classes will depend on many things, including the level of your learners, the topic and the learning aims. It’s good to think about when English is needed, and when the learners’ first language is more appropriate. You will need to be clear with your learners about which language(s) you want them to use at different times in your lessons. Which language will work best for your learners to understand language points and for what you want them to do?

Can you advise these teachers?

As language teachers, it’s important to build on your learners’ exposure to English and to give them as much practice and feedback as possible. You also want your learners to understand, to experiment with language and not to feel frustrated. When it’s appropriate to use English varies according to different situations. This means you have to monitor what’s happening in the classroom, identify whether the reason for the use of another language is appropriate and then decide if you can take steps to introduce more English. For example, you can teach more useful classroom phrases, have learners create bilingual vocabulary displays and give rewards for English-only activities.

Learning Sessions/01

Activity

6. Controlling the pace and timing of activities

Controlling the pace and timing of activities helps you to make sure you spend lesson time on the most useful class activities to support learning. You need to have a good idea of how long activities take to be able to control the pace and timing. A change of pace and interaction adds variety, and will keep your learners motivated.

Activity

Read these teachers’ problems with the timings and pace of their lessons.

Self-assessment of the module

https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/sites/teacheng/files/J105_04_Managing_the_lesson.pdf

Thank You!