Good lessons are lessons that have a brisk pace. Not only will your lessons be more engaging, but you'll obviously be able to accomplish more with the extra time. Lag in the classroom is a dreadful thing. Why settle for it?
Here are some tips to improve your overall pace and flow in the classroom.
1. Cut out your Extra Language: You don't need it and it's not beneficial most of the time. You don't need to explain everything you are doing to your class. You don't even need to speak in complete sentences. Work on limiting your own TTT so that your commands/directions are clear and concise.
2. Avoid the Echo: New teachers tend to want to repeat everything their students say back to them. Why do this? Unless you are error correcting, it serves little to no purpose and just slows things down. Instead, just say "good" or "next" or even just nod and move on. It's a common thing that practically everyone does to reaffirm what their student has said. Work on cutting this down and you shave off minutes in your lesson.
3. Have your Board/Materials set up in Advance: Unless you are teaching beginners, have your board and materials ready to go. There should honestly never be any time where you are writing on the board, and your students are just watching you. A quick tip is to set up your next activity right at the end of your previous one. If you have a lot of questions or board work to do, make a flip chart of it in advance.
4. Use the Class: You don't have to be the one who sets everything up or passes everything out. Delegate! Get your students involved in the process and have them do some of the work. This will cut down your time, especially with large classes, dramatically. While your students are busy doing these tasks, it will allow you to do what is necessary to set up the next activity.
5. Always have Clear Breaks to your Activities: Clap your hands or give a quick shout when an activity is complete and move on to the next activity quickly. Don't whisper to your students to stop. Get their attention fast and efficiently and move forward.
6. Work on Response Time: Often we forget that our main role as teachers is to act like trainers. Push your students to respond faster to your questions/commands. They might have problems in the beginning, but over time their output will increase in both volume and speed. Reward fast response with positive feedback and you see an improvement over time.
7. Put Some Life into your Speech Pattern: Tone and inflection are powerful things in the classroom. Don't speak with a monotone voice. You're not at a funeral, so stop acting that way. Instead, make your questions sound like questions, your positive feedback sound like positive feedback and your commands sound like commands.
8. Avoid Being Over Polite: Once again, think of yourself as being a trainer. You don't have to ask your students 'Would you all mind now standing up so we could do a mingle activity, please?' Look at how much language is wasted there. Instead, just say "stand up!" Don't be rude of course, but you want to be somewhat firm with your commands. You get much better and faster results this way.
9. Be Light on your Feet: This doesn't mean running around the classroom, but it does mean having some urgency. When you are moving around monitoring, try to not move like turtle walking uphill on glass. Jump between groups and move around the classroom with a sense of purpose.
10. Set Time limits: Always a good thing and usually overlooked. Don't worry if everyone isn't finished yet. Try cater to the majority of the class. If everyone has to wait on one or two students to complete the activity, it's going to slow everything down. Time limits are an effective and easy way to get your students working harder and faster. Use them!
11. Have Minute Activities: Always have a few quick activities that you can pull out of your hat when needed. This can be a short warmer activity or practically anything to give you the extra minute you need for setup. For instance, if you have just finished a group activity and you know you need a minute or two to prepare the next activity, have the groups compare their answers or have them do a quick follow up activity to give you the extra time. The key is never having the class staring at you while you are setting things up.
12. Use Gestures and Non Verbal Cues: Implement them whenever you can. A quick snap of your fingers to signal it's time for the next student to begin is much faster than saying 'Well that was great Honza. Petra, please tell the class what you wrote down for question number 5." Palm, snap, Jesus palm, flap or clap your way to a faster pace. Just never point- at least not when I'm watching.
Hope those help!
Cheers,
Chris
TEFL Prague courses -The Language House TEFL
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