Planning ahead

Like many newly qualified English teachers (I finished my CELTA course a little under a year ago), I was incredibly overwhelmed with the daunting prospect of planning and creating a 4 hour lesson plan. Having only ever planned and delivered an hour lesson on the CELTA course, I was frantic with nerves as to how I could conjure up material for the remaining 3 hours. Whilst reputable English schools often provide a textbook of some sort to act as a framework for lessons, English teachers will understand when I say that often the material in these textbooks are largely western-centred in subject matter that simply doesn't correlate with many non-Western English-learners. Furthermore, every class is different and while a textbook's approach to a certain language point can be immensly useful for one class, it does not mean it will work for every class. When an English teacher can not make a successful lesson plan from the material in front of them they must turn to something else- my saviour- the internet.

The internet is a great place for English teachers, there is an abundance of material out there and some excellent teachers that have suggested some wonderful ideas for lessons. I found that once I began teaching that I would put enormous pressure on myself to produce original, innovative and creative lesson plans to effectively engage my students. Here's the thing I;ve learnt- originality is almost impossible, 99% of the time someone's already thought of it and lessons will always be original if you simply adapt and tweek parts to make it relevant to your classroom. My biggest criticism of the internet is there is just far too much out there for a busy English teacher to find the relevant material quickly and efficiently. This is where this blog comes into play... through the miraculous medium that is the internet, I hope to provide a space for teachers to share and post their favourite activities and websites for particular language or grammar points and eventually present all this in an organised and easy- to- use site.

I am certainly not unique in my attempt to create a resource-based site for English teachers, however, I hope to be more successful in creating a site that is easy for busy teachers to navigate around and find relevant material. The site will only work effectively if teachers share their lesson ideas- teaching is essentially a learned process and the site will only produce original lesson plans with the help of your contributions. No matter how small your contribution is- it could be an effective warmer that has consistently worked well in the classroom, or even a great song that illustrates a particular grammar point, please share them with us. The point of this site is to share all types of lessons that could work in an English classroom.

I have found that some of my best lessons have come from sharing ideas in the staffroom. However, I have noticed an unwillingness amongst teachers to share their material- perhaps because they have spent hours creating it or perhaps because they are worried that it's simply not original enough. This is rubbish- we can all learn from each other and adapt and develop material to make it great for our audience. If we were all to create our own material and share it, it would cut our planning time down considerably and provide a variety of different tasks for our students- an important component for any classroom. So now you've read what this site aims to do.... help. Simply post your ideas in an concise step by step format or attach a link to a site you think is noteworthy and together we can make planning easy and breezy!