New classes

Help, tips and advice in teaching English

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+Teapot+
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Posts: 2
Joined: 09 Jan 2014, 09:50
Status: Teacher

New classes

Unread post by +Teapot+ »

Hi,
I have been asked to teach a couple of lessons a week to French adults here in France, mainly conversational practice.
I did my first Beginners class a couple of days ago and had planned it for at least half a dozen students at low level. In the event only one student turned up and I would have put her at Intermediate level (Thursday's lessons) so I had to adapt what I'd planned and we had a nice one-one session, which she enjoyed, but obviously the lesson plan went prety much out of the window.
How do I plan when I have no idea how many students I will be teaching? I have done whole class teaching (about 15 years ago now) and one-to-one in my home in England but I am losing confidence in my self.
I didn't want to use a course book, but be led more by what the students say they want to learn.
Any advice gratefully received, thanks.
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Lucy
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Joined: 13 Jan 2004, 15:09
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Re: New classes

Unread post by Lucy »

Hi,

I can understand your frustation. It sounds as if you did a great job and the lesson went well. A positive way to look at this is that you can keep your lesson plan for the next lesson.

This could just be a glitch from the beginning of the year. People may be busy the first week of January and you may see that they turn up regularly as of the next lesson. I think you're anticipating a problem that isn't a problem yet. A good way to approach this is to include lots of pair work in your lessons; that way no matter how many students turn up, you can always do the activities. If only one person shows up, you can take one of the parts or if an odd number of students are present, find a role that someone can take in a group of 3. Don't plan intricate lessons that require swapping partners, etc.

As for the levels, wait and see the others in the class next week. If the other students are beginners, you should talk to someone about moving the intermediate student. If there is no way to move the student, you'll have to plan for mixed ability classes; there are many posts on that topic in these forums.

All the best, Lucy
+Teapot+
Member
Posts: 2
Joined: 09 Jan 2014, 09:50
Status: Teacher

Re: New classes

Unread post by +Teapot+ »

Thanks Lucy. For my first Intermediate class on Thursday I had ... 1 student. Guess what, he should really have been in the Beginners class, so that lesson went out of the window too! If only I'd brought all the materials from the first lesson...! He can't attend on the Tuesday so I'm going to ask the organisation whether I can swap the days over. I hope I get a few more students soon or I'll be out of a job!
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