Terrified New Teacher

[Naruto]

Hi guys

Ive passed my TEFL. Im in China I start teaching tomorrow. My problem is writing lesson plans. They took me about a week solid when I took the course. Now I am told for my classes I can do what I want. Which does not sound right to me. So I have been given Pacican text books to follow. Unfortunately I feel I will struggle to explain some of these things to the kids in English. I hear that a lot of them wont even be up to the level im teaching.

Ive been sat for 2 days trying to knock one plan together. Ive had to resign myself to doing an intro lesson with next to no teaching. Just mild needs analysis and introductions.

I need to talk about family relationships and problems to my grade 6 and travel to my grade 7. I think ill be ok with travel even though ive not looked at it yet. Don't know how to get across vocab of arguments within families etc. Also even the pacican text didn't look very good.

Can anyone throw me a bone?!

Many thanks.

[John V55]

Yes, start with a personal introduction; take your time you’ve got months to go. A ‘hangman’ game to guess which country you’re from. A map of the world to point out where you’re from and where China is (use your laptop). A short YouTube vid to show what your capital city is like. What’s your favourite food … Finish off with a short Mr. Bean video from YouTube. There’s your first introductory lesson to give you time for a week

Personally, I’m not keen on books myself, so I devised my own lesson plans in a syllabus I made. In an emergency see if you can get some topic ideas from these.
No download, scroll down to view.
https://www.academia.edu/11730502/ABL_TEFL_SYLLABUS

Here are my old notes for the first one.

Objectives:
Introduction. Introducing myself through conversation, pictures, photo’s and talking about the differences between Chinese and English cultures. Outlining the course structure and topics.
Aims:
To introduce myself and find the level of English comprehension in each class.
Details:
Introduce a new style of teaching. Introduce self and course structure. Talk about the differences in Chinese and western culture.
Activities:
Vocabulary: China, England, Thailand, differences, behavior, culture.
‘Hangman’ word guessing game. A short ‘Mr Bean’ video.

[John V55]

I always have sympathy for someone just starting out and as they’ve grabbed someone with no experience, I presume you’re at a private ‘school.’ As such, one of your main tasks is to keep your ‘customers’ happy, so it’s fun and smiley time and a matter of keeping bums on seats. If you fail to keep them happy you’ll be out. Off the top of my head, here’s some of my Do’s and Dont’s.

• Appear confident, even if you’re not and smile. Children especially can sense tenseness and awkwardness.
• Don’t single out individuals for questions. Getting an answer wrong means losing face and they’ll never forgive you for that.
• Divide your class up into groups, A,B,C,D. Ask group questions and if you’re going to have a competition for instance, make them group ones.
• Don’t be too judgemental. If the answer is wrong never criticize but praise them for trying. ‘Well done, you’re nearly there, the answer is …’
• Lot’s of games. Hangman, I spy with my little eye, word puzzles, (EBATL – starts with T _ _ _ _.
• They'll find grammar the hardest. You can make a two month set of lesson plans just out of nouns, verbs, adjectives, singular/plural and simple tenses.

[Vagabond]

No worries. The stage fright will pass by the end of the class. Just do your best and be yourself. You will be fine. Good luck!