A First-Lesson Lesson Plan

My go-to first lessons typically involve introductions. It's a useful skill for just about everybody and it gives the teacher the opportunity to get a feel for the class from the very first day. 

With my professional students, we'll usually start with formal introductions and introducing a partner, practicing structures like, "this is so-and-so. He's responsible for..." using key verbs for business people. With my BTS students though, I wanted to do something differently.

With all of my BTS students, 1st and 2nd years alike, I have them write their name and stick it on their desk to help me learn their names. Every week they automatically get them out, and every week I learn a few more names! (I have about a hundred students...) 

Another classroom management tip is that I'll choose the first volunteer, and once they have given their answer (or whatever I have asked for), I'll let them choose who goes next. This way, it's as if they are "rewarded" for participating, and it motivates more students to volunteer from the get-go because they want to be able to "choose their destiny" in a sense -- they'd rather go first then randomly be picked during the mix. 

Here are my ideas for successful first lessons! 

For my 2nd year students:

A fun start: Two truths and a lie! 

I had each student write a short introduction (hi, my name is, I'm X years old, I live in...) and then end their introduction with two truths and a lie. Then, the class had to react -- "I think X is a lie." When the class finds the lie, the student sits down. This is a nice way to get to know some facts about the class. 

Just because it's the first day doesn't mean we can't get straight to work, so then we did a listening exercise taken from the BBC: Entrepreneurs: BBC English Express. 

Because the text is only a minute long, we could listen to it a number of times before discussing, and then listen again when nobody in the class could answer my general questions. 

I had each student take notes about the four speakers (one narrator and three people being interviewed). Their goal was to be able to summarize what each person said: what do they want to do, and why? 

Then, once everybody had the answers and an overall understanding of the text, I asked them to brainstorm and to write their own response to this question:

An investor agrees to give you 100k€ to start a business. What is your plan? (Think about the who/what/when/where/why/how). 

After 15-20 minutes of writing, I let the students present following the tip given above -- I chose the first one, and then after that they choose whoever they want to go next. For this exercise, I had them stand up in front of the class. Most students only spoke for about 30 seconds, but that is a great start! 

For my 1st year students:

I had them start pretty much the same way: introductions and two truths and a lie. Then, I had them play the game "find somebody who", where they had to ask the right question using "be" or "do" as an auxiliary. When they finished the exercise, we went over it as a class, correcting their sentence structure and learning things about each other. I also took advantage of this opportunity to ask the students (as a group) other questions: When is your birthday? Do you have any brothers or sisters? Where were you born? What other languages can you speak? 

Find someone in the class who:

 Has a birthday in December   ________________________________

Was born in the same month as you ___________________________

Likes pizza   ______________________________________________

Has a pet ________________________________________________

Was born outside this country   ______________________________

Likes listening to rock music   ________________________________

Wants to travel to Australia   _________________________________

Has a sister   _____________________________________________

Has no brothers or sisters ___________________________________

Doesn’t like tomatos   ______________________________________

Plays basketball   _________________________________________

Favorite color is green   ____________________________________

Loves English   ___________________________________________

Speaks another language ___________________________________

The Difficult Class: My Plan (Part 1)

During my son's nap time today, I was struck with an idea: What if I did give the difficult class a second chance? And what if I did it on my terms? I started thinking about other advice I've given my "Padawan": assume they know nothing. When in doubt, teach it anyway. If I were to take my own advice, how would I start? 

First off, I'd start with the fact that they didn't give me anything to go off of last week. Nothing I saw was impressive, lacking effort and motivation. Therefore, if they want to pretend like they haven't been learning English for the last 13 years of their lives and hide behind the excuse "I don't like it" or "I can't", then fine. I'll remove any opportunity for excuses possible, and I'll do it by starting at square one: sentence structure. 

I decided that because they are chatty, I need to give them something to concentrate on. Although powerpoint presentations don't fit into the Direct Method, I figured it was a necessary evil and that there was a lot that could be done with one. I decided to open with an introduction about how to build a sentence, then moved into the verb "to be" in the present simple (affirmative/negative) and continued onward with regular verbs in the present simple. I decided it would be necessary to tell a little story and to give myself plenty of room to quiz the students, checking to see if they are listening or not. 

On one particular slide I set up something like 16 different animations, starting with "I" and the little man, moving on to "you", then "he/she/it" appear at the same time, then "we", and finally "they". This is the typical order that French people are used to learning things in except they tend to see "you" twice to understand that "you" serves as "tu" and as "vous". I figured that since they have been studying English for the last 13 years of their lives, they ought to know by now that "you" is the only 2nd person subject pronoun in the English language (unless somebody is up for bringing back "thou"? Any takers??)

On another one of my slides that I added really silly, exaggerated animation to get their attention. First a dog appears, and then the "it" sentences. Next, the woman appears, and the "she" sentences. Finally, the little man appears followed by the "he" sentences. I chose to highlight and underline the "s" at the end of each verb conjugated in the third person present simple because French speakers often drop this letter when speaking. If I emphasize it, I can maybe hope to correct a mistake that has been reinforced in their language since they were little kids. Aie aie aie!

Another slide lead up to  their "practical classroom work" -- a slide describing a man named "Bob" who lives a pretty simple life.
The animation on this slide starts with the title and the main character. Then, step by step, his schedule appears. His mother (a secondary character meant to keep their attention) appears with the text about "call mom" followed by Bob's reaction. Then his schedule carries on, task by task, before the slide is complete.

The slide that immediately follows this one asks the students to write sentences (affirmative/negative) about Bob's schedule and Bob's day using the present simple and reinforcing the third person.

So that's that. I spent all afternoon completing the powerpoint (roughly 16 slides with three exercises integrated + homework). And so now the question that all teachers should ask when lesson planning: So what? What is the point of this lesson? 

It's simple, really. This lesson is designed for the students to say "well,...duh!" Of course they already know this stuff. So why am I presenting it like this and going it over in such an obvious way?

A few reasons.

1) I'm hoping it will motivate them to make more effort -- to show me that they are better than that so that we can do things that are more interesting. (this is a long shot but stranger things have happened in my teaching experiences..)

2) I'm hoping to correct some of the silly little mistakes they make from the get-go without having to go back and do that later.

3) I'm hoping that this will show them that I mean business. I'm coming back and bringing an arsenal. I'm not going to accept students who chit chat or text all through class. I'm not going to simply "pass them on". They are going to have to work and we'll do it on my terms in a structured environment. If they choose to continue acting like babies, then I will teach them like babies. If they decide that we can do things that are more interesting and challenging, then I will give them that. I'll teach them just outside of the zone that they choose to show me. This is the zone that I have identified for the moment, so it's the perfect place to start building.

and finally 4) when you work on a powerpoint, you can simply stop on a slide to get the class back under control. You know how much time you have left if you need to draw an exercise out or skip over something a bit simpler (in the interest of time). You know exactly where to pick back up the next lesson if you don't make it through the entire presentation.

So there you have it. My plans for how to tackle the behavior problems and strategically address the language level issue at the same time.

Wish me luck -- we'll see how this goes!

(and in French, if you want to wish somebody luck, you say "merde", which literally meanst "shit"!)