Here’s the first of the lesson plans I promised.

Most people who think of doing the CELTA or similar TEFL/TESOL courses soon find out that a major part of the course involves teaching. And not just dummy students! It’s really daunting to think about standing in front of a classroom of students, all of whom stare at you expectantly, and there’s no way out for you but to deliver. If you think you can wriggle out of the situation without much preparation, you’re either fooling yourself or you’re an experienced teacher. These students will have questions – lots of them. And unless you’ve anticipated their questions and found all the right answers, you’re gonna end up looking like a fool.

So here’s my advice – day one. Just Be. Don’t worry. However much you prepare, the nervousness of that first afternoon facing the students can’t be overcome by anything else.

Since the CELTA is a Cambridge University course and is carefully structured, most schools expect CELTA trainees to present only a simple 20 minute lesson on the first day. You will be given the topic of the lesson the day before. Mostly, the 20 minute lesson is a game like a Crossword puzzle or something similar using the Target Language (TL) which you have to teach your students.

Though CELTA trainees are not expected to prepare lesson plans for the first of four weeks, I think it is very helpful to force yourself to prepare lesson plans, even if they are simply drafts, or bullet-pointed. The plan worked like a dream for me. In fact, I presented some of my best lessons during that first week!!

It also helps to work your first few sentences over in your mind. make sure your language is graded to the level of students you’re teaching. Especially on that first day, make sure you’re not using the big words you used in your submission papers in school. It takes a while before the learner of a new language (especialy one as complicated as English) can get used to any native speaker’s accent and style of speaking. This was really relevant in my case because I’m Indian, and though I don’t have a strong Indian accent, I was teaching students studying with American teachers.

THE LESSON PLAN

So that first day, I was teaching a group of Elementary students. Maureen, my trainer, had given me some hastily done photocopies of a few pages from the book Touchstone. I couldn’t make head or tail of the activity as the book described it. It took me a while, and Fernanda’s help (who, by the way, was an experienced teacher), before I figured out it was a crossword activity to teach simple verbs such as dance, fly, sell, talk, die etc.

According to the instructions in the book, I was to divide the students in pairs, give one student the crossword with half the words in it, and give the other student the same crossword with the rest of the words. Then, one student asks the other, “what’s 1 down?”.. The other sudent, who has the crossword with 1 Down filled in has to describe the word to his partner.

Here’s a simple lesson plan I made for that first class:

Vocabulary
1. cook, forget, rain, sleep, cry, kiss, run, swim, dream, lose, shut, teach, drink, play, sing, throw
2. count, drive, read, smoke, dance, fly, sell, talk, die, marry, shoot, walk, draw, phone, smell, write

Goals
1.To teach students some useful verbs
2.To add some vocabulary

Materials
Crossword puzzle

Board Work

I teach English.                                                                                   This means I make people learn things.

I live in San Jose.                                                                               This means to stay somewhere for a long time

I drive to the Bart Station in Fremont.                                     This  is done in a car.

Then, I travel to SF by Bart.                                                          This means to go from one place to another

I read on the train.                                                                            You do this with … books

Sometimes, I write poems in the train.                                     You do this with .. pen and paper

Development

1.Can you tell me which are the action words in the sentences on the board?

2.Divide the class in two groups. Hand out the crossword puzzles.

3.Now in groups, you have to solve the crossword. The other group has the word that you want. So, you can ask what is     6 across? One person from this group will describe the word to you.

For example, What’s 1 down?

You do this when it is night. You do this on the bed. You must close your eyes to do this

Answer: Sleep

4. In pairs, tell each other of what you do after the class.

cook – This means to make food. Do you do this in the bathroom? This is done in restaurants.

forget – This is the opposite of remember… happens when people become very old – don’t know their kids.

rain – This means there is water falling from the sky. Some people love dancing in this.

sleep – You do this every night.. and when you are tired.

cry – You do this when you are sad… tears fall from your eyes

kiss – You do this to someone you love.. In some countries, it is also a way to greeting friends.

run – You do this when there is a tiger running after you.

swim – You do this in a pool or a lake or the ocean. If you fall off a boat, you will have to do this.

dream – You do this when you are sleeping. You think about different things while sleeping.

lose – This is the opp of win. This can also mean to misplace something. Did anyone lose a wallet?

shut – You do this to the door so that people don’t come in.

teach – I do this.

drink – You do this with water or Coke. If you’re thirsty, you have to do this.

play – Children want to do this all the time. They don’t like to study, they want to go out to do this.

sing – Madonna does this.. and Elton John.

throw – You do this with a ball

In: ESL Lesson Plans | tags: CELTA, crossword puzzle, efl, english, ESL, ESL Lesson Plans, lesson plan, lessons, students, teaching, tesol courses. | #