by Nick Dawson
Using time
In the lower secondary school the teacher is in control of the use of time. You may feel that your students only want to waste time, but this is not true. They want time to socialise and enjoy themselves. If you teach them to work quickly, they will have more time for the activities they enjoy. Most students can work much faster than they do.
Do your students start their work quickly?
A lot of time is wasted because students do not start their work when the teachers says 'Start, now.' You can improve this in the following way:
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make sure students are fully prepared for their work. They are often slow to start because they do not know what they have to do! |
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give the students 'thinking time' to prepare for an activity before you tell them to start. |
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at the end of each lesson tell the students what they are going to do in the next lesson, and what they will need to bring! |
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give the students 'time limits' for each activity so they are eager to start at once. |
Do you manage to do several activities during a lesson?
A lesson of 45-50 minutes should contain 5-8 activities. If you can't do this, you are probably spending too much time on each activity and the students are getting bored. You can increase the number of activities in a lesson by:
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sharing your plans with your students so they know what you plan to complete in the lesson. |
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if an activity is long start it in one lesson and complete it in the next lesson. This is better than spending a long time on one activity in a single lesson. |
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give yourself a time limit for each activity and try to stick to that limit. |
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give students 'preparation homework' for longer activities like reading passages so that they come to class with their questions prepared. You can save a lot of class time this way. |
How can you train your students how to work faster?
The philosophy of most schools tells students to work slowly and carefully. It is better to teach them to THINK, WORK, CHECK.
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THINK before you start work. Prepare yourself for the task. Understand what you have to do and how to do it. Look carefully at the worked example(s) to check you understand the task. |
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WORK as quickly as possible. Do not hesitate. |
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Always leave yourself time to CHECK. Checking time is more valuable than working time. Check the task again. Then check each response. Don't forget to check spelling as well! |
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give students 'preparation homework' for longer activities like reading passages so that they come to class with their questions prepared. You can save a lot of class time this way. |
How can you train your students to read faster?
Many schools train their students to read slowly. Train your students to read quickly and efficiently.
Know why you are reading. Read the questions before you start reading the text.
Think. Form hypotheses about what you expect the text to contain. Read as quickly as your eyes can scan the words. Don't worry about unknown words on the first reading.
Repeated fast reading is much more effective than slow careful reading. Read quickly, read often!
Do you find you are making very slow progress through your textbook?
It is always a mistake to teach faster than your students can learn. However, you should always remember that learning is a process not an event. Learning takes time. You do not have to continue teaching until all the students can produce a new structure perfectly. Remember that they will study this same structure again in future lessons.
You can improve your pace of progress through your textbook by:
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making a progress schedule showing which units you need to complete each month. Share the schedule with your students so they also know the work plan. |
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know your textbook. Are you 'introducing', 'developing' or 'perfecting' the students' use of a structure? Don't try to do too much. Learning takes time! |
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if the students are not learning, it is often a good idea to leave the topic and move on to something else. When you go back to the original topic you will often find the students have learnt it on their own! |
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evaluate your students' progress with fairly simple, enjoyable tests. Always be ready to revise your work schedule if the test results show it is necessary. |
Do you find that some students fall behind the level of the class?
All classes are 'mixed ability' classes. 'Slower' students need extra help to keep up with the pace of progress of the rest of the class. If they do not get this extra support, they will fall behind and never catch up.
To prevent slower students from falling behind:
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give them extra guidance with exercise tasks. For example, give them four worked examples, instead of just one. |
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give them a 'mentor' – another student in the class who will help them with their work. Don't forget to give your mentor students lots of extra praise and thanks for the work they are doing. |
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monitor the work of the slower students regularly and carefully so that you can give extra help when it is needed. |
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if slower students need more time to complete an exercise, either give them more time or reduce the size of the exercise. |
Do you find you don't have time to make plans?
Planning should not mean you spend more time working. If you make good plans you should work more efficiently and save time. If you don't plan, you should expect to fail.
But remember you are not just planning your own work but also the work of your students. Share you plans with the students, mark them on the classroom calendar and in the students' diaries. As your students become more mature, make them partners in the planning process. Students are more likely to co-operate with plans they have made, than with plans imposed by the teachers.
Plan your lessons as student activities, not as teacher activities. Show the students the 'agenda' for the next lesson at the end of each lesson. Plan the duration of each activity and try to stick to your plans.
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