My practicum teacher promised me it gets easier. She remembers her practicum and how many bloody hours went into preparing each lesson plan. In fact, she had her mom come and live with her during that week so she wouldn’t have to cook or run out for food or anything other than churn out the lesson plans and activities.
But of course it gets easier, or teachers would burn out in the first six months. She said that.
I know she’s right.
But for now, I still spend HOURS and HOURS in the planning stage. Every time I think I’m headed in the right direction, I think of an “uh oh!” I can’t do that, they haven’t even learned xyz yet. How can I use xyz to teach abc if they don’t know xyz yet?
Or like tonight as I was headed in a new direction with Family Tree as my theme…. I was envisioning myself having drawn the family on the chalkboard and talked about MY MOTHER and MY FATHER and all of that. Then I turned to one of the students and asked, “Fatima, do YOU have a mother?” That’s the elicitation, where you get the students to try out the new structure you have just modeled.
I was suddenly struck by the awful feeling that Fatima’s entire family was killed back in Somalia. Suddenly my question was not just insensitive, but horribly cruel.
Hey, don’t think it can’t happen. In every LINC class there will very possibly be refugees with dead, missing or tortured family members. In Toronto they have special classes just for victims of torture, with specially trained teachers.
This is just one example of the myriad “what ifs” that plague me and send me twirling first in one direction then in another during the planning stage. Sometimes I end up staring at the wall, banging my head, jumping up and down in hopes I can shake myself out of it, going for a walk or just berating myself and sighing.
But there’s good news. I am learning ways to get unblocked.
I’m a detail person. I usually rely on someone else to provide the framework before I can fill in the details. I realized that one reason I wasn’t able to produce these three linked lesson plans for my final project was that I could not envision the 8-week curriculum into which my lessons fit. I kept coming up with a zillion questions for an experienced ESL teacher, like “Would you teach this before that, that before this, or both on the same day?”
Finally, through trial and error and stumbling around in the dark, I hit on something that worked. I used the Canadian Language Benchmarks list of grammar items that are typically introduced in Level One (they don’t tell you in what order, their list is in alphabetical order). I put each item on an index card and then put the index cards in order by how it made sense to me to sequence them over eight weeks. Day one: “Hi, my name is _____. I am from _____. Nice to meet you.” Using common sense and memories of language classes I’ve been through, I put all the cards in order. Of course there’s not one right answer to what order to put them all in, but what I came up with is good enough.
Back at the computer, I put together an 8-week syllabus in a table with three columns: THEME/VOCABULARY, FUNCTION, Grammar Item. I worked backward from the grammar items to arrive at a logical context or theme in which to introduce the grammar item.
Whew! There. Now that I have a complete 8-week syllabus fleshed out, it is much easier for me to tackle the assignment of coming up with the three lesson plans all linked by a common theme that introduce a grammar item! Because now my detail-oriented brain has had the bigger framework supplied and can envision how the plans fit into the whole.
I think that’s where the block was coming from. I am a visual learner. I had to SEE the syllabus on paper/screen before I could create the lesson plans to fit within it. Does that make any sense?
So, yay! I think I got to the reason behind my block. From now on, I will try giving myself the framework laid out visually. Then, hopefully, my brain will unfreeze.
Added bonus: I can append the syllabus to my final project. Extra points?
Just like writing an assignment. First you have to write out the paragraph plan, then you can flesh it out. I have enjoyed watching you go through this process to make use of your natural talents. It has inspired me to find a calling of my own. I think I may have even thought of one.
wonderful how you listened to what you needed and then went about setting it up. I do think it is just a style of approach, some people like an outline first and some dont. What works for you is the important thing.
Kelly, I have been learning so much from you these weeks! Thanks!
Example: at Tati´s party the girl that was organizing the kids said “We are goingto the carts now” And all the kids jumped up and down, excitedly, laughing and talking at the top of their lungs. She couldn´t get them back to their seats.
I told my hubbie, the “explain first, give hand outs later” thing. She should have had them seated, explained how they were supposed to form a line, form the queue and then say where they were going.
I asked her to tell me first what they were supposed to be doing so I´d organize the kids for her and everything went fine from that point on. :)
Your students are going to be so lucky to have YOU as their teacher. And yes there is a lot to learn,,,andyes it must get easier over time,but burn out happens, frustation happens, but I think you will handle it all well. Just don’t get too caught up with your perfectionism or you will never rest. Your cousin Fred has aged a lot over the past eight years of teaching.