Faculty Resources

Teaching Resources

Time-Saving Tips for Teachers

Factors that affect time management and pacing in the classroom:

• Quantity of material
• Level of difficulty of material
• Task type
• Class size
• Classroom personalities
• Students’ abilities (learning, language, art, etc.)
• Facilities (materials, space, lighting, tools)
• Rapport

Problems:

• Not enough time to cover all of the material
• Class gets off topic
Tasks take longer than anticipated
• Material too difficult/ needs repetition, which soaks up time
• Going through material too quickly
• Tasks become tedious
• A few students dominate the discussion
• No one speaks
• Students misunderstand the task

Strategies to improve time management:

Pre-lesson: Lesson planning

Stages of your lesson

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Think about specific stages or sections of each class—break down your chunk of time into smaller periods

Ensure that there’s a time, a group, or a mechanism to check for student understanding

During the lesson: Interactive decisions

Classroom management — you can self-select groups

Interactive decisions: ones made on the spot. These are decisions made when you decide to stray from the lesson plan that are “appropriate to the specific dynamics of the lesson they are teaching” (Richards & Lockhart, p. 83).

On-the-spot decisions (omissions, insertions, tangents, etc.)—examine the way those came to be and what effect they have.

Questions that can help shape interactive decisions include the following:

• Do the students understand this? Are my instructions clear and understood?
• Is this too difficult?
• Is this taking too much time?
• Do students need more information?
• Is this teaching something to students that they really need to know?
• Am I teaching too much rather than letting the learners work it out for themselves?

Post-lesson: Self-assessment and evaluation

Peer coach — observing each other’s classes

Teaching journal — even just a few sentences a week can help you see where you want to be next time, what’s working, and what’s not.

Compare your lesson plans to the actual outcome—are you finishing what you thought? More? Less?

If you’re running short on time in the classroom, analyze your lesson plan for the black holes. They could be appearing in any of these areas:

• Transitions
• Set-up—could pre-arranging the room or your materials help speed things along? (e.g. pre-writing or pasting something on the board and then covering it with a screen, arranging chairs into small groups, etc.)
• Writing information—is there something that could be printed on assignment sheets, put on an OHP (overhead projector)

Resources:

On the Internet:

http://www.proteacher.com

Richards, J., Ed. (1998). Teaching in action: Case studies from second language classrooms. Alexandria, VA: TESOL.

Richards, J. and Lockhart, C. (1994). Reflective teaching in second language classrooms. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.

Richards, J. and Nunan, D. (1990). Second language teacher education. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.

Wajnryb, R. (1992). Classroom Observation Tasks. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.