I know, I know…most of us are still on holiday…but I am sure there are a few of us out there that are (already) experiencing anxiety about some of the tasks we have to complete when we get back to the factory floor. Especially, if a new textbook was selected just before the semester ended…
Do NOT worry…I am here to help you get over that anxiety and give you the PERFECT curriculum planning tool – shiriously!
…and it won’t cost you any more than the price you paid for this blog post!
As with any planning system, we need to decide on the key concepts that will guide us – and I have found, as we are in ELT, that 3 work wonderfully:
PLAN – of course!
IMPLEMENT – because we have to take stuff into the classroom!
TEST – well, just because…we love doing this! OK…we want to check what has been learned!
The first of these steps is sooooooo easy…and involves 3 more mini-steps – take a gander:
And, here’s you getting all worked up during your holiday! Most of you have already done mini-step 01 (hey, some of you might even be using Headway…even though the authors died 10 years back)! The key, however, is mini-step 03 – once you have the pacing guideline (the weekly ‘checklist’ of stuff to teach), you are more than halfway home. Indeed, if you work in a Curriculum Unit you can start planning your holiday for July 2018!
Now, the teacher steps up to the plate – ready to breathe life into the wonderful documents you have created.
What do they need to do?
Again…easy-peasy, lemon-squeezy:
3 more mini-steps even a burger-flipper at McDonalds can execute! Again, the trick here is to make sure you stay on track…covering every activity (except those pesky ‘pronunciation boxes’ and maybe that last ‘speaking task’ – after all, who needs them…and besides…you’ve run out of time)!
Ahhh, now we come to the home stretch…because we all know that ‘assessment’ is really the ‘curriculum’ for every single student. I mean…come on…have you ever heard a student say, ‘Hocam, that was a wonderful lesson – I loved the way you blended those two Learning Outcomes with the notion of critical thinking and creativity through that truly authentic and communicative information gap task’!
Voilà – this is how:
3 final mini-steps even the most mathematically-challenged ELT teacher could follow (with a calculator and a pre-prepared spreadsheet)! OK, OK…that last one can be tough on the old heart-strings… ‘but I did warn you to study more and not play with that bloody phone of yours so much’!
AND, that…ladies and gentlemen…is how you do it!
Tried and tested all over the globe – a model that has found its way into…
…and I gave it you HERE…for:
Life doesn’t get better than that…for a teacher (and that means most of us) on a salary less than 50% of what she is worth!
Well, as a great Jedi…sorry…Reiki Master told me,
‘You get what you pay for’!
