So you are considering becoming a teacher?
You are in the best era to become one and the worst.
See, being a Teacher is a very exhausting and yet a rewarding job. You will have work after working hours and during the weekends. If you work in a school that respects your career, you will have the preparation hours included in your schedule; otherwise you will need to clone yourself and forget that you have a life. Wait, am I discouraging you? No really! Keep on reading and embrace the rewards too.
As a teacher these are the fundamental activities you will have:
Curriculum preparation
Usually, you will have one to two months to prepare a year curriculum for the classes you will teach. This means that you will go in details week per week , and session per session. By now you should know the hours you will teach to each group, assuming they have different levels (language teachers need specific information too, at minimum three different groups for level purposes taking in consideration the same ages as well).
During those months of preparation you will have to go through all the different textbooks and make your own research to find appropriate extra material such as films, pictures, magazines, books, you name it. The different material is an approach to the different types of learning, since you will have different type of students in one classroom; for example, you need to be sure that you will reach all the students and not just the literate ones.
Ideally speaking you will be fully respected and you will have the freedom to choose your own material respecting the school program.
Class preparation
When preparing a class, now that you have a detailed curriculum; you can start adding more specific details to each session.
I personally like to combine the Oxford/Cambridge (UK) and International Baccalaureate approach when preparing a class. Take in consideration that you may need 1h30 of preparation for 45 minutes of class (considering that you will have the time) for an excellent quality lesson; although once you take the rhythm, it will get easier.
Organize preparation (Write it down in one full sheet of paper; keep it digital so you can reuse it):
- Date/Level/Students/Minutes
- Materials and References (all the things you will use in the lessons, such as Book and its page and other material)
- Lesson Aims (What will the students have learnt by the end of the lesson?)
- Problems and solutions (What do you think will be a problem for students and how can you solve it?)
- What are you improving today (here you will analyze yourself and try practicing or improving your new teaching skills)
- Background knowledge (Here you will anticipate if the students may already know about this lesson)
LIDIA AVILES 