Thinking from the Learners’ Perspective
Having planned a lesson, it is always worth spending a couple of minutes thinking it through from the learners’ perspective.
This involves thinking about what learners will be doing at each point in the lesson.
Doing this allows you to spot any of the following:
- Lesson segments where expectations are unclear
- Points at which learners have nothing to do
- Sections during which some learners are occupied but others are not
- Activities that may work for certain learners but not others
- Periods when the lesson pace is not where you want it to be
Having spotted such situations, you can deal with them by amending your lesson plan.
This makes you better prepared for managing behaviour.
It stands in contrast to the opposite approach, where we wait until we are teaching the lesson to see what learners do and how they respond.
While we cannot predict exactly how learners will engage with the lesson, we can make reasonably accurate predictions and use these to adjust and modify our planning.
An additional point is to think through your lesson from the perspective of different groups of learners.
This might involve imagining yourself into the position of less-able, middle ability, and more-able learners, or learners for whom English is an additional language, or learners who have behavioural needs.
In each case, you will gain an insight into the extent to which your lesson plan meets the needs of the learners in question and gives them a good chance of behaving positively.
Training Learners in Systems
When we start thinking from the learners’ perspective, we start to see the benefits of training learners.
This training helps learners familiarise themselves with aspects of our lessons like how to behave, how to interact, and how to complete certain task types.
Training learners in systems means identifying the procedures you think will prove useful in your lessons before training learners in how to complete these.
Examples include:
- How to start the lesson
- Giving out books and resources
- How to end the lesson
- How to give feedback
- How to do peer- and self-assessment
- How to answer questions
- What to do if you don’t know what to do
- How to be independent (for example, by trying to work out an answer yourself, referring to a book, and then asking a peer, before coming to the teacher for help)
In each case, training involves showing learners how you want the thing in question done and then giving them time to practice doing it.
Three points follow.
First, you will be able to call on the system again and again in future lessons.
This helps regulate learner behaviour and contributes to the culture you want.
Second, learners will be able to experience success through the correct application of the system, which is motivational.
They will also develop a sense of familiarity with it, which can be reassuring, particularly if learners are uncertain or emotionally off-balance for any reason.
Third, the system will save time in the long run, making your lessons more efficient.
Some teachers like to use the first few lessons of the year to train their learners in a raft of systems.
They challenge learners to learn the systems, and to then apply them as quickly and effectively as possible.
This approach is not for everyone, but it can be an excellent way to build rapport and communicate expectations.
Training Learners in Activities
Another option is train learners in some of the main activities you use in your lessons.
Select a small collection of activities you will return to on a regular basis.
For each of these, train learners in how to successfully complete them, and provide opportunities for them to practise doing so early in the term.
Doing this helps learners understand how to successfully complete activities.
As a result, when they meet the activities on subsequent occasions, they can give their full attention to the content of the tasks.
This is because they do not have to spend time decoding your instructions or working out what it is they are supposed to be doing.
The benefits are clear to see.
More learning takes place because learners know what is expected of them, less disruption arises due to uncertainty being minimised, and learners get ever more efficient at the activities in question, allowing you to increase the level of challenge.
You can train learners in all activity types – starters, main activities and plenaries.
A good idea is to begin with a small set, as previously stated, and then, as learners become familiar with these, to introduce one more at a time, allowing you to build up a wider selection of activities in which learners are trained.
Training Learners in Rules
Our final nod towards training concerns training learners in rules.
Here, we are thinking about how we can help learners to learn off-by-heart what is expected of them at different points in our lessons.
To begin, break your lesson down into a series of separate parts.
For example:
- The lesson start
- Main activities
- The lesson end
- Paired work
- Group work
- Individual work
- Discussion
For each of these sections, identify what rules you expect learners to follow.
Next, plan to give learners a chance to learn these rules in the first few weeks of the year.
This involves explaining to learners the different lesson sections you have delineated, as well as the rules you have assigned to each section.
For example, you might display the rules on the board prior to each lesson section and then remind learners of these while they are working.
Then, you might follow up with a brief review in which you and your learners discuss the extent to which the rules were followed.
Another option is to create a handout containing information on the rules relevant to each lesson section, print this off, and give it to learners, and to then refer to this regularly over the first few weeks of term.
Doing this will help train learners in the various rules you want them to follow.
In both examples, the aim is the same:
- Train learners to recognise different lesson sections.
- Train learners to remember what rules apply to each lesson section.
- Give learners opportunities to practice being successful.
