Interview to a Professor

We're getting ready to be teachers and the guidance and advice of someone who has already developed in the field can be of great help to anyone.

Debbie, Luis and Johnny have us an interview to a professor about lesson planning. Check it out after the break





Interview to a professional



Lesson Planning is fundamental in the teaching process. It is not too difficult to design it but it requires time and concentration. It is something that the teachers have to get familiar with because it is what they are supposed to do for their daily classes.
That is why we decided to interview a professional; someone who has used this aid for a long time and can tell us her experiences.
We interviewed an experienced teacher that is still in actual practice. She has been teaching English for 29 years. She has taught English from basic to advanced levels. She has taught English not only in general but in a more specific way like in biology, medicine, nursing, economics among others. She has also taught English for the preparation of some exams like the TOEFEL.
The interview took place in the Facultad de Educación (UADY), it consisted in 11 questions and all of them were successfully answered.



Findings from the interview

The questions on lesson preparation were the following:

1. How long before a specific lesson do you prepare it? She usually prepares it more or less a week ahead and it takes her 4 or 6 hours for each subject. She tries first to gather all the activities that she is going to use. She also has to look for the information and extra materials if she thinks that the ones in the workbook are not enough. Sometimes, she even designs some worksheets.

2. Do you write down lesson notes or do you rely on a lesson plan format? She used to use a lesson plan format when she started teaching. Later, she started to make notes in her own notebook. She has a notebook for each course she teaches. She takes notes on that notebook like; if there are things she has to change and what goes right or wrong. She also takes notes of the amount of teams working in the class depending on the amount of students. She writes if the students were benefited or not with the activity. Practically, she takes notes of everything that happens in the class.

3. What kind of information do you include in your notes or plan? She takes notes of tasks, homework, different activities, extra materials, how classes are organized, among others. She also writes down if she needs a board, color pens, bond papers, a computer, a power point presentation, just to mention some of them. Everything related to the class.

4. How often do you refer to your notes during the lesson? She checks her notes before and during the lesson, 2 or 3 times just to remind her on what stage the students are during the class because once you have started, you can lose the track of what you are doing and you might skip an activity and you need to check on your notes. It is important not to take a lot of time because she might leave the students unattended.

5. Have you ever forgotten to take your notes to the class? Yes, she has. She had to try to remember what she planned and to relax and do her best. She also had to see how much she could remember because she could not stop the class. She managed to do most of the activities she had planned. She usually checks that everything she needs is her briefcase because when you are doing a lot of things you might forget something so it is important that you check that you have everything you need. She also mentioned that when you are being supervised you should be sure not to forget anything and she said that the students realize when the teacher forgets something so you should avoid this.

6. What do you do with your notes after the lesson? She checks what she has done and if she completed everything she planned. Sometimes when she misses any activity because other activities took more time than expected, she has to look for the time to do it in another class. She has to start taking notes for the following lesson so she does not lose track.

7. How do you keep them? She keeps her notes in drawers full of notebooks from her different courses.

8. Have you ever prepared a lesson plan and at the end done something different? If so, why this happened? Yes, she has. She planned to do something with the tape recorder but when she arrived to the classroom she found out that there were no lights in the school because of a heavy storm. She planned to do some listening with the recorder and she ended up reading the tape script herself. It was time consuming because she had to read it like 3 times and rearrange the class and put them close to the window so they could use the light to read. It was very hot as well. There was also a short dialogue and she had to ask one of the higher level students to read it so it was easy to everyone to understand it. The student’s contribution was very helpful for the teacher and for the class. Finally, she mentioned that it is always very important to have a plan b just in case something happens.

9. What happens if you have you lesson plan done and that day you have an emergency and there is no class? She tries to talk or send the materials to the students with the instructions on what they are supposed to be doing in the class. She also tries not to cancel the class. In these occasions, she tries to be very flexible about timing because they are going to be talking and distracted so the activities will take longer. She has to restructure the plan and take notes about the things that the students were able to do on their own.

10. How difficult is it to design a lesson plan? She said that it is not difficult but you have to be very careful because you have to take into consideration a lot of things like the time and the materials. You really have to concentrate so you do not forget anything important and also you have to anticipate problems or questions that you might have.

11. What do you recommend or consider necessary or important in order to ease the design of the lesson plan? She said that it is important to decide what you are going to teach. You also have to look at reference books (grammar and vocabulary books) and check words on the dictionary to be more prepared with the activity and also to suggest to the students ways on how to work with the vocabulary and structures. She also suggests trying to vary the tasks and not to do the same every class, even if the books have a very systematic way of organizing.

Conclusion

We found this interview quite interesting. The teacher told us the kind of problems you might face in the real life and some very helpful pieces of advice that we will surely apply in our life as teachers. She answered all our questions with a positive attitude and very professionally.
We also learnt that designing a lesson plan is not very difficult but you have to concentrate and bear in mind that you might not always find everything in the workbook. You also have to take into consideration that the school might not provide you of everything that you need or some problems might appear so you always should have a plan B because you have to teach the lesson no matter what happens.