Lesson Plans & Interviews

Date: 15 May 2012 14:45:05

Argh! I know that Lesson Plans are a way of life to teachers - particularly if there is an inspection due! - but, while I do write lesson plans, a lot of mine are less detailed than I think they should be. Equally, I've been teaching English for 6 years now, and I know most of the methods that we use really well, so I don't feel it's necessary to write my aims and objectives for every lesson, or to think about how long I need to give to a particular concept. I have tried and tested ways of explaining things that often work well: if they don't work well with an individual, I'll try something else. That's fine. But, as I said earlier, I'm applying for Summer School jobs in the UK, and I'm lucky enough to have been offered interviews (by Skype. Eeep!) with three different companies. One of them has asked me to prepare a Lesson Plan for an hour long lesson on Modal Auxiliary verbs of obligation (that's must/mustn't and have to/don't have to for those of you who, like me before I did the TEFL course, have no idea about grammar!) I've just spent most of today preparing this detailed plan...which would be fine if I knew it was going to be used, but actually, I know the company have their own methods so I wouldn't use this anyway! I now have a slightly frazzled brain! I don't think it's worked so hard in ages!!!

I've got one interview on Thursday, one next Tuesday and one next Wednesday. As I didn't really have an interview for my job with ILS, just a cosy chat in my terrible French, it's so long since I had a "proper" interview that I've forgotten how to prepare for one. I'm reading up on how to avoid pitfalls when interviewing by Skype (Note to self: make sure there are no cats in the study at the appointed time. I can just imagine Pomme leaping onto my shoiulder, or George clawing my ankles!) and I have to keep positive and smile at the webcam AT ALL TIMES. Mr D will have to give me a practice run on Thursday afternoon! I'm not starting to panic...really I'm not!