A few thoughts on the ‘instant lessons’ that I’ve tried to provide with the Teacher’s Guide notes in ESL Extras…

Learning to teach …

How did you learn how to teach English (and move from theory to practice)? Back when I started, we still had ‘team teaching’ and I learnt so much from watching experienced teachers in action. (There must have been more $$ around then, to afford two teachers in a classroom – but it was a long time ago!)

… through Teacher Guides?

We also used books with detailed Teacher Guides – I have fond memories of Contact English and Streamline Departures (pictured here) in particular. I wasn’t looking to save time (I did plenty of my own prep) – I wanted ideas on how to exploit the resources and help learners practise.

So when I started writing my ESL Extras reading books, I was keen to include follow-up activities for students and lesson notes for teachers. I was thinking of new teachers, volunteers, relief teachers – even experienced teachers who are more than capable of creating fabulous lesson plans, but spend what was once prep time on that dreaded ‘paperwork’.

Mine are suggestions only…

The teacher’s guide suggestions are what I imagine any teacher might think of, and they’re certainly not prescriptive. How do I describe those suggestions, though? Of course, teacher guides (often online) still exist in the ELT/ELICOS textbook universe, but less so in the ‘Adult Migrant’ world. I recently used the term ‘instant lessons’, but does that sound too mechanical? How about those other phrases we hear, like ‘time-savers’ or ‘help for busy teachers’?

Your thoughts?

What do you think? If you’ve used the any of the ESL Extras books, do you use the teacher notes in full, as a lesson plan, or do you just pull out what you need, adapting the suggestions to your own teaching style? What phrase would you use to describe them? I’d love to know…