{"id":4431,"date":"2012-10-11T15:28:33","date_gmt":"2012-10-11T15:28:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eltchat.org\/wordpress\/?p=4431"},"modified":"2012-10-11T15:28:33","modified_gmt":"2012-10-11T15:28:33","slug":"an-eltchat-summary-what-do-we-do-when-a-lesson-goes-horribly-wrong-how-do-you-cope-and-recover","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eltchat.org\/index.php\/2012\/10\/11\/an-eltchat-summary-what-do-we-do-when-a-lesson-goes-horribly-wrong-how-do-you-cope-and-recover\/","title":{"rendered":"An #ELTchat Summary \u2013 What Do We Do When A Lesson Goes Horribly Wrong? How Do You Cope And Recover?"},"content":{"rendered":"

This summary was contributed by Vicky Loras on her blog<\/a>\u00a0and is reproduced here with her kind permission.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Today\u2019s lunchtime\u00a0ELTChat<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0was about yet another very interesting topic. It has happened to all of us \u2013\u00a0a lesson goes wrong<\/em>, the opposite of what we expected. How do we handle it?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We started off with what kind of\u00a0bad<\/em>\u00a0lessons there are:<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

– Losing the students; when they do not co-operate or understand
\n– A tech glitch that throws the planned lesson completely off track
\n– The lesson not meeting our expectations, leaving the students and ourselves confused
\n– When something exciting has happened before the lesson and the students find it difficult to concentrate
\n– In general, our lesson plan going completely awry<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

How do we know?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

– The students have a confused \/ glazed over look
\n– The student in one case informed the teacher, quite rudely, that she did not want to do the task designated
\n– In another case, a student ran out of the class crying<\/p>\n

And here came some really great replies:
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What do we do in these cases?<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

– We reached a general consensus that it is better to switch activities and after the lesson, sit down and reflect on what went wrong. It is not advisable to do away with the said lesson plan, but it is even better to adjust\/change it, in order to use it more effectively in the future.
\n– It was mentioned that it is a great idea to have fillers up our sleeves to manage in such situations, when something does not work.
\n– It is generally better to sometimes admit in class that something did not work \/ was not suitable and perhaps even discuss with the students what went wrong \/ what could be done better next time.
\n– Having the confidence to stop is a great thing; acknowledge an idea is not working and just move on. Keeping yourself calm is also important, as it can be a difficult moment.
\n– Leave space to customise for each student \/ group of stiudents. It is essential to be flexible with our lesson plans.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Lessons that do not work can leave inexperienced teachers lacking in confidence. What would we advise them?<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

– That it is okay when a lesson fails \u2013 it can prove to be a learning experience. What happened? What was the lesson plan like? Which group were you teaching on the given day?
\n– There was a very nice quote: \u201cMaking mistakes shows you are trying!\u201d
\n– A bad day can happen to anyone.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Useful links that came up during the talk:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

–\u00a0Jane and Dave Willis\u2019 ELT Website<\/strong><\/a>.
\n–\u00a0Cybraryman\u2019s Lesson Plans page<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Today\u2019s super moderators were:<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

– Shaun Wilden (@ShaunWilden)
\n– James Taylor (@theteacherjames)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Today\u2019s contributors were:<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

– Sue Lyon-Jones (@esolcourses)
\n– Naomi Epstein (@naomishema)
\n– Mike Griffin (@michaelegriffin)
\n– Evidence-Based EFL (@EBEFL)
\n– TtMadrid TEFL Course (@TtMadridTEFL)
\n– Amelie Silvert (@TeacherSilvert)
\n– Gisele Santos (@feedtheteacher)
\n– Julie Moore (@lexicojules)
\n– Leo Selivan (@leoselivan)and also introducing wonderful teachers in Azerbaijan to Twitter! @Samiratey, @FatimaFatima28, @Sevinc8996, @taira_akhundova, @OfeliyaG
\n– Stephanie McIntosh (@purple_steph)
\n– Tamas Lorincz (@tamaslorincz)
\n– M. Lincoln (@arrudamatos)
\n– Oksan Yagar (@OksanYagar)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This summary was contributed by Vicky Loras on her blog\u00a0and is reproduced here with her kind permission.   Today\u2019s lunchtime\u00a0ELTChat\u00a0was about yet another very interesting topic. It has happened to all of us \u2013\u00a0a lesson goes wrong, the opposite of what we expected. How do we handle it?     We started off with what…
Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-summary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eltchat.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eltchat.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eltchat.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eltchat.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eltchat.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/eltchat.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4431\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eltchat.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eltchat.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eltchat.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}