Probably the most stressful and exciting times for a new public school teacher are those first EFL lessons in the first week of class. Where are your classes? What will the rooms and students be like? What are you going to teach them? The pressure to start the year off right is both real and justified. You want to start building the best class culture and relationships with your students that you can. Good investments here will pay dividends in the months to come. On that point, here are four key things to remember for your first EFL lessons in large primary school classes.
Impressive Presence
The first thing you’ll want to achieve is a great first impression. In the first weeks of lessons your students will be excited, curious, and nervous. They’ll want to know who you are and what kind of teacher you are. This is a critical point because first impressions are surprisingly sticky – it can be really hard to shake a bad one.
Prepare 3x
You’re going to want to look confident and ready. Students want to be successful, and they want to see if they can be successful with you. If you’re a new teacher that means you need to spend lots of time preparing your first EFL lessons so you know them well.
Try to have conversations with other committed teachers to see what they do as well.
Create a checklist of all the materials you’ll need and use it so you don’t forget anything when you’re packing.
You’ll also want to get as much information as possible about your school so you don’t get any nasty last-minute surprises. You might want to visit your school(s) a day or two before classes start so you know where it is. You don’t want to be that teacher who shows up late for the first day.
Talk to other teachers who’ve worked there before. Ask them about parking, the staff, the resources, the break rooms and bathrooms.
Show up early! Try to arrive 10 or 15 minutes before your first EFL lessons. To do this, remember to leave extra time to compensate for morning school traffic.
Once you’re there you can explore the school and find your classrooms. In most cases you’ll be moving from room to room with only 5 minutes between. This can get stressful because the room numbering system doesn’t always (or even usually) make clear sense to outsiders. Knowing the layout will save you from sweating between lessons.
Greetings with a Smile
Your next goal will be in play once you start meeting staff and students at the school. Invest in building a positive and professional relationship with everyone.
TAs
If you have a teaching assistant from your company (typically a young university student or recent grad) you can start getting to know them before class. At other schools you might be paired with the students’ local English teacher. Both of these people can be great resources, so you should be make an effort to get to know them.
Some local teachers might even invite you for a coffee or breakfast. This is a great chance to learn more about them, the school, the students, and local culture.
Remember, though, that many of them are busy with a lot of responsibilities and demands on their time. They might also see several other EFL teachers during the week as well – and might have seen many generations of other EFL teachers (good and bad) over even just a few years. So, make an effort but don’t set your expectations too high. You’ll more likely be seen as a temporary guest worker than as a team member.
Classes
Once you enter your classroom the game is on. You might get a few moments to set up before the students arrive or they could be already in the classroom sitting (or running around). Either way, get your materials ready and then begin.
Some teachers try to project a strict, no-nonsense presence for about the first month to scare their students straight. However, I’ve noticed that some of those teachers get stuck in discipline mode. They fail to have fun early on and end up building bad relationships with their disappointed students. This only leads to more problems.
I’ve found that, for myself at least, first showing a firm attitude and quickly following up with smiles and fun works best.
I recommend telling everyone to stand up in a firm, loud & authoritative voice. Once they’re up and facing you it’s time to smile, quickly introduce yourself, and then tell them to sit down quietly. I clearly set my expectations and then immediately move to show students that they can really enjoy class with me if they follow along and participate well.
A big part of building relationships with your students is letting them get to know you in a fun way. Every class will be curious about you, so use this as an opportunity to introduce yourself and learn a bit about them.
One of my favorite methods is the Intro Mind Map. This lets me include information that’s level-appropriate and see who will raise their hands and ask questions.
Build for the Future
Your next goal is to start building your classroom culture. This includes establishing your rules, routines and any systems you want to have in place. It’s critical that you do this from your first EFL lessons. Try to do this in a fun way to interest your students instead of boring them.
Opening Routines & Rules
Begin with your basic opening routine. This is how you’ll start every other lesson for the rest of the year.
Include things like writing your name on the board and eliciting the day, date, month, year and weather from the students before putting those on the board as well.
You’ll next want to set the rules for your classes. I find that most public school classes are happy to just get a set of rules from the teacher, but you can try to elicit rules from higher-level classes if you’d like.
At this point there’s an opportunity for a little fun and action. I like to play Drill Sergeant with my rules and related actions such as look, listen, be quiet, stand up, sit down, and raise your hands, etc. This gets my students moving, introduces them to a common game, reinforces the rules & gets my students used to following my instructions. I often play this game at the start of lessons for the first few weeks or even months.
Behavior Management Systems
After teaching the rules you can also introduce your Behavior Management System (BMS) such as the Shark and Swimmer. I like to show off the potential rewards, small stickers or stamps, as well.
New students don’t always understand the CMS immediately, but they figure it out pretty well during the course of the first lesson or two.
Attention Routines and more
You can also then introduce your other routines. I always train my students to respond to an Attention Routine like Happy Claps or the Potato Count.
Other routines that work well are signals & systems for clearing desks, getting in lines and passing out or collecting materials.
Teaching students to ask for a water and bathroom break can work well also. Some teachers like to use cards for passes. They bring only one to class so students know that they can’t rush out of class with their friends.
Be Flexible
One thing to keep in mind is that you’re a temporary presence in a school that already has an established culture.
In some schools the students will already be seated nicely when you enter. In others the students will be enjoying break-time by running wildly around the hallways before your lessons.
Finally, at even other schools the students might file in quietly at the start of the lesson or slowly trickle in haphazardly.
The key is for you to figure out what’s normal and then do your best to adapt and create your space and class-time. Don’t frustrate yourself with trying to change the school to fit your needs.
Short, Easy & Fun
The rest of your first EFL lessons can cover whatever is required in the syllabus. Try to keep things light and easy to let students get used to you. You don’t want to overwhelm them on their first day – which is easier than you think.
Teacher Talk
Over the years I got feedback early on about many teachers that the students couldn’t understand them. Sometimes this was a case of too much or ungraded Teacher Talk Time, but often it came down to accent or rusty skills.
Remember that it might be the first time your students have heard your specific accent. It is a challenge for EFL learners to switch from an international accent to British or American (or vice versa).
Also, if your students didn’t have English classes over the summer this might be their first time listening to classroom English in weeks or months.
Keep things short, simple, and well-supported with gestures and pictures.
Activities & Games
Some of my favorite first-lesson activities include Drill Sergeant, Flashcard Safari, Lip Reading, and Magic Eyes. These are quick and easy to set-up and understand. They also don’t have winners and losers so everyone can feel good at the start of the year.
Learning Names
Finally, in your first EFL lessons or weeks see if you can start learning some of your students’ names.
An easy way is to use folded papers to make small name displays. Students can write their names on them and even decorate them a bit. You can either have them keep these in a folder or have your TA collect them for use in future lessons. This isn’t always possible, but it can help you use their names even if you can’t memorize them all.
The key is for you to figure out what’s normal and then do your best to adapt and create your space and class-time. Don’t frustrate yourself with trying to change the school to fit your needs.
Good luck in your first lessons! Don’t forget to share your ideas and experiences down below in the comments section.
