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In my country there are so many people who are quite sure that the teacher’s job is one of the easiest and most desirable on the planet, and as a bonus it gives you a lot of free time. “Oh, come on”, they say, “you just stand and talk for few hours, then you go home, like, at 1-2 o’clock, and we have to work from 8 till 5”. We are not going to discuss the whole absurdity of this remark about “standing and talking”, but moreover, they are completely wrong thinking that our work finishes when the school bell rings, and we leave the building and go home. Actually, we do much more at home (or at other places if they are convenient enough), because every lesson needs a thorough planning. We need to plan our lessons in order to avoid awkward situations when you don’t know what to do next and try to invent something right on the spot. It may go quite well with little kids who are extremely spontaneous themselves, and whatever game or activity comes into your mind, you can get strong feedback from your pupils. But the older your students are the clearer it is for them whether the teacher is ready or not. They get disappointed and gradually lose faith and loyalty, this leads to misbehaviour, lack of enthusiasm and what not. Of course, we need to know exactly the main aim of each lesson, and the chain of several lessons on a certain topic. We must realize what the pupils are supposed to achieve at the end of the lesson, that’s why it’s useful to start planning with the end. After that a teacher begins to arrange appropriate activities and different types of work (i.e. individual, pair and group) – at what stage of the lesson they take place, how much time they approximately take etc. Lucky are those teachers (especially inexperienced ones) who are required to use a coursebook, because the major part of the planning has already been done for them. However, even in these cases they need to write at least brief plans for each lesson, so far as every class is unique and demands individual approach. Moreover, a thoroughly elaborated plan takes into consideration not only grammar or lexical points of the language, activities and types of work, but also the working conditions, arrangement of desks, even day and time of the lesson – in a word, all details are important and may have a considerable impact on potential success or failure. Planning plays two more vital functions which are directly connected with time management. On the one hand, if a teacher works at school year after year with the same age of children (I mean, in the same classes, for instance, with 4-th year students or 6-th year students), he (she) may use his (her) own plans. On the other hand, it sometimes happens that we for some reason physically can’t give a lesson. In this case a substitute teacher may easily take our plans and use them and not waste precious time asking children what they did at the last lesson, what their final activity was, what homework they had. So, planning is crucial in order to become a successful teacher, and though it requires a great amount of time, we mustn’t be lazy and simply rely on our experience and skills and hope that everything will be all right without preparation.
