Teachers are hardly the only people who complain about not having enough time in modern life, but few other professionals need to find time to plan the equivalent of tens of presentations or meetings every week, often with no help. This article gives some specific tips on making and saving time for teachers, concentrating on those teaching English.
The main thing that eats up most English teachers’ time is lesson planning. In addition, the majority have to find time for things like:
- marking assignments
- communicating with students and/ or their parents outside class time
- admin (filling in registers, writing reports, writing and submitting lesson plans, checking their email, attending meetings, etc)
- travel
- the rest of their lives (family, exercise, eating, etc!)
There is another whole article on this site on planning more quickly. However, the most important related time management tips are perhaps more about doing so well, for example:
- plan when you are most alert (most commonly early in the morning, but for some late at night), and leave the other stuff for when you are less so (for example leave admin until after lunch)
- have a look at what you are going to teach, briefly jot down your initial ideas, then let your brain work sub-consciously on coming up with good ideas as you get on with your life (eat your breakfast, go for a jog, etc)
Much homework doesn’t need to be marked by teachers, as giving students the key is good training for self-study. If it does, it can be designed to be easier to mark (e.g. with just a small box for the writing). There are also specific tips for marking quickly such as doing it section by section instead of student by student (as it’s easier to keep the correct answers in your head that way).
If you get student emails, reply to as many as possible with “I’m sure many other students also have questions like that, so please ask me in the next class”, and schedule times for any other conversations instead of having them just after class. If you know they could go on for longer than is necessary, you could schedule them for five minutes before class so you have a good excuse to cut them short.
Schools obviously have the most impact on admin. Much admin can easily be made less time consuming or even eliminated. Specific recommendations include:
- providing suggested comments for student reports
- deciding on a few compulsory meetings and making all others optional (providing minutes, recordings, etc for those who want to catch up on what they missed)
- having a weekly digest email instead of lots of separate ones
- scheduling emails for convenient times for teachers to read them
- having a first contact for student enquiries such as a receptionist, who only passes on questions that teachers really need to answer
Schools can also help a lot with cutting down on lesson preparation time, by having someone in charge of:
- making sure books etc are back in logical, clearly marked places
- making sure the teachers’ room is stocked with paperclips, clear folders, etc
- finding and organising supplementary materials
- making sure classrooms are ready (pens working, chairs in position, projector turned on and connected, etc)
- reminding teachers to do all of those things after class
If a school isn’t helpful enough to do all those things, teachers could take turns doing them or take on one role each. If that’s not possible either, each teacher could do similar things for themselves by collecting comments for reports as they use them, and making their own checklist of things to do before and after each class.
Schools are again the most important people for cutting down on travel, but teachers can at least usually make sure they make the most of that time, be it by planning their lessons on the train, getting some exercise by cycling, or simply taking that chance to really relax (maybe while their subconscious is doing their lesson planning for them).