Beginning and Ending the Lesson

Summary

Teacher courses often include a unit on ‘lesson-planning’, which relates mostly to the selection of the lesson components, and how these will be ordered. But it's important also to think about how you’ll ‘frame’ the lesson with effective beginnings and endings.

• 1 Start with a smile

• 2 Begin and end clearly

• 3 Give an advance overview

• 4 Teach new material first: review later

• 5 Don't give homework at the end

• 6 End with something nice

1 Start with a smile

It is important to make eye-contact with your students and smile as you greet them at the beginning of the lesson.

In my early years of teaching I was a bit scared of my students, and was tense and serious at the beginning of lessons. In retrospect, it took me far too long to learn to relax and smile – but it made a huge difference when I did. Don't be put off if some of the students don't respond; most of them will. And remember: a serious or neutral expression on your face does not convey a neutral message – it conveys a negative one (‘I’m here because I have to be, not because I have the slightest pleasure in teaching you!’), which can be easily be changed by a smile.

Non-verbal communication, including facial expression, body language and gesture, plays a key role in maintaining your relationship with the students in a class. It does not, as a popular myth would have it, convey 50% or more of the actual messages coming across in a conversation, but it's still important. Try searching online for the phrase “nonverbal communication” and you’ll find a lot of very useful guidance. Most of the websites relate to personal relationships in the context of employment in general, but can be readily applied to classroom interaction.

Note, however, that the smile can also be over-used. The recommendation to smile at the beginning of the lesson does not mean that you have to smile all the way through it. How much you do so of course depends largely on your own personality: some of us are more smiley than others! But remember that, like constant, indiscriminate praise, smiles that are over-used lose their impact.