Top 50 Tips For Teachers To Improve Performance In The Classroom

As a teacher, you need to reflect on your teaching practices frequently and take responsibility to improve your performance. Many aspects related to teaching e.g. lesson planning, classroom management techniques, and language practice, … need to be improved from one time to another so that you can boost your classroom performance and get the students to achieve the desired learning objectives. Here are the top 50 tips to follow in different aspects.

Lesson Planning

1. Plan your work carefully and work your plan effectively. Never go into class without an elaborate lesson plan.
2. Set your lesson objectives first and be clear about them.
3. Your Objectives must be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timed).
4. Prepare your teaching materials in advance and use them effectively.
5. Expect behavioural problems and try to find solutions for them.
6. Anticipate barriers to goal achievements and try to find solutions for them.
7. Divide your time among the main stages of the lesson.
8. Use various teaching strategies appropriate to the students’ level.
9. Link the lesson with previous work.
10. Vary your activities.
11. Give the students a purpose or reason (objectives) for why they are going to do any activity.

Classroom Management

1. Your lesson mustn’t be teacher dominated.
2. Be fair and distribute turns equally among your students and don’t show any favouritism or bias.
3. Be friendly with your students and create a proper atmosphere and social climate. To do this, you have to enjoy teaching and like your students and learn their names as soon as possible.
4. Don’t hold your class in fear and tension. Make your class relaxed and enjoyable.
5. Your class must be tidy and ruled. Never tolerate disorder or lack of discipline in your class.
6. Breathe life and vitality in your class and never remain seated while teaching.
7. Motivate your students and encourage them to make progress. A word of praise is a very good incentive. Don’t be harsh in your blame or criticism.
8. Try to organize activities so that the students can initiate and control much of the interactions.
9. Avoid using a monotonous voice or flat face.
10. Don’t be too fast to finish the lesson whether pupils understand or not.
11. Avoid focusing on a certain pupil.
12. Don’t spend all the class time standing in front of the class speaking (lecturing).
13. Try to address every student by name.
14. Smile friendly to the students and never abuse or degrade them.

Classroom Organization

1. Grouping arrangements are very useful.
2. Create a teacher-student interaction.
3. Motivate your students encouraging them all the time to participate in the lesson.
4. Teacher talking time should be maximized at the beginning and minimized at the end of a lesson.
5. Whenever useful, have your students to work in pairs or in groups. In pairs, students can carry out interviews, write out complete dialogue or do role-play. In groups, students can do problem-solving activities.
6. Give the chance to your students to talk to each other in English and express themselves freely without being afraid of making mistakes.
7. Don’t leave your students during pair work or group work, you should help them. You are a partner in every group work or pair work.

Using Teaching Aids

1. Make full use of the aids available.
2. Try to make your handwriting clear and neat on the board.
3. Use the modern methods in teaching, e.g. the computer, the CD ROM and OHP. 

Language Practice in the Classroom

1. Create situations in class to initiate conversations and make use of those situations.
2. Use different techniques in answering questions.
3. Practice the four skills in every lesson.
4. Introduce variety in your class. This makes your teaching more enjoyable. A puzzle, a riddle, role-playing, competition, picture…etc. will make your teaching much more interesting.
5. Don’t be the only one who asks questions in class. Reverse roles with your students and ask them to ask questions themselves.
6. The best questions to use for language practice are open-ended ones.
7. Allow many acceptable answers during a discussion.
8. Bear in mind that “Wait Time” is very important for students’ responses.

Correcting Students’ Mistakes

1. Be tolerant of your student’s mistakes when they are talking. Wait until students stop and then correct them.
2. Don’t get angry when a student makes a mistake.
3. Don’t overcorrect students’ mistakes. Try also to use various techniques (e.g. peer correction – self-correction, etc.…).
4. Try to praise or give a present to the students who give good answers. (a mark or two may be sufficient).

Self-Evaluation

1. Identify which parts of the lesson were more successful and which ones were less successful.
2. Evaluate your lesson in detail and register an authentic picture of the standard of your students.
3. Evaluate students’ active contribution to the lesson.

You may have more tips you want to introduce to the teachers to improve their performance in the classroom. Why don’t you let us know them? Leave a comment and share your ideas.

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