Delta Module Two: meeting the teaching criteria | Section 8

plan
exploit
deliver
monitor, check and respond

The criteria explained

The nuts and bolts of teaching

The criteria under section 8 refer to the nuts and bolts of the lesson – classroom procedures and techniques.
To meet these criteria, you need to demonstrate that you can plan, support, exploit, deliver and check.

Successful candidates demonstrate that they can effectively:

use procedures, techniques and activities to support and consolidate learning and to achieve language and/or skill aims
exploit materials and resources to support learning and achieve aims
deliver a coherent and suitably varied lesson
monitor and check students’ learning and respond as appropriate.

plan

What assessors sometimes say:
The candidate's controlled-practice tasks did not sufficiently focus on the target skill.
The final freer practice stage did not require the learners to use the target items.
The second gap-fill exercise was not properly exploited in the feedback stage so some learners were still unsure whether they had it right.
The task for the practice stage did not require the learners to use the target subskill.

In your plan, you set out and named the stages of the lesson and the aims of each stage.
Look again at the procedures and their aims and ask yourself:

Are the aims of all stages part of my overall aims for the lesson?
Will the procedure / materials / tasks etc. actually help the learners move on from where they are to where they are going to be?
What can go wrong with the procedure and how will I repair it?

There are two guides on this site which are helpful in this area because you have to decide whether an activity or task is for awareness raising, for teaching (skill getting) or for practice (skill using). The guides are to activity types and to task types (new tabs).
During the lesson, therefore, ask yourself (silently) this question:

Have I given and got adequate feedback yet?
If so, move on (whatever it says in the plan).
If not, keep going (whatever it says in the plan).
Have the learners' contributions been adequately valued?

exploit

What assessors sometimes say:
The candidate had underestimated the amount of time required for the feedback / clarification stage. Feedback was hurried and inadequate.
The controlled practice phase was cut too short so the learners were insufficiently prepared for the final two stages of the lesson.

Exploiting your plan is more than following it.

At the planning stage:

Judge if you have allowed enough time properly to exploit what you have in mind.
If you are using technology, make sure you are well rehearsed and have a Plan B for when it doesn't work.
You need to be an efficient manager of the space and the equipment so make sure you practise and avoid faffing around in the lesson itself.

In the lesson:

Make sure you have learnt your plan. Do not force yourself continually to refer to written copy during the lesson. It distracts you, the learners and the assessor. There is a visualisation exercise to do at the end of these four guides which will help with that.
While an activity is in progress, monitor it in two ways:
- check that the learners are on task and doing what you want
- check how the task is going and whether some learners need more help so that you know when it's reached its target and you can move on.
Keep the planned outcome of each stage in mind and don't get tempted to do something extra just because it's fun.
Don't cut something short if the outcomes are required by the next stage.
Don't extend things uselessly, even if the students are enjoying it or it has taken less time than you planned.

deliver

What assessors sometimes say:
The lesson lacked a sense of direction with stages insufficiently identified and their targets made clear.
Pace was overly quick, allowing little time for the learners to reflect and make notes of key ideas.
The lesson was coherent but the lack of variation in activity types made it monotonous and did not allow the learners to take away a record of what they had learned.

This is mostly a planning issue. Look at the stages of the lesson and make sure:

There are clear transitions between stages so the lesson has a sense of purposeful development.
That you have planned how to signal these transitions to the learners.
That there is a variety of interaction in the lesson: student to student, students to students, teacher to students, teacher to whole class, teacher to group, group to group etc.
That you have planned for variation in pace.
That you have planned for variation in activity types.
Try to avoid: explain → handout → task → feedback → next explanation → next task etc. for the whole of the lesson. It gets dull and predictable.
That you have catered for the learning preferences of individual learners with times to read, to write, to speak, to think etc.
That the learners will have a record to take away with them.

In the lesson:

Get everyone's attention before you segue between stages of the lesson so everyone knows you are moving on. Note what has been achieved and say what the next stage is and is for.
Be clear and assertive in signalling the end of a stage and the beginning of the next. Don't let things just slide along.

monitor, check and respond

What assessors sometimes say:
At key stages in the lesson the candidate was too concerned with setting up the next activity and failed to monitor and support his learners.
The candidate did not check that the targets of the lesson were actually being used.
The candidate moved around the class during the group-work stages but failed to intervene when she should have done and sometimes interrupted learners unnecessarily.

At the planning stage, you need to make sure that there are times both during and at the end of the lesson to check what has been learned.
Make sure in the lesson:

You allow time to let these checking stages happen.
You monitor carefully so you know what's been learned and what hasn't.
You give the learners the opportunity to think about and identify what they have learned.
- Can the learners say what they have learned about form?
- Can the learners say what subskills they are deploying and why?
That you maintain focus but allow yourself to depart from the plan if something important has clearly not been learnt as it needs to be.

The teaching criteria sections and preparing to teach:

Section 6	Section 7	Section 8	Section 9	Preparing to teach
relationships	language	procedures	management	visualising the lesson