Don’t Let Your Teaching Career Trip Over Trial Lessons

So, you’ve decided that teaching is the career for you. Congratulations! What could be better than spreading your knowledge to the next generation? There’s just one setback – you’ve got to get through God knows how many trial lessons before you can secure your dream teaching gig. That’s not an easy task, but it certainly doesn’t mean your teaching dreams need to be on hold indefinitely. 

Nerve-wracking as the process might seem, every single teacher out there has managed to boss at least a few trial lessons in their time, and you could do the same by keeping these pointers in mind next time an interview goes well. 

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Gather your information

The educational sector is a varied place, so your first step should always be to gather all the information you can about the class you’ll be teaching. Most importantly, you need to know vital information such as – 

• The number of pupils you’ll be teaching
• The age of the class
• The current levels of the pupils
• The length of the lesson
• The resources available to you

Too often, trials fail because the applicant doesn’t want to make a nuisance of themselves asking all these things, so make sure you don’t make the same mistake. Instead, ask all the questions. Far from coming across as irritating, this in itself will prove that you know your stuff, as well as helping you to prepare the best possible lesson. 

Let resources dictate your plan

Speaking of preparing, you also need to have a lesson plan going into this, because there’s no way ‘winging-it’ is going to wash with the teachers observing you. Still, there’s no need to panic about the fact that your lesson planning knowledge is still in the foundation stages. 

Instead, find resources that interest you, and let them dictate your plan for you. Here are some 3rd-grade writing worksheets that could prove invaluable in this sense, and they certainly aren’t the only option. Browsing the internet should lead you to all manner of free teaching resources, any of which could form the basis of your lesson plan if you keep the information you’ve already gathered in mind. 

Familiarize yourself with the classroom

To some extent, feeling out of depth with your trial lesson is an inevitable, and even intentional part of the process, but that doesn’t mean you need to go into this completely blind. If you ask, the chances are that you’ll be able to familiarize yourself with the classroom ahead of time, either just before your lesson or a little while in advance. By taking this opportunity, you can better put yourself at ease, see first hand the resources on offer, and generally improve your lesson when the time comes. 

There’s no denying that securing a teaching career isn’t easy but, as you can see, there’s really no need to worry about trial lessons along the way. With these pointers to hand, you may even find that the job offers come flowing in no time at all.