Stuck in traffic? Enjoying a bumpy ride on public transport? You STILL have the chance to be planning for your next lesson. (Remember: “I don’t have time.” is likely not a great reason NOT to plan. Choose to use your time differently!)

Even if your circumstances won’t allow you to write or look through your course book, you can still get a ‘head’ start on your planning. Remember: all these ideas will work better and produce stronger results if you’ve gotten (or getting) to really know your students and develop your own KRA’s. 

As you bump about in traffic or transit, call to mind what you did in the last class, and what KRA’s you were working towards. Were there any points that would be good to revisit? Any skills or vocabulary words that were shaky and could still  use some more practice?  If you identified any, that would be the first place to anchor your planning. What could you do to reinforce or review what you did previously?

Secondly, think about your KRA’s  and what would be a natural or even VALUABLE place to move to next. Think: is there something happening for your student(s) right now that would make topic X more valuable than topic Y?   I came across a Tweet from @Leadershipfreak (Dan Rockwell – follow him if you want to learn about leading!) which underscores how valuable knowing your students in this way can be: 

If you identify one of these opportunities, you can then start thinking about content you’ve previously read or heard or watched that could be of value. I usually find that if I identify an important theme for my student, I can think of a few spots to visit in my Google Reader account that would likely have what I’m looking for.  (If I get the idea of where I want to look before I get home, I’ll make the job of actually looking that much easier.)

Another idea: Rehearse Before You Create.  I invite you to take a few minutes to read this article. My takeaways:

• Don’t think transit/commute time is dead time. Use it to rehearse how you’ll plan your next lesson or to rehearse how you’ll ACTUALLY GIVE you’re next class. (That’s planning too!)
• Rehearsing leads to stronger performance.
• Rehearsing may actually save you time.

Over to you: What do you do to maximize your ‘downtime?’ 

(Photo by Bob Bekian)