Teach Now! The Essentials of Teaching
What You Need to Know to Be a Great Teacher
- 266 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
About This Book
Being taught by a great teacher is one of the great privileges of life. Teach Now! is an exciting new series that opens up the secrets of great teachers and, step-by-step, helps trainees to build the skills and confidence they need to become first-rate classroom practitioners.
Teach Now! The Essentials of Teaching provides the fundamental knowledge for becoming a great teacher. Combining a grounded, modern rationale for learning and teaching with highly practical training approaches it covers everything you need to know from preparing for your teaching practice to getting your first job.
Harnessing a range of simple, but powerful techniques, the book shows you how you can translate the Teachers' Standards into your own classroom practice and provide the evidence that you have met them. It also demystifies what the best teachers know and do instinctively to create students who want to learn and get a buzz from developing new skills. The book is structured in clear sections which are then divided into short, easy-to-absorb units offering clear, straightforward advice on all aspects of teaching including:
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- why teach?
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- the application and recruitment process for training
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- helping students' achieve good progress
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- planning, differentiation and assessment
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- behaviour management
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- using language effectively in the classroom
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- managing parents' evenings
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- being an effective tutor
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- how to have lunch!
With talking points to encourage reflection and a wide range of examples to illustrate practice, Teach Now! The Essentials of Teaching provides expert guidance as you start your exciting and rewarding career as an outstanding teacher.
Frequently asked questions
Information
Part I Before training to teach
1 How to know whether teaching is the career for you
- what they like about the job;
- what frustrates them;
- what one piece of advice they would give to someone embarking on teaching as a career.
Talking Points
- Which of these comments are most attractive to you?
- Which speak to you most?
- Do any put you off?
- Do any surprise you?
- If you had to give your two main impulses for becoming a teacher, what would they be?
2 So, what are you worrying about?
- What happens if I walk into a classroom and they all laugh at me?
- Is there a good way to increase my confidence?
- Are there any good ways of learning names?
- What are the best things to write in my personal statement before applying?
- What is the best way to design a worksheet?
- How do I write a lesson plan?
- How open can I be with students about my own belief (religious or political)?
- What happens if I donât have a pigeonhole?
- Will there be coffee on tap?
- What should I wear on my first day?
- What do I do if a student tells me something personal about their background â e.g. that they are being abused?
- What should I expect at a job interview?
- How long is it likely to be before I will be teaching unsupported?
- What happens if I donât like, canât work with, or fancy my mentor?
- What happens if I get lost?
- What should I do when I hit the wall/get stuck/get weighed down by too much work?
- What happens if students try to address me on Facebook?
- How can I rapidly increase my salary?
- What happens if I train in a really good school with no behaviour issues and then get a job in a school with lots of behaviour issues?
- What happens if my mentor makes lots of mistakes in subject knowledge?
- What should I do if my subject knowledge isnât good enough?
- What do I do to deal with an unfortunate surname in my first few lessons?
- What if a lesson goes really badly and kids think I am rubbish â how do I ever overcome this impression?
- How do I find the line between professional and friendly?
- How can I develop my teaching skills outside the classroom?
- What should I wear in school?
- How can I write effective learning objectives?
- How do we keep a workâlife balance?
- What do I do if I get flustered in front of a class? Or, even worse, get emotional?
- How do I deal with violence (in the classroom or at break time)?
Talking Points
- Which three questions are most relevant to what you are feeling?
- Which three are least relevant?
- What questions of your own would you add?
What I Love About Teaching
3 How important is training to be a teacher?
The teacher's role is much more akin to that of a parent. It is a great loss that governments worldwide have made teaching much less like being a parent than an impersonal civil servant. No job is more important than parenting, yet no one is suggesting parents go off for a university course to qualify as a parent. Parents pick it up as they go along, and that's exactly the way great teachers are forged.There is one fundamental difference between parenting and teaching. The former are self-selecting, whereas the latter have to be appointed by those with knowledge and experience. I write this from a conference on Education for Tomorrow run by Singapore Management University. The principals attending are from schools around the world, state and private, and almost all agree that great teaching is a gift that some have, and others will never acquire even if they spend 10 years locked away in a university. Most of us can tell within minutes whether someone has âgot itâ or not.(Anthony Seldon, âTeaching is like parenting: you donât need to have a qualificationâ, The Guardian, 28 October 2013)
Table of contents
- Cover Page
- Half-Title Page
- Series Page
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Table Of Contents
- Series editor's foreword
- Who are you?
- Who am I?
- How to read this book
- Part I Before training to teach
- Part II Preparing for teaching practice
- Part III Teacher training
- Part IV Becoming a teacher
- Part V Next steps
- Afterword
- Appendix A: glossary of educational terms
- Appendix B: subject word lists
- What to read
- Index