17 Responses to “Help Please! What order to teach lessons in?”

1. 

   Shelly 6:22 AM

   Thank you for preparing this list.
   I was just doing something similar myself,since starting September I will start my new classes, I want to have a curriculum or plan ready to go.

   Not to add more to your already full table, but in a previous post you mentioned how lessons can work together like: where is the spider & rooms of a house to say: where is the kitchen? It’s next to the livingroom…
   Do you mind sharing a couple of more ideas on what lessons to use together?

   Thank you for your hard work,

2. 

   Valentina 7:41 AM

   If we have them all in the download pack, we can easily change the order if we think it is more convenient for our groups of students. I think the order you propose is just fine.Thank you so much for sharing.

3. 

   Gumby 8:50 AM

   Wow to see it all listed again shows just how much you have available.

   I agree wtih Valentina that with the download pack there is a lot of freedom for teachers to create their own curriculum.

   My suggestion for the list you have is to make it more varied. Instead of grouping all the similar themes together, spread them out and include ways to link the themes. I think students would remember better when the content is linked (ex. Let’s make a monster with numbers, my name is.. I like…) as opposed to all the themes that deal with body parts.

   Another example:
   Do you have any pets? and Colors to go along with the Bigger/Smaller song so they can go shopping

   Again the What do you want to be? theme can be taught with What’s your favorite….? and then it can be reinforced later in the year with the Halloween theme.

   I think there is a lot of merit in recycling the language in different contexts in different times of the year.

   It does make more work for you though….

4. 

   Meli 9:03 AM

   First,I think all teachers who belong to the EFL teacher community are very grateful to your hard work, creativeness and generosity to show it. Regarding another order, I think it would be also appropriate to continue with same type of lexical chunks and take this order 11,31,61,62,63(food). With regards personal information I would put lessons 3,4 and 36 one after the other, just because of the type of lexical chunks they mean in context.
   Best wishes and continue having success in all your commitments.

5. 

   richard 10:43 AM

   These are all great comments, thank you. (And keep them coming!)

   Before I started teaching English I always used to look at curricula and syllabi as “Foggy Windows.”

   When you look at a steamed up window you don’t start from the top left corner moving down in strict order.

   Instead, you rub a big patch in the middle and begin to see a little of what you are (learning) looking at.

   From then on you have a choice, you can move up or down or left or right, wherever your interest takes you or wherever will let you see the most of the big picture underneath.

   Finally, if you want to, at the end you go back and rub out all the bits you’ve missed and, if you’re a real perfectionist, you rub out all the edges and corners so you can see exactly what you have been learning with a perfectly clear window.

   I always envisioned curricula like that, like stars or planets. And each one is linked to other ones that go well together.

   Doing things up this way would also help with adding new lessons e.g. I’ve no idea where to put the new stationery theme as I never teach it myself! 🙂 But in this new way, we could just put it in and have it link up with the other subjects that go well with it.

   So….

   1) What do you call these types of diagrams with things all linking together? (It’s not a mind map as such, but I’m sure there must be a name for them and some software out there to make making them easier!)

   2) Are there enough distinct groups of topics, or would everything just end up linking to everything else??? (In which case it’s back to square one!)

   Anyway, thank you all for reminding me of this.

   And it is also so, so refreshing to see you thinking of the kids and how to change the curriculum to be best for them. That’s the sign of the fabulous teachers that you are!

6. 

   Margit 11:14 AM

   Richard,

   would this mean that the actual order appearing on the software menu would change?
   I hope hope very much, that it doesn’T mean this. Because I put how many dozens of hours to make lesson plans for 5th and 6th grade figuring out a numbering system so the teachers will look at a very simple plan and see that they click CD 1-6 for the “Thank you topic” for example. If the order would change that would be really really tough for me. Well I guess in that case I just can refrain from more updating.

   Anyway as a “curriculum” on the site, or on paper, I think it is great to think the sequence over.
   This one you wrote out sounds fine.
   I do like gumbo’s idea as well, but it might be a separate page to do something like this as it would confuse otherwise.

   Sorry, not very helpful here?!

7. 

   richard 11:20 AM

   Hi Margit, no need to worry! 🙂

   I’m planning on having 3 options, one is the regular “CD” menu like now, one will be a new “curriculum order” and I’ll also put in an alphabetic text list of the themes to. There’ll be a simple button at the top to switch between then 3!

8. 

   richard 11:41 AM

   Margit also just wrote in with the idea of doing different printable ones for different teaching situations.

   e.g.
   * One for if you are teaching 5th and 6th grades.
   * One for starting with 3, 4 year olds
   * One for specific tests or courses.

   What do you think?

   Any requests? Or do you have your own lists to share?

   (You can either write them in the comments or send them in. There’s also the possibility we could get a designer to make them look good for printing!)

9. 

   richard 12:17 PM

   For the “foggy window” idea above, would something like this help?

   http://genkienglish.net/GECurriculum2.png

   This doesn’t show links between themes though ….. it might get too messy if we add them?

10. 

    Margit 12:28 PM

    Ok, my lists for teaching 5th and 6th grade at a public school in japan.

    I hate writing lesson plans like this (I love planning, but I hate the design they have to be in) and you can see this from the style they came out.

    http://genkienglish.net/clipart/MargitCurriculum5thGrade.pdf
    http://genkienglish.net/clipart/MargitCurriculum6thGrade.pdf

    Anyway, so these plans would help those teachers who have kid starting English in grade 5, the classes I teach are about 30-35 students, so that’s what the plans are based on.
    Does this help, Richard?

11. 

    Gumby 5:13 PM

    First Margit, thanks for sharing what you did. You obviously put a lot of work into it and it is very generous of you to make it available to others!

    Richard I love the foggy window analogy! It is a good way to demonstrate how teachers adapt the GE materials to their own classroom situation.

    I also like the idea of having different options for menus. The alphabetical listing may be difficult, though, because the themes can be listed under different names.

    The mind map type list is a good way to demonstrate how themes can be tied together, but it is too confusing to use as a menu.

    Perhaps leave the listing as is since it is easy to find a song under these categories. Then maybe include a few examples of how to take the different themes to match with small children/ 5th and 6th year elementary/ create some type of story etc.

12. 

    Lines 6:14 PM

    My first is : What’s your name?
    second Where are you from?
    third How old are you?
    fourth what day is it today?… and so on,

    Thank you song (seasons),
    weather,
    Months topic…

    I always begin with easy things useful to speak about them.

    … My name is…, I’m from Spain, I’m six years old, I live in Ponferrada, It’s Monday…..

    I usualy use The disco song, transport song (they dance), left and right, I’m a robot… when my pupils are very tired and they move a lot and they need go out but it’s raining so we dance, sing and move a lot into the classroom.

    Thank you richard for all this wonderful software of games, songs easy to dance and english lessons.

13. 

    Monica Garcia 2:18 AM

    Hi,
    Here is the list of the songs we have in our syllabus:
    Course #1
    What´s your name?
    How are you?
    How do you say… in English?
    Doctor, Doctor
    Good morning
    What´s your favourite colour?
    Fruit Market
    How old are you?
    What are you doing?
    What time is it?
    When is your birthday?
    Do you like?
    Animal voices
    Where, where, where?
    How much?

    Course #2
    Left and Right
    I can do it
    What´s the weather like?
    Where are you from?
    Where are you going?
    Creepy Crawlies
    What do you do?
    Baby Monkey family
    What sports do you play?
    How did you get here?
    Where is Mr. Monkey?
    Food A-Z
    What´s your favourite…?
    When, when, when?
    Left and Right

    Course #3:
    Bigger, please
    I have a question
    What do you think of him?
    I´m thirsty

    For 7 years we have seen once the students have gone through these songs, they can express themselves quite well, kind of they can say almost whatever they want at a starter level. =)
    Monica Garcia, Mexico

14. 

    Ksenia 3:40 AM

    Hi,

    my personal experience :
    3 7 8 4
    13 11 12
    16 15
    29 27 28

    Generally great job!!!

15. 

    Darina 3:43 AM

    I used “What are you doing?” and “Eat, drink, dance songs among the first songs in the course and it really worked well and children learnt them very easily and enjoyed it a lot. Also “Where are you going?” with “Where do you live?” and “Doctor, Doctor” with “Skeleton soup” and “Head and shoulders” – It was good for children to have “topic” vocabulary in different “contexts”.
    …I´m going to work on my the curriculum for my 2nd year pupils in a few days. I´ll send it to you when it´s ready, Richard.

16. 

    richard 1:30 PM

    Just added the Advanced Grammar Genki English to the end of the list!

17. 

    Lucy 6:08 PM

    This is exactly what I needed. Thanks so much for making my life easier! Much appreciated 🙂