Make space, hold silence.

When we make space for students to think, we make space for the learning to take place. We make space for them to think, reflect on what we just explained, summarise or rephrase in their head, categorise and rehearse their steps.

We enable students to recharge their batteries 🔋 and not just cause the draining of the battery!🪫

Are they running empty? Are we draining them by using too many instructions and too many tasks?

Present a task with short instructions in the TL, model the task, use the white board to SHOW, ask questions and learn to disappear and hold silence.
Let the learning take place.

We also need that quiet space to evaluate our teaching, the students learning, decide what questions we are asking next, who needs more support, what is the next step in learning…

If you have to add more detail to your instructions, clarify, rephrase, repeat, give more and more examples then perhaps the instructions in the first place were not as efficient as could be, or perhaps the task is creating confusion rather than improving the learning.

Planning is a LIVE event! It’s ongoing throughout the lesson. Use quiet time to adjust your planning and teaching. Add notes and reflections for next lesson. This will make your planning faster.