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January 15, 2006
Does Procrastination Affect Your ESL Teaching?
"The leading rule for the lawyer, as for the man of every other calling, is diligence. Leave nothing for to-morrow which can be done to-day." ~ Abraham Lincoln
TESL persons,
Are you procrastinators? Do you find yourself rushing to prepare the lesson for your class an hour ahead of time? If this sounds like you, there is probably a lot of unnecessary stress in your life.
Procrastination is something that a lot of us deal with, but did you know that with some quick behavioral changes, you can kick this habit? Just think—no more rushing to grade those papers at the last minute. No more getting your travel documents approved—with 2 minutes to spare!
The first thing you need to do is decide upon your goal. Let’s say that it’s to prepare your class one day ahead of time. Now, you’ll simply need to put yourself on a reward/punishment program and stick to it! If you accomplish the goal, take yourself out for pizza, or give yourself some other treat. But, if you don’t, you should take away something of importance—like that extra cup of coffee in the morning, or that dessert at lunch—in order to feel the consequences of not following through. If you take truly want to stop procrastination and learn to manage your time better, you should seriously consider doing something about it, because if you don’t, the behavior will only continue.
One more thing; don’t wait until tomorrow to start!
Until next time,
Michelle
Posted by msimmons at January 15, 2006 09:58 PM
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Comments
Michelle,
I don't know if I can live without procrastination, but it's worth a try.
These are great tips, Michelle, especially for someone like me just beginning the English-teaching life...
Take care,
Jack
Posted by: Jack at January 18, 2006 10:43 AM
Michelle,
Good article. I'll start to complete the text I'm putting together tomorrow.
Gary
Posted by: Gary at January 18, 2006 11:13 AM
Michelle,
Hi.
I am a Filipino,43 years old and my wish is to teach in the USA. I have a baccalaurreate degree and at present I am enrolled in a crash course TESOL. I hope you could help me.
Priscilla
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Note from Michelle:
Hi Priscilla, what would you like help with? Procrastination? That's the focus of this post. Please go to esl-jobs-forum.com for more advice about visa issues, etc.
Posted by: Priscilla at January 20, 2006 09:40 AM
Michelle,
If we didn't procastinate, we would do something besides teach ESL, probably!
Jon
Posted by: Jonathan Cemenuk at January 20, 2006 11:21 AM
Hmmm, well I was going to write a lengthy response about how I learned to stop procrastinating, but then I started thinking about it and kept putting it off...
sorry...ok, seriously...
I'm learning that quite often we procrastinate for a reason - generally it's fear. But sometimes, that negative energy is a voice calling out to be heard and may be trying to tell us something that we just don't want to hear.
True, there are many situations in our lives in which inaction is simply not a choice, but perhaps it might be useful to pay that procrastinating voice a little attention and explore the real message behind it.
I found myself procrastinating about lesson plans, choosing worksheets, etc, until one day I finally told myself that I had enough intelligence and experience to actually evaluate where my students were with regards to a specific teaching goal and wait until I got into the classroom to formulate my plan. I had found that the plans I was making were not necessarily what was best for my students on a specific day. My feeling that I "should" plan a lesson was being countered by my realization that these plans were not always effective, resulting in classes that often felt difficult to teach rather than flowing with success.
I tried a different approach: I chose a few activities for back-up and headed into the classroom, more concerned about listening to my students than teaching what I might have thought was important last week.
True this is a skill that beomes more effective with experience, but in my case the procrastination was telling me to stop "planning" and start "listening".
Posted by: Marlen at January 27, 2006 04:06 AM
Hi Michelle,
I'm interested in your writing because Time Management is one of very important subjects that I'm conducting. I need to have more and more supporting material for my training.
Thanks,
Posted by: Hong Dung at July 5, 2007 03:02 AM
