This is the last set of tips to avoid burning out in communicative teaching. Check out “Burning out or burning bright?,” “More tips on avoiding burnout,” “Still more tips on avoiding burnout,” and “Even more tips on avoiding burnout” for more help on how to stay sane and effective at the same time.
- Stop looking when you’ve found something that will work.
This is a trap I fall into a lot. I’m looking for sources and I need 2 print and 1 audio source. So I stop when I’ve found… oh, nine potential sources. Why? Because maybe the next one I find will be even more perfect. I’ve wasted a lot of time this way. And we never have enough time to get to them all. Find what you can use for the time you have and then abandon the search. - Stop over-planning so much.
Similar to finding too many sources, planning too many activities can also be a problem. You want to plan for a little more time than you actually have so that if things go fast with one or all your classes you don’t have dead time, but sometimes I find myself having planned my week with enough to fit 8 class periods. If you resist the temptation to overplan, you’ll save yourself some time.
What other tips are useful for you to keep from burning out? Share them here, take what I’ve shared and please, make communicative learning work for you as well as your students. I hope you’ve found something useful in this short series.
Dear Teacher, you’re free to just do your job.
April 23, 2024
Travel reviews: max input, all the modes
September 15, 2023
Everything works (or nothing does).
October 19, 2022
Sarah- this has nothing to so w teaxher burnout (or maybe everything has to do w teaxher burnout!) but I would love a langchat on how to differentiate within the fl classroom – I have highly gifted students making a 99 or 100 on everything and finishing quickly and then I have other students who never finish anything during class and need lots of individual attention and then many in between those two extremes. How to make time for the ones who need help and also give the gifted ones meaningful work when they finish assignments? Is there already a langchat on this? I teaxh at a private school where there are no official “accomodations” for students with learning disabilities (dyslexia, auditory processing, and add) so I have to get creative with how to help them succeed while not leaving the top kids in the classroom out- ideas??
What a great question, Kim! I will see if I can get this suggestion on a langchat poll soon, but in the meantime I have lots of resources that I think will help you a lot. Check these out:
Past #langchat summaries on-
Differentiated instruction in the world language classroom
Using centers and stations to teach world language
Personalizing the world language classroom
Helping struggling students succeed in the world language classroom
For those fast finishers-
Martina Bex’s FAQ on Fast Finisher Folders
[…] your job and run to something else, anything else. A long time ago I did a series of posts on burning out or burning bright and I implore you to check out those posts before a journey to build your own curriculum drives […]