Teaching time

I presume you know I earn a living by teaching English. I shouldn't be writing this. I should be planning next week's lessons but I'm putting it off. I don't have to start work till 5pm tomorrow and that leaves me all morning to get myself sorted out. Plenty of time.

The place I work has a system. Students work with interactive teaching materials backed up by a grammar and a book of exercises. The English is basically taught using a number of key expressions or structures with the grammar and vocabulary being built up around those expressions and structures. Students work alone on the computers and books. Teachers are used to answer queries and in three sorts of classes.

Firstly, there is an assessment after each unit which is done as a class. Group size is no more than four people and usually it's just one or two students. Secondly and thirdly there are group sessions. One is a converation class and the other is a structured class built around the key phrases and structures. The individual and group classes are arranged on an on demand system morning, afternoon and evening which makes it all pretty flexible for the students. The amount of planning I have to do for any of the classes described above is pretty minimal.

I also do another type of class. I go out to the offices of two or three firms. This is much more traditional stuff in the sense that I have the same groups at the same time each week. I need to prepare for these groups. I have to find recordings, find suitable things to read and prepare a range of speaking exercises. Over the years I've built up quite a range of stuff but normally, each week, I add a bit more, retire some of the old stuff and keep records of who got what when and what I still have available. It's a chore but it's the job and it becomes part of the weekly pattern.

The problem is that it hasn't been my pattern for fourteen weeks now and buckling down to it seems to be something I'm a bit unwilling to do