The Kate Languages Podcast - S1 Ep12 - Top 5 tips for saving time

In episode 12 of the first season of the Kate Languages Podcast, I gave my top 5 tips for saving time as a teacher. Here is a summary of the episode - to listen in full, click above or search for the Kate Languages Podcast wherever you get your podcasts.

My top 5 tips for saving time

As teachers, we often find ourselves stretched thin, struggling to balance our professional responsibilities with our personal lives. In this episode, I want to share some insights on how we can save time and reclaim our work-life balance. These are tips I wish I'd known when I was a full-time teacher, and they're even more crucial now that I'm a parent. So, let's dive into my top five tips for saving time in the classroom and beyond.

1. Say No

The first and perhaps most important tip is learning to say no. This is something I wish I'd been more assertive about during my teaching career. When you're a trainee, newly qualified teacher, or early career teacher, it's easy to fall into the trap of saying yes to everything, thinking it'll look good on your CV or help you tick off all the standards. I remember volunteering to help with a netball team, thinking it would be a great experience. In reality, it was a waste of time - I just stood around watching, not really contributing or learning anything valuable.

The key is to think carefully about what you're saying yes to. Ask yourself: Is this going to be useful for me? Is it going to benefit the children? Is it going to take up valuable time that I need for other tasks? It's great to be involved in the wider school community, but you need to be selective. For instance, I used to attend choir practice at a boys' school where I taught. I enjoyed it because I love singing and music, it was at lunchtime, and I got to spend time with lovely students and one of my best friends, the music teacher. That was a worthwhile use of my time.

The more you practise saying no, the easier it becomes. This applies to your personal life as well. I used to over-schedule myself at weekends, ending up exhausted and miserable at events I didn't really want to attend. Once I started saying no and protecting my time, I felt much better.

Of course, there are things you can't say no to - teaching your classes, preparing lessons, attending parents' evenings. But when it comes to extra commitments, think carefully. If you have even an inkling that you don't have enough time, say no. Your future self will thank you.

2. Don't Reinvent the Wheel

My second tip is one you've probably heard before, but it bears repeating: don't reinvent the wheel. I often see posts on social media saying, "Before I reinvent the wheel, has anyone got X, Y, Z?" It always makes me chuckle, but it's a valid question. Why spend hours creating a resource that already exists?

There are so many incredible resources out there, many of them free or available at a very reasonable price. Whether it's textbooks, online resources, or materials created by fellow teachers, take advantage of what's already available. I once received a review from someone who said that because they bought one of my booklets, they were able to spend time with their family instead of creating resources from scratch. That's the epitome of not reinventing the wheel.

This applies to lesson planning as well. Once you've completed a year's worth of lessons, don't start from scratch the following year. Look back at your previous plans and tweak them as needed. Your class will be different, you'll have more experience, and some content might need updating, but you don't need to create everything anew.

If you enjoy creating resources and can do it quickly, by all means, go ahead. Sometimes it's faster to whip up a worksheet than to search the internet for the perfect resource. But remember, there's a wealth of material out there. Don't always try to do everything from scratch, and you'll be amazed at how much time you save.

3. Don't Replicate

My third tip is to avoid replication, especially when it comes to data and marking. I remember spending countless hours marking students' work, then recording their scores on my own spreadsheet, then transferring that data to a school-wide spreadsheet, all while the marks were also in the students' books. It's madness! Why are we putting the same information in four different places?

Instead, think about streamlining your processes. Mark the work once and put it in a universally accessible place. Many teachers are now adopting more efficient marking strategies, such as having a quick look through books, noting common errors, and addressing these in a whole-class activity. Or they provide feedback as they circulate during the lesson. These approaches save hours of marking time.

Another time-saving tip: don't mark listening or reading exercises unless they involve longer answers in the target language. For true/false or multiple-choice questions, have students swap books and mark each other's work. It takes seconds in the lesson and saves you valuable time. If you need to know their scores, have them tell you or quickly glance at their books. Remember, you're not learning anything about your students by marking these types of exercises yourself. They're meant for practice and to help embed vocabulary.

The key takeaway here is to do something once and leave it. Don't waste time replicating information across multiple platforms.

4. Exploit One Text in Multiple Ways

My fourth tip is to take one text and exploit it in as many different ways as possible. This approach not only saves time but also provides a cohesive learning experience for your students.

Start with a text - it could be something you've written yourself or a resource you've found. Begin with a vocabulary activity, then use it for listening practice. You could do a dictation or a gap-fill exercise. Next, give students the transcript and work through it together. Set reading comprehension questions, have them translate it from the target language to English, and finally use it as a writing frame for their own piece of work. You've just planned an entire lesson using a single text!

This might seem obvious to some, but when I was starting out, I used to think I needed different texts and activities for vocabulary, listening, reading, translation, and writing. By using one text in multiple ways, you cover all the skills while saving yourself the time and effort of finding or creating separate resources for each activity.

You can extend this principle to your lesson starters and plenaries too. Choose one starter activity, like a crossword, and use it with every class for a week. Just adjust the vocabulary to suit each group. The same goes for plenaries - pick a game (I'm partial to the Corner Game) and use it to wrap up every lesson that week. This approach saves you the time of planning different starters and plenaries for each class.

5. "Good" is Good Enough

My final tip is to remember that "good" is good enough. We all want to be outstanding teachers, but it's impossible to be amazing in every single lesson. Striving for perfection in every aspect of your teaching will lead to exhaustion and burnout.

This doesn't mean your lessons shouldn't be good or that it doesn't matter if students don't learn. What I'm saying is, don't waste time on things that don't directly contribute to learning. For instance, I still catch myself trying to make beautiful PowerPoint presentations, using fancy designs and animations. But does a pretty PowerPoint actually help students learn? Not really. What helps them learn is repetition, practice, engagement, and feeling a sense of autonomy over their learning.

The same goes for resources. Keep them simple and straightforward. Don't waste time on fancy fonts or complicated formatting. Choose nice, relevant images to make your resources attractive, but don't clutter them with superfluous pictures. Sometimes I find myself spending ages choosing the perfect photo when I should be focusing on creating the actual content.

Remember, less is often more. Stick with one idea and explore it in different ways rather than trying to cram in too much content. Use templates for your PowerPoints and resources to save time. Your students will benefit more from a well-structured, focused lesson than from beautiful but time-consuming visual aids.

Conclusion

In conclusion, these five tips - saying no, not reinventing the wheel, avoiding replication, exploiting one text in multiple ways, and accepting that good is good enough - can help you reclaim valuable time in your teaching practice. They've certainly made a difference in my career, and I hope they'll be useful to you too.

Remember, teaching is a marathon, not a sprint. By implementing these strategies, you'll not only save time but also preserve your energy and enthusiasm for the job. You'll have more time for yourself, your family, and the aspects of teaching that you truly love. So give these tips a try, and let me know how they work for you. Here's to more efficient and enjoyable teaching!