I'm aware no such thing probably exists but I'll carry on. As part of my degree I am taking a module called Teaching Techniques and as part of the assessment we have to teach another member of the group our instrument. I've had a mock one and it went quite well but I was just wondering, in 20 minutes what one could include to try to make it as perfect as possible. Nothing aural related please . I'm teaching a violinist the saxophone and she's had about 5 lessons already so if any woodwind/sax specialists want to comment too, I'd be greatful.

I'm just having a slight panic that I have no idea what I am doing and it's not something I can afford to do badly in.

Thanks .

Think back to the best lesson you ever had. Why was it so good? What did the teacher do? What did you learn? How did you feel when you left the lesson? What did it inspire you to do afterwards?

Then try and capture some of that in your lesson.

As it's another member of your group, you could try asking them the same questions well before the assessment, so you know in advance where they're coming from. Then you can "as if by magic" prepare exactly the things that they need to motivate and improve themselves during the lesson.

Good luck with your assessment!

Just a thought, but why not aim for the lesson to be "as good as possible"?

I'm concerned that by trying to make it "perfect" will just cause you extra stress and anxiety which will divert energy away from the task itself.

Ambs
x

If it's any help, when I did the CTABRSM course, we had to be observed by our instrumental mentor three times, and got marked each time. For the record, I got 'good' the first time, 'very good' the second time and 'excellent' the last time and I do remember trying very hard to understand and implement the feedback after the first two lessons.

By the third lesson I realised I needed a good lesson plan, which I had to keep aware of all the way through, while being prepared to deviate from it at a moment's notice. The lesson plan had to include checking everything that had been set at the previous lesson but also being 'proactive' rather than merely 'reactive'. It seems I was too reactive at the first lesson but by the last lesson had managed to switch to being far more proactive'.

So a proactive lesson means having an idea before the lesson of where they're probably going to be and where you want to take them by the end of the half hour/hour/whatever. The goal should be technical/expressive/aural; in other words you want to help them improve their technique in some way if faulty, help them express them music/composer's intentions more effectively, and increase their aural awareness. Some improvisation can be very helpful for the latter. For example if they're struggling with a scale, you could ask them to make up a little tune using the notes from that scale. This would be seen as a creative (and aural!) way of approaching a scale because you're getting away from the dry 'just play me that scale and I'll correct you if you go wrong' and into the realm of what scales can actually be useful for, while also helping to awaken the student's creativity.

So keep the lesson varied with a good balance between reactive and proactive and make it very apparent that you have a goal for them to be reached at least partly by the end of the lesson. And keep it fun and light-hearted, and if they appear to get stressed because they can't do something, be prepared to switch the activity to something else for a bit of light relief and then return to it later if time.

It's five years since I finished the CT course but I still notice the lessons that more or less fit the blueprint above are much more satisfying for both the student and me than the lessons where I slip back into the lazy old: 'just play me what I set you and I'll point out how to fix the bits that went wrong'.

Oh and another good thing to do is enable the student to direct their own learning, by encouraging them to write their own directions on the music, work out their own fingering (while giving you reasons why they think it's better than yours) etc.

But I'm sure you knew all this already!