Tips for teaching early morning lessons

My earliest lessons are at 6am. The advantage is that students can fit in a class before school or work, and at least they are not tired from a stressful day at said school or work. However, as you can imagine, both teacher and students can feel a little bleary at that time in the morning and it takes a little time to get the gears oiled. Here are some ways to get the cogs turning at early o'clock.

Gauge the mood
Take the time to ask the students how they are today. Of course this is nice to do at the start of any lesson, but especially important at the start of the day when people can feel a little fragile (or tired, or cold, or hungry...). When you know how the class is feeling, you can judge which kind of approach to take to the lesson and how much encouragement they are going to need. A sleepy class will need more warming up, but if they are already bright-eyed and bushy-tailed they will be happier to jump straight in.

Make some noise
To make sure your learners are awake and have their minds fully in the classroom, do something that will make some noise. I find that a shouting dictation works well: give half the students something to dictate to a partner who is on the other side of the classroom. The classroom will get noisy as the students compete to make themselves heard, so it will get vocal cords warmed up and alleviate some of the early-morning reluctance to speak. Another option is to play some lively music. There are too many uses of music in the classroom to go into here, but for example, you can play an upbeat song and set a straightforward gist task, or simply play some music that sets the scene for the lesson and discuss it afterwards (how does it make you feel? What words or images does it make you think of? etc).

Get moving
Plan kinetic activities that either get the students out of their seats, or get them moving things around. If you have young learners, a few rounds of "change chairs" or Simon Says can do the trick. If you have adults or a more serious class, you can still incorporate kinetic elements into most types of activity. A matching exercise will be more stimulating if students have to find the answers posted around the classroom; an anagram puzzle will be more of a waker-upper if the letters are cut up and have to be manually rearranged. Anything that breaks the students out of sitting still will help.

Inject some colour
A bog-standard, run-of-the-mill black and white photocopy will not get your students woken up. If you have the luxury of a colour printer or copier, use it to make your visual aids more interesting. Alternatively, source colourful images from papers or magazines. Also, simply printing handouts onto brightly-coloured paper will make them more eye-catching and can help to focus attention. You can be nice and use pleasant colours, but obnoxious neon colours also work particularly well.