LLFE-T08 · Board Work Basics — Writing Form Clearly on the Board
✏️ Board Work Basics
⏱ 5 minutes · 📚 CELTA methodology · 🏫 Micro-lesson
📖 From the teacher’s desk: In my very first observed lesson on the CELTA course, my board work was a disaster — cramped, inconsistent fonts, no clear sections, and I talked while writing with my back to the class. My tutor’s feedback included a diagram of a well-organized board. I kept that diagram. The board is the learner’s visual anchor for the whole lesson: it must be clear, systematic, and legible.
🎯 By the end of this micro-lesson, you can: organise board work clearly — including how to write form, meaning, and pronunciation markers.
🔥 Why Board Work Matters (1 min)
The board gives learners a permanent visual record they can refer back to and copy. Good board work:
✓ Shows the FORM clearly (grammatical structure)
✓ Shows the MEANING (CCQs, timeline, diagram)
✓ Shows PRONUNCIATION (stress marks, phonemes)
✓ Stays on the board for learners to copy at the right moment
📖 The Three Things to Show (2 min)
Example target language: “She has been working here for two years.”
Board organisation tips:
- Divide board into zones: vocabulary left, grammar centre, pronunciation notes right
- Write clearly and large enough to be read from the back row
- Do NOT write while talking — finish writing, then turn and speak
- Use different colours: one for form, one for examples, one for errors to fix
- Leave board content up until learners have copied it
✍️ Practice (2 min)
Plan your board work for this target language:
“If I were you, I would apply for that job.”
- Write the FORM (use a formula with labels)
- Note the MEANING (is this real or unreal?)
- Mark the main stress for PRONUNCIATION
- Describe how you would organise this on the board
🔟️ Answer Key
- FORM: If + Subject + were + (you), Subject + would + base verb
- MEANING: This is UNREAL / imaginary advice. I am not you. This is hypothetical. [Draw two stick figures: speaker giving advice to listener]
- PRON: “If I WERE you, I would apPLY for that JOB.” — stress on were, apply, job
- Board layout: Form in centre top. Example sentence below. Timeline or reality marker (UNREAL) to the right. Stress marks above the example.
Cambridge CELTA course completed — 120 supervised teaching hours, 4 written assignments passed at the required standard.
Independent project; not affiliated with, endorsed by, or accredited by Cambridge University Press & Assessment. Confers no qualification.
✉️ Questions? sourovdeb.com
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