Brian Gabriel: Teaching Portfolio
10 Lesson Plans with Video Links
1. Reading/Writing Lesson Plan with Technology
2. Technology Enriched Reading/Writing Lesson Plan
3. Listening/Speaking Lesson Plan with Technology
4. Technology-Enriched Listening/Speaking Lesson Plan
8. Original Reading/Writing/Grammar Lesson Plan
9. Lesson Plan 9: Speaking/Listening
10. Technology-Enriched Lesson Plan
My Teaching Philosophy
Not all teaching is equally effective. A teacher can cover a lot of material, and students can still fail to improve.
There’s an important difference between learning and acquisition. Learning means taking in new words and ideas. Acquisition means actually being able to use them in real conversations, not just recognize them on a test. My goal in every lesson is acquisition, not just exposure.
I don’t follow one single teaching method. I borrow from several. One idea I rely on comes from the psychologist Lev Vygotsky: students learn best when a lesson is a little harder than what they can already do, but not so hard that they feel lost. Find that middle zone, and a lesson stays challenging enough to be interesting, without becoming discouraging. I also believe in using authentic materials, real English as it’s actually spoken, so students learn language the way people really use it. And I work hard to lower the fear that often stops students from taking risks with a new language, since mistakes are a normal and necessary part of learning.
One area I focus on more than most teachers is collocation: which words naturally pair together. Knowing a word’s definition is only half the job. In English, we “make a reservation” but “do some sightseeing.” There’s no logical rule for this; it’s simply convention, and it’s exactly the kind of detail that’s invisible until someone points it out. This precision is directly rewarded in IELTS scoring, and it’s a core part of how I teach vocabulary.