How Do You Handle Late Starters and Early Leavers? TEFL Games – S05E12

How should teachers welcome a late starter, manage an early leaver and keep lessons useful when class numbers suddenly change?In this episode of How to English TEFL Pod, Gav and Em share practical answers drawn from their own classrooms. Em explains how her organised “Another Folder” helps when she needs fresh lesson ideas, while Gav suggests balancing grammar, vocabulary, listening, pronunciation and speaking activities across a course.They discuss how to integrate a student who missed the beginning of a course without making them feel uncomfortable. Should everyone introduce themselves again? Can existing students introduce one another? And how can the newcomer’s needs and goals be included?The situation is reversed when a learner has to leave a course early. Gav and Em consider how teachers can adapt pairwork, prioritise speaking time and keep a lesson working when attendance changes unexpectedly. Em even becomes Student B in a technical jigsaw-reading activity after several cancellations.You’ll also hear a lively “Have you ever...?” truth-or-lie game from Cutting Edge. This activity practises present perfect questions, past simple follow-up questions, past continuous and modal verbs for deduction. Finally, Quiz of the Week explores learning preferences and how students might discuss the ways they prefer to study.Along the way, Gav and Em correct some portmanteau mistakes from their previous episode and investigate words including cronut, boxercise, edutainment, mockumentary and snaccident.Listen to the transcription with audio:https://share.descript.com/view/hM1VkSnbq7jIf you find the show useful, you can send us a thanks at https://ko-fi.com/howtoenglishpodVisit https://howtoenglishpod.com for practical teaching ideas and resources ready to use.ReferencesWhat Type of Learner Are You?https://arden.ac.uk/what-type-learner-are-youHave You Ever...?Cutting Edge, Unit 4A, PearsonList of portmanteaus:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_portmanteausChapters00:00 Support How to English TEFL Pod00:27 Episode introduction01:56 Portmanteau corrections and examples13:03 Finding fresh ideas in another teaching folder16:51 Welcoming a late starter into an established class24:24 Adapting a lesson for an early leaver28:10 Present perfect truth-or-lie speaking game34:12 Quiz of the Week: What type of learner are you?41:46 Outro