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Your lessons should be tailored to each student, taking into account their current skill level, goals, and weekly schedule. This is not to say that you cannot reuse lesson plans, but each student will require a different approach. Guide your lesson plans around their practice routine, which can be either a distinct to-do list that they must adhere to, or you can create a custom one with your student that varies daily. Be consistent about what they can expect at each lesson. Effective warm-ups will involve slowly warming and loosening the hands for playing. Use technical exercises including scales, arpeggios, ear training, and chord progressions. Have your students show you how they usually warm up at home. If they rush through the warm-up, have them slow down to improve their accuracy and warm the hands safely. It is important to cover both ascending and descending scales and arpeggios since both occur in all music. Also, don't leave the lesson on minor scales for later - it is best to teach both major and minor from the start so that the ear can be trained to recognize each one over time. A "topic" is usually a piece that the student is working on from a lesson book, but you may also focus on etudes, or small pieces of music that are used to drill a particular pattern. This may take up all of the lesson time occasionally, but that is not cause for concern. Other topics may include technical or music issues and nuances such as dynamics, pacing, or evenness of playing. Go over the key signature of the new piece by having them play that scale in different meters and tempos. Have them focus on one small, logical section of the music at a time, working down through the piece. Then they may string the units together and practice transitions. Don't push students to a harder skill too early. Instead, make sure that the current skill can be demonstrated repeatedly and consistently before moving on to a new one. Check in with your student periodically. Ask if they're happy with what they're working on, and if they're not, be open to requests from the student and their parents. Repetition is important, but boredom can diminish enthusiasm. Quiz them on theory topics during your lessons, so that they can apply their knowledge to their instrument. For example, if you have been teaching them about intervals, play two notes from their piece one after the other and have them name the interval. Make sure that you use proper musical notation when talking about music theory, since you will want your students to eventually be able to identify features and patterns of the music by just looking at the page. It's important to make learning theory fun by offering verbal affirmation of progress and rewarding mastery of concepts. Younger students respond well to candy or stickers on the pages of music they've mastered. Some students will love practicing and will have a hard time taking breaks. Other students will resist practicing since it can be repetitive and highlights their areas for improvement. Do not make your students feel bad for their learning style, but stress the fact that practicing often and well is the key to real progress. Unforgiving, inflexible, and mean teachers can sometimes cause students to quit music altogether and develop an aversion to it, so always be aware of how your words and actions come across. It is your job to adapt to your student's needs, not the other way around. Never judge a student for their playing ability since everyone was a beginner at one point. However, if the student has demonstrated that they are not fully invested in paying attention during lessons or practicing, it may be time for a conversation with their parents about whether or not piano is the right activity for them.
Plan personalized lessons thoroughly. Start your lessons with a warm-up. Review topics from the last lesson. Introduce new material slowly. Work music theory into everything you do. Have reasonable expectations for practice and progress. Encourage your students often and be patient.