Planning your lessons
How to create an effective Lesson Plan
“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” – Benjamin Franklin
TEACHME TEFL
It is a well known fact that the effort we put into something directly affects the result we get out of it. However, we do not always plan as well as we should.
You may find this is the case with your teaching. Experienced teachers can often rely on their experience and may not prepare as much as they used to but don’t forget, a prepared teacher is an effective teacher.
Preparation time will vary from class to class and from teacher to teacher, but by setting aside some planning time, you can be sure that your students will benefit.
One of the easiest ways to prepare for teaching is by writing your lesson plan.
Class Objective
Lesson Schedule
Lesson PLAN
Objectives
Whether you have classes for the year, the month or just that day will affect your lesson plans. You first need to establish the course objective. For a single class, this will be the same as your lesson objective. If you have the students for a set amount of time, then your objective will be the outcome you wish to see from your students at the completion of the course.
Lesson Schedule
Armed with your objective, add some dot points of target language that will need to be taught to help your students to reach their objective. Try to group together the target language into the number of lessons you will teach. Now schedule the order you will teach these lessons, remembering to schedule in regular revision and assessments.
Lesson Plan
Once you have a lesson schedule of how you will meet the objective, you are ready to work on your individual lesson plan.
You can download a lesson plan template from this link below.
What to include in your lesson plan:
Date
This is not only important for your reference but also in the event you are unable to take your class a substitute will be able to teach based off your lesson date.
Class name
You may be teaching two very similar classes on the same day, by adding the name of the class you will be able to clearly identify which plan you will be teaching from.
Number of students
This is vital for activity planning, if you have a class with even numbers you know that you will be able to schedule pair activities and all will have a partner. Also if you are required to take attendance, this will assist you in making sure you have marked each student.
Age of students
By recording the age, this will help you to keep focused as you plan the lesson content. The reading material for a class of 8-9 year olds will be vastly different for a class of students aged 18-19 years of age. However the lesson plan itself may appear very similar, therefore the age is included to determine the materials used.
Level of students
Again including the student level will assist you with planning accordingly. The lesson content will be determined by the student level, while you may have been given the student level by your employer, it is best to do your own level assessment on the first day to determine how you will teach the remaining classes.
Lesson Goal
This is just one sentence that describes what you would like your students to be able to demonstrate by the end of the lesson. As you plan your content, you will be able to continually refer to this goal and plan how you will help your students achieve the lesson goal.
Target Language
After you have determined the goal, you can include what language elements need to be taught. Remember that if your students are new or beginner, you will not be able to teach multiple language elements, instead try to teach only what is needed to reach the lesson goal. You may already have a list of the target language to be taught from your lesson schedule, if so, include it again on your lesson plan.
Classroom Set up
Once you have planned the lesson content you will be able to note the classroom set up.
Materials
Consolidating the materials required in one place will make it easy for you to gather the equipment you need for each class.
Reminders
This section can be added to on the day or in the days leading up to the class. It is a good place to include reminders you may want to give your students.
Review
This is left blank until the end of the class. Spending 5 minutes at the end of the class to include a short review will be vital to planning your next lesson effectively.
Content
Include here the content for your lesson, you may wish to follow an ESA boomerang lesson plan. (Engage, Study, Engage, Study, Activate) or a PPP Lesson Plan. (Presentation, Practise Production)
For more information and advise on lesson planning start your 120hr TEFL course today. Simply click the link below to get studying and start teaching!