HOW TO CREATE A WINNING LESSON.

1.   KNOW YOUR PEOPLE:

Before you can make any kind of effective lesson plan, you have to know your students.

2.   KNOW YOUR PLAN:

Officially, you should know your learning objectives. These are the language specific objectives for your lesson. If you are teaching content, think about ways to tie it to reading, writing, listening and speaking for your English students.

3.   KNOW YOUR PRIORITIES:

What are the most important things your students should know from the lesson you are planning? For example, in a speaking class learning a specific set of vocabulary may be secondary. Learning cultural nuances may be a third level priority. When you define your priorities at the start of your lesson planning, you can be sure that your students will learn what they need to learn by the end of your class.

4.   KNOW YOUR PIECES:

Just like any good story, a good lesson plan needs a beginning, middle and end. Plan a way of introducing the subject that will get your students thinking about what they already know, making connections in the brain. Plan more than one activity to introduce and practice new material.

5.   ANTICIPATE YOUR PACE:

One of the hardest tasks for a new teacher is determining how much time a given activity will take. Make sure you are ready for anything in your class by over planning activities for each lesson. Be ready for anything, and after you present your lesson make note of how long you spent on each activity.

6.   PROCESS YOUR OUTCOME:

It is always beneficial to spend a few moments after a lesson evaluating how it went, but your evaluation does not have to be a complicated process. This will not only help you the next time you go through the same material with a future class, it will help you plan upcoming lessons better for the class you have now!

This entry was adapted from BUSY TEACHER. Read the full version >>here<<

Lesson planning: very short observations about the importance of planning the lessons.

by Bruno Coriolano de Almeida COSTA

It is known that teaching is not only a question of teaching rules, graphics, how to use maps and the likes. Moreover, it is much more than simply standing in front of the classroom and faces an audience hungry for knowledge.

Some teachers, with experience or not, seem to have an ability to think on their feet, which allows them to believe that they do not need to plan their lessons. However, most teachers go on preparing lessons throughout their careers, even if the plans are very informal. It is said that teaching needs preparation. It is, teachers must prepare and guide students into the path of success. In addition, authentic teachers need to observe and deal with an amount of details.

Firstly, teachers have to adapt the lessons to their students’ realities; in language classes, it is not different from any other kind of classes, students expect their teachers to be creative and plan their lessons.

One thing that teachers should consider is that students will realize if the lessons were not planned before and it can show the image that the teacher does not care about his/her job. Unfortunately, it happens more frequently than we think.

There is no doubt the lesson plans are important in teaching. When planning, we, teachers, should observe students’ needs and possible problems that may happen; and think about the tools we are going to use in advance. In addition, teachers are supposed to arrive earlier in the classroom in order to check if the equipment and the likes are really available that day. 

this text is appropriate for pre-intermediate levels.