The importance of Lesson Plans
Classes are about to start and I know that all of us will agree with what I am about to say: Preparation, the key to success.
You may think that as soon as you enter the class you will know what to do and from where to begin. Perhaps, you believe that you will remember every comment or question after class. You may even think that you will have time to do in your class everything that is in your mind.
But... Are you sure?
It doesn't matter if you are experienced or not, if you teach many years or you have just graduated. Most of the teachers agree that before entering the class you should spend the appropriate time preparing your lesson.
How? By having ready your lesson plan. Lesson plans are not as easy as they sound. It's not something that can be done in 10 minutes.
A lesson plan includes more or less the entire lesson. You start from the materials and coursebooks which will be needed for your class and you end with the homework that you will assign to your students.
In my lesson plans I include the following:
Materials needed, Course book, Class
When you are in a hurry to begin your lesson, or even your next lesson, information like the above mentioned turns to be very helpful in order for you to organize what you need for the class.
Aim, Secondary Aim
What's the aim of the lesson? What do you want to teach to your students today? Grammar? Vocabulary? Is this lesson both about grammar and writing? And, if yes, where are you going to give more emphasis (aim) and where are you going to spend less time because, for instance, this is something that has been already taught but you need to revise it (secondary aim)? If we, the teachers, are not clear about the purpose of our lesson, its objective, trust me when I'm saying that our students at the end of the day will be as confused as we are.
Teacher's (T) activity, Students' (Ss) activity, Aim, Material, Organization, Time
Let me give you an example about this.
Let's imagine that T activity is to teach a new tense. The lesson plan in that step could be something like the example below:
T activity
|
Ss activity
|
Aim
|
Material
|
Org
|
Time
|
|
Ss acquire new grammatical skills
|
Teach Simple Present (affirmative-interrogative-negative)
|
SB + WB or GB
|
Ind./
Class/
T-S/
S-S/
Croups
|
min
20-25
|
So my advice is: Preparation, the key for a successful lesson!
