Lesson Planning

What does “Preparation” mean?

“Preparation” means working out what you want to do in a lesson, why you want to do it and how you are going to do it. It does not mean copying what is there in the Teacher’s Book, as some teachers might think, but it means thinking through the stages of the lesson, trying to link them, working out what the point of each stage is and writing down enough notes to help you remember what you thought of.

The first step in lesson planning is for the teacher to determine what it is that he/ she wants his pupils to learn. The second step is the carrying out of an instructional analysis of the learning task. This type of analysis should help the teacher to decide the various activities pupils will have to catty out to be able to achieve his/ her objectives. Finally, the teacher must prepare test items that measure what the students have been taught.

The functions of writing lesson plans

1. Writing down what you expect the students to be able to do by the end of the lesson, and what you intend to do to make that possible, helps you to think logically through the stages in relation to the time you have available.
2. Having something to refer to in the lesson helps keep you on target.
3. A lesson plan acts as a record of what the class has done and might form the basis for a future lesson plan with a similar class after being suitably amended.
4. Planning ensures that there is some system and balance in the student’s learning.
5. Planning also ensures that the teacher can answer questions accurately, and can provide explanations when required.
6. The knowledge that they are well-prepared gives many teachers confidence.

The components and stages of effective lesson plans

The organisation and content of your lesson plan might be affected by:

• the content of the lesson,
• the kind of material you are using,
• the nature and level of the students in the class, and
• your familiarity and relationship with the class.

Therefore, it is important to consider the characteristics of the learners when preparing a lesson plan i.e. their age, their liguistic, cultural background and their degree of motivation for learning English. It is considered that the classroom teacher is a better judge of the needs of his or her pupils than any textbook writer.

Lesson plans are usually written for the teacher himself and may be brief. However, a lesson plan should be drawn up under the following headings:

1. The language you intend to present, practise, revise or focus on in a text.
2. The activities that the students will be involved in.

Although a teacher may have planned a lesson in great detail, he also needs to be sensitive to demands which arise in the lesson. A sensitive and flexible teacher may well deviate from an original plan in response to changing circumstances or learner needs, with positive results. As a matter of fact, there will be many occasions when the teacher and the class depart from what was intended.

A good teacher should make a habit of having a reserve activity ready as part of his/ her regular lesson plan in case of extra time. Similarly, note in advance which components of the lesson you will sacrifice if you find yourself with too little time for everything.

I think I have to stop at this point. In my next article, I will try to tackle the new trend in “Preparation” and “Lesson Planning”.

References

• Hamad El Nil El Fadil. A Course In Effective Teaching For Teachers Of English.
• Martin Parrot. Tasks For Language Teachers
• Mary Finocchiaro. English As A Second/ Foreign Language.