Ok, so, you’ve decided that making a lesson plan for your classes
is a good idea. Now what? A lesson plan can’t include just anything, heck
that’s why you should us a lesson plan: it’s tells you what and how to teach!
The four bare essential elements that are never left out of
a good lesson plan are: a warmer, review, new language and fun! Here’s why:
- Warmer
– A warmer is SO important because it sets the mood for the rest of the
lesson. Warmers are essential because they help your students:
- To
relax and feel comfortable in the classroom
- Have
fun
- Realize
that “everyone is in the same boat”
- Learn
a little about you and their classmates
- Gain
confidence
- Get
a feel for how the rest of the class will be like
- Review
– a review helps your students to retain the language they learnt in the
last lesson. Essentially a review should be:
- Fun
- Short
(roughly 5-10 minutes, depending on how long your lesson is)
- As
student orientated as possible. IE the teacher should have minimal
involvement.
- New
Language – This is what your lesson plan is based around and will take up
the majority of the lesson. Introducing new language follows three main
steps:
- Presentation
– this is where you explain the new language. It’s important that you try
to elicit as much of the language as possible.
- Practice
– This is where the language is “drilled” into the students. This step
contains teacher controlled drills.
- Follow-up
– This is where students now get to use the language they’ve just learnt
in a fun and interesting way. This activity should allow as much student
to student interaction as possible.
- In summary,
new language should:
- Be
introduced with a concept that the students will understand and without,
where possible, referring to the written word.
- Be
elicited from the students, where possible.
- Follow
a structured presentation method so that your students can follow where
you are going.
- Allow
for as much student to student interactivity as possible. Sure they
teacher takes centre stage when drilling the language, but when it comes
time for you follow-up activity your students should be in the driver’s seat.
- Fun
– Although not an actual “step” in your lesson plan, fun should be
incorporated in as much of the lesson as possible. Here’s why:
- Your
students will show a greater willingness to learn if they are having fun.
- Your
students will be better behaved because they are not bored.
- Greater
participation leads to greater language retention, which makes you look
better!
- Better
word of mouth - the more fun your lessons are, the more likely word will
spread about how great a teacher you are!
There’s the core of you lesson plan. In the next section
we’ll take a look at some great tips to enhance your lessons.
