The Importance of Lesson Planning
Why plan?
Lesson planning is a vital component of the teaching-learning
process. Proper classroom planning will keep teachers organized and on track
while teaching, thus allowing them to teach more, helps students reach
objectives more easily and manage less. The better prepared the teacher is, the
more likely she/he will be able to handle whatever unexpectedly happens in the
lesson.
Lesson planning:
- provides a coherent framework for
smooth efficient teaching.
- helps the teacher to be more
organized.
- gives a sense of direction in
relation to the syllabus.
- helps the teacher to be more
confident when delivering the lesson.
- provides a useful basis for
future planning.
- helps the teacher to plan lessons
which cater for different students.
- Is a proof that the teacher has
taken a considerable amount of effort in his/her teaching
Decisions
involved in planning lessons:
Planning is imagining the lesson before it happens. This
involves prediction, anticipation, sequencing, organizing and simplifying. When
teachers plan a lesson, they have to make different types of decisions which
are related to the following items:
- the
aims to be achieved;
- the
content to be taught;
- the
group to be taught: their background, previous knowledge, age, interests, etc.
- the
lessons in the book to be included or skipped;
- the
tasks to be presented;
- the
resources needed, etc.
The decisions and final results depend on the teaching
situation, the learners´ level, needs, interests and the teacher’s
understanding of how learners learn best, the time and resources available.
Lesson Plan
is What to teach (refer to group task in
session)
Objective(s)
Content &Skills
Resources
Assessment
Lesson Plan
is Lesson Procedures (how we are going to teach)
- Warm-up
- Core lesson: teaching new concept,
- Guided practice
- Independent Tasks
- Rounding off.
Hints for
effective lesson planning:
- When planning, think about your students and your teaching context first.
- Prepare more than you may need: It is advisable to have an easily presented, light “reserve” activity ready in case of extra time .Similarly, it is important to think in advance which component(s) of the lesson may be skipped. if you find yourself with too little time to do everything you have planned.
- Keep an eye on your time. Include timing in the plan itself. The smooth running of your lesson depends to some extent on proper timing.
- Think about transitions (from speaking to writing or from a slow task to a more active one).
- Include variety if things are not working the way you have planned.
- Pull the class together at the beginning and at the end.
- End your lessons on a positive note.
Planning enables you to think about
your teaching in a systematic way before you enter the classroom. The outcome
of your planning is a coherent framework which contains a logical sequence of
tasks to prepare the field for more effective teaching and learning.
Plans only express your intentions.
Plans are projects which need to be implemented in a real classroom with real
students. Many things may happen which you had not anticipated. In the end you
need to adapt your plans in order to respond to your pupils´ actual needs. It
is important to bear in mind Jim Scrivener’s words: Prepare thoroughly. But in class,
teach the learners not the plan.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
- Moon, J. (2005) Children Learning
English. Macmillan.
- Scrivener, J. (2011) Learning Teaching.
Macmillan
- Ur, P. (1996) A Course in Language
Teaching. Cambridge: CUP
