Lesson Planning

Summary of TBP 10 – How to Plan a Lesson:

Evaluation:
Evaluation can be done in many different ways, and it is really just the process
of determining if the students understand what has been taught. We can test
this with tasks, and it is not intended that you will need to prepare tests, exams
and so on. Most companies, especially online, won’t require you to evaluate,
and if they do, they will provide the means to evaluate the students.

The most important thing here is to evaluate, for yourself so that you know
whether or not you are doing a good job or if you need to adjust the materials.

Extra-Class Work:
Extra class work should be a short task that is relevant to what was learned in
class. For younger learners, they could listen to a song and for older, you could
have them read an interesting article. Extra class work is not always necessary.

Extra class work will apply more to those who go abroad.

GUIDELINES FOR LESSON PLANNING:

How to begin planning:
• GOAL: Determine the topic and purpose of the lesson – This is your goal
and helps you identify what you want the students to be able to do by the
end of the lesson.

• Write out your terminal objective = what you want them to be able to do at
the end of the lesson.

• You don’t have to do every single exercise provided by the school. You
could put more emphasis on one or two and make them more fun or more
detailed, depending on the age group. As long as you follow the work that
needs to be taught, you can adjust the tasks and activities however you
like.

Scripts that cover:

We will write down notes that tell us, in short, what we want to do and how we
want to do it for each section of the lesson.

• It is useful when new teachers partially script the lesson in form of

statements and rules of generalization.

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Variety, Sequencing, Pacing & Timing:
a. Variety: How can we add variety to our lessons? Let’s say we are speaking
about pets. Instead of just showing them pictures of animals, we could
show them pictures of our pets and talk about it. We could show them a
funny video on the internet. We could then play a game. You could ask the
Ss to bring a pic of their pet (if they are regular Ss).

All we are doing here is reiterating the same information in different ways.

b. Sequencing: We can’t give students a task to do or a worksheet to

complete if we haven’t yet taught the work. We need to conduct our
lessons in an order that makes sense. We need to engage the students and
teach them the work before we can move on to letting them put it to
practice.

Sequenced logically means that your techniques and activities are in a

natural progression.

c. Pace: Don’t jump from one activity to the next just as they were getting the
hang of it or bounce between activates. Make sure you are keeping a good
pace throughout the various tasks. The activities should flow together. Vary
your tasks and transition from one to the next in an understandable
manner. Pace according to understanding. Some students may grasp the
work straight away while others haven’t. Be flexible with your pace
according to the Ss needs.

d. Timing: Your lessons won’t necessarily be an hour. For example, with online,
many companies have class for 25 – 30 min. Whatever the timeframe, you
need to ensure that you have planned your tasks and work according to
the amount of time you have, as we saw in the example lesson plan that
we have in our manuals. It is important that we provide enough time for
genuine interaction and creative use of the language.

Engage, Study, Activate

Engage: We want to engage them with pictures, a class discussion, a video or
something fun and interesting that is relevant to our topic and age group. Look
at a picture and talk about it. Get them interested. If they see that we are
putting in effort and acknowledging their interests, they are more likely to
engage in the class.

Ss read a headline and predict what the text is all about. Ss listen to music and
say what they believe is happening.

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Study: We introduce the new material, such as sentence structure, new
grammar or the new vocabulary. We can have the students fill out a worksheet
to ensure understanding before moving on to activating the new material.

Study activities could be:

Students determine the meaning of new words by reading a text.
Students organize individual sentence strips to reflect the story after they
listened to it.
Students complete a gap-fill activity with words from a word bank.

If you were teaching the Present Perfect Tense, as an activate, you could
have the students talk about what they have done so far today.

Students read a text and determine the headline.

Activate: Here we activate their new knowledge. Students will complete an

activity alone, in pairs or in groups to practice the new work.

E.g. To have students write a different ending to a story would be an activate.

For the young students, the story would be very simple.

Students have a debate, is another example.

Extra Notes:
Procedures include:
an opening statement.
teacher talk.
a closure statement.

For the most part, a lesson plan will aim at the majority of students in the
class who compose the “average” ability range. What is a desired lesson
plan design to accommodate those who are well below or above the
classroom norm?

• Try to design techniques that involve all students actively.

• Solicit responses to easier items from students who are below the
norm and to harder items from those above the norm.
• Use small-group and pair work time to circulate and give extra
attention to those below or above the norm.

Explicit objective statements help the teacher to:

• Evaluate students’ success at the end of, or after, the lesson.

• Preserve the unity of his/her lesson.
• Build rapport with the students.
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 Learner factors to consider when planning a lesson:

Education, occupation, and age.

To determine whether your lesson objectives have been accomplished:

Evaluation can take place right in the class after the students had sufficient
opportunities for learning.

What can you do if you planned your lesson so tightly that you actually
finish your class early?

Have some backup activity ready to insert.

What is the best way of ending your class if you are running out of time?

If your lesson isn’t completed as planned, be ready to gracefully end the class
on time and, on the next day, pick up where you left off.

Three things to consider when writing a lesson plan:

Objectives, timing, extra activity.

The term “lesson” within planning is considered to be

a unified set of activities that cover a period of classroom time.

Good Pacing:
Various techniques “flow” well together.
Activities are neither too long nor too short.
Good transitions from one activity to the next.

Practical constraint of institutions:

Budget, classroom space, and equipment.

Specific Language needs of students could be:

Read English scientific tests.
Serve as a tour guide.
Survive minimally in an English-speaking country.

How to control teacher talking time:

As you plan your lesson, and as you perhaps script out some aspects of it,
you see to it that students have a chance to talk, to produce language, and
even to initiate their own topics and ideas.

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 If your institution cannot give you a curriculum, it means that
the school expects you to write your own curriculum by paying attention to
learner and institutional factors.

Activate example: Students have a debate

Study example: Students read a text and determine the headline.