How Lesson Planning Helps at The Beginning of Your Teaching Career?
It is true that following a lesson plan may make the class rigid and lack flexibility. But for some inexperienced teachers, we may get panic when there are unexpected things arising in the class. By preparing a lesson plan, firstly we will have a thorough idea about what is going to happen so we can be mentally ready to some degree. Secondly, each step from the lesson plan has it a specific reason to exist to assist an inexperienced teacher to learn about how to manage the class.
This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Wu Z. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT.
1. Learning Objectives
Having a plan at hand with the learning objective listed clearly can help us keep on target during the class.
2. Materials needed and other teaching aids
With clear instructions about what we need to prepare beforehand, it’s easier for us to be well-organized. On the other hand, students will feel the teacher is trustworthy. And for some students, teachers are the role models whom they may follow. And nowadays, most schools have introduced different digital tools to the classroom. If we can make full use of them, classes can be more colorful, engaging, efficient and fun. So we should be curious and not hesitate to explore the new equipment once there are the basic instructions to follow.
Also Read: Comparative Teaching Methodologies
3. Assumed knowledge
This leads us to check the students’ knowledge background, thus we will walk into the classroom knowing clearly what language we can use to elicit, give out instructions and do concept checking and what we should focus on in the class. In return, the class will be more efficient.
4. Anticipated problems and solutions
As inexperienced teachers, we may rush through something that we assume students should know, whereas most of them actually don’t. Analyzing the target languages or words we are about to teach and standing in students’ shoes to prepare for the things that may go wrong are vital. Plus, having the solutions in mind before the class will help us stay calm and deal with the problems at ease.
5. Stages and procedures
Kicking off the class with a successful warmer which helps lessen the anxiety students may have because it’s a new environment and they are beginners, we can help students quickly build up the rapport and switch to speak English.
Follow the ESA patterns to design the class activities for target grammar points or vocabulary teaching and decide whether they should follow a direct arrow, a boomerang or patchwork when preparing. When there is a good mix of triggers and settlers, students will feel well engaged and in the meantime not too tired.
Also Read: Are there any age limits for TEFL teaching?
7.Timing
After figuring out the activities, we may also want to rehearse in our minds or really try them ourselves to see how much time each one of them will consume and add them up to see if they exceed the time span we have and whether one activity is dominating too much than it should be before we finalize them. Afterward, when it comes to the real teaching time, we’ll know clearly where we are at for each moment with every activity listed there plus the time allowing for each one.
8. Interaction patterns
A thoughtful teacher will also think about the interaction patterns they employ in the class. Having students to interact with different people in the class will get them to make friends and learn from each other while practicing English. These also require teachers to change the roles to fit into different activities.
Also Read: The Main Problems Young English Learners Face In China
Are you ready to teach English abroad?
Gradually, we can learn to adapt the lesson plan more according to students’ needs. All in all, beginning with a lesson plan will be of great significance for an inexperienced teacher to transform more smoothly and swiftly.
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