Phase 5 Lesson Plan

Objectives

 To understand the importance of planning a lesson for effective learning.

 To take into consideration all the factors that impact learning.

 To evaluate and use appropriate learning materials.

 To manage time efficiently for the purpose of successful lesson delivery.

 To execute a planned lesson.

The Current Phase:

Lesson planning for some teachers is the most tedious part of teaching. However, experienced

teachers are of the opinion that the more detailed a plan is the smoother the delivery of that

plan. In this Phase the important parts of a lesson and how to write effective lesson plans are

dealt with.

A good lesson requires good planning. Your lesson plans ensure that several things happen in

your lesson:

Six of the strongest reasons as to why you should create an ESL lesson plan to make your

classes a success.

 You have a definite language point to teach. Your lesson plan should be based around a

single language point.

 What games and activities you are going to use? Certain activities work for some

language points, but not others. Make sure your games are also age/level appropriate.

 Your ESL lesson should have a purpose, it should keep building. Your students will be

lost if your lesson jumps from here to there as they won't be able to follow where you

are going.
  A lesson plan acts as a warning against possible difficulties in teaching the new

language, such as pronunciation. Because you have your lesson plan, you can allocate

extra time or find great activities that help to overcome the problem.

 Lesson plans will save you time because you will be likely to teach the same lesson more

than once and therefore, you can use your lesson plan over and over again.

 Using the lesson plans generally means that you are following the same pattern for all

your lessons. This helps to let your students know what's coming next, so they can focus

more on learning and not on what is going to happen next.

What to include in a successful lesson plan

Ok, so, you’ve decided that creating a lesson plan for your classes is a good idea. Now what? A

lesson plan can include just about anything - it basically tells you what to teach and how to do

it!

Following three steps are mandatory:

 Objective: What to achieve

 Aids: To facilitate teaching. For example: flashcards, worksheets, songs,

poems and black board are a few aids that are effective.

 Time: The time frame has to be kept in mind while doing any activity.

Also the above three steps are pointless without the four essential elements that are never left

out of a good lesson plan:

 A warm-up activity

 New language

 Review

 And having fun!

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 their classmates.

 Gain confidence

 Get a feel of how the rest of the class will be.

New Language - This is what your lesson plan is based around and will take up the majority of

the lesson. Introducing a new language follows three main steps:

 Introduction - 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 through

repetition. This step contains teacher controlled drills.

 Application - This is where students now get to use the language they’ve just

learned in a fun and interesting way. This activity should allow as much student to

student interaction as possible.

In summary, a 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 interaction as possible.

Essentially, it should be:

 Fun

 Short (Roughly 5-10 minutes, depending on how long your lesson is.)

 As student oriented as possible, i.e. the teacher should have minimal involvement.

 In your follow-up activity the students should be in the driver’s seat.

Fun - Although not an actual ‚step‛ in your lesson plan, fun should be incorporated as much in

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!

These are the core of your lesson plan. In the next section we’ll take a look at some great tips to

enhance your lessons.

We can divide lesson planning into three stages:

 Long term - for the whole term.

 Short term - for a unit of work.

 One class - for individual lesson.

Long term planning:

 The planning begins either at the beginning or the end of the term.

 The contents or the text can be changed or the order can be altered if needed.
  The activities, topics, subjects taught should be common to all teachers.

 Materials to be used can also be planned and prepared.

Sample of a Long term lesson plan without a textbook:

Age 3-6 years

Term 1

Months Topics to be covered

January My school, My friend,

February My Teacher, My
calendar, My birthday

March The body Food, Clothes

Short term planning:

 Short term planning may be a plan for one week, one unit or one topic.

 Decide what language item you are going to teach and how you are going to teach.

 Evaluation is a part of teaching, so write an evaluation into your plan at this stage.

 Remember the plan is a rough guide to show where you are going and what you hope to

cover.

Week, 4 weeks
 Level Beginners

Language Topic Cartoon Characters

Language Structure Favorite phrases with the characters.

The method and Aids used Audio Visual Clips, comic strips

Activities One act play, pair interview with the superhero

Remarks Comments on whether objectives were met. If not, then state the
reasons.

Sample of a short term lesson plan:

Age 10 to 12 years

Taking your lessons to the next level.

In this section we’ll take a look at ways that you can improve your basic lesson plan. These tips

can help your good lessons become great lessons! These tips, by themselves, cannot make a

lesson plan. You should always use the steps outlined in the previous section to build the

foundation of your lesson plan, these tips are like the sizzle to the sausage!

There are several considerations to take into account when developing your lesson content.

Here are the main things that you should consider:

 Age - How old are your students? Are your activities appropriate for the age that you

are teaching?

 Ability/level - What do your students already know? Are you building a foundation of

knowledge or just teaching a bit from here and there?

there? How big is the classroom? Can you take the students outside if need be?

 Sensitive topics - Be aware that as it is most likely that you will be teaching students

from a different culture than your own, they may have different values and beliefs.

To build a lesson plan, we need to know about lesson framework.

Lesson Frameworks

Lesson frameworks are lesson sequences that can be built on and modified as appropriate for

different classes. They are a sequence of behaviors and choreographies that work as a stand-

alone lesson, although they are not intended as a prescription. They are intended to meet the

following criteria:

 The language presented in contexts meaningful to the students,

 Modeling from controlled practice to more communicative practice activity,

 Variation in the modeling and practice activity,

 Remodeling target language in different modes - spoken dialogues, listening,

reading,

 Building on core materials - i.e. minimal vocabulary initially, expanded as the lesson

progresses,

 Maximizing student to student interaction,

 Modeling language first as audio input and then as a reading,

 Integrated skills development - listening, speaking, reading & writing,

 Grammar in context has focused upon form, or highlighting grammatical features.

texts. They are a suggestion, but a suggestion inviting modification and adaptation to meet the

needs of the teacher, the students and the curriculum in any given situation.

To some extent, lesson frameworks plus the lesson contexts found in this book are an

alternative to a textbook. It would be possible for the teacher, and possibly the students, to

construct their own text choosing the contexts and frameworks that best suited their purposes.

This not a novel idea, and might provide a feasible alternative for classes who find commercial

texts difficult to adapt to their needs.

The frameworks are presented as a minimal lesson plan that includes a column for the ‚target

language,‛ and a column for ‚process.

Language Process

This column will define the target The process will be a brief sequence of
language either as written or as a steps for teaching the target language.
reference to a page in a text. Obviously, These are suggested steps and might be
the target language is a ‘sample’ to make varied or modified according to the
the lesson sequence and process clear. teacher’s and the students’ needs.
The teacher must substitute the
appropriate language for their students

Few examples of effective aids that one can use in a lesson plan are:

 Games

 Worksheets

Why use games? Besides being fun, why is it a good idea to use games?

 They provide a lot of language, repetition.

However, not all games are good for all classes, when choosing games you should consider:

 Age/level appropriateness - Will the students be able to understand the game and even

enjoy it?

 Safety - Don’t risk your student’s safety for the sake of a fun lesson.

 Number of students - Some games only work with a certain number of students.

Why should you use worksheets in the classroom?

 Worksheets help to consolidate learning as well as providing an opportunity for student

to student interaction.

 They can also help you to gauge how well a student is doing as you never know what

kind of ‚help‛ they’ve received at home with their homework.

Does it flow?

 The whole point of a lesson plan is that at any point in your lesson you can quickly

glance at where you’re up to and know what’s coming up next. If you can’t make sense

of it, then you’ve wasted your time on a worthless lesson plan and possibly the student’s

time by planning a poor lesson.

 Lesson plans take the guess work out of calculating the length of your lessons. This

allows you to include as much of the content as you had intended.

A day at the beach

be able to use vocabulary associated with the beach in simple sentences Aids : Song , Flash

cards , Sea shells , role play .

Lesson 1: Introduction to the beach

Vocabulary Taught: wave, ocean, sand, sand castle, sea-shell, beach

Phonics taught: s-a-n-d, s-h-e-l-ls, c-r-a-b-s, w-a-v-e-s, b-e-a-c-h-

Aids: Flashcards, sea shells (if available), paint (if you are going to use the ‚Sea Shells‛

activity), ‚Ice-cream song‛ if desired, paper for drawing your family at the beach.

Time: About an hour, depending on class size.

Activity: Paint Sea Shells or Draw your family at the beach with family members

Possible sentence structures for this lesson:

1. What is it? It’s a sea shell.

Warmer: Ice-cream song/any song related to the beach

Duration : 5minutes

Objective : will be able to identify the context

Introduction: 10 minutes

Objective : will show recognition of newly acquired vocabulary

Procedure :

 Use a big picture of a beach and introduce and drill the new vocabulary.

 Get the students to draw each part of the beach according to the words pointed out

by the teacher.

 Get the students to hold up their pictures and encourage them to say two sentences

about it.
 Follow up activity: 20 minutes.

 Today’s activity: Painting Sea shells or sketching your family at the beach.

If you have sea shells, or you can get them easily, children usually enjoy painting

sea shells. It gives them something that they can touch and take home at the end of

the day.

 If you don’t have any sea shells then get your students to draw a picture of

themselves, their friends and their family at the beach.

Phonics: 5 minutes s-a-n-d: Drill phonic values.

Fun activity: 5-7 minutes Themes – give the students a theme and play The animal

theme always works well

Teacher:

Lesson no.

Duration:

Level:

No. of students:

Date:

Topic: Context

Final Objective: What will they be able to do at the end…………. How……..and about

what.

Qualifying Objectives: What will they be able to do during or at the end of each stage of

the lesson?

1.

2.
3…..

Aids or materials used:

Vocabulary taught:

Time Taken Teachers’ Activity Students’ Activity Anticipated

Difficulties