The importance of lesson planning and preparation

Making sure that you are well-prepared greatly increases the chances that a lesson will be successful. Although in some teaching situations you will need to produce a formal plan, effective planning essentially involves thinking through the lesson before you teach it. Most experienced teachers still create some kind of lesson overview before they teach a class.

a) Lesson overview

Identifying objectives

When you plan a lesson, the first step is to think about the objectives. What are your goals for this lesson? It’s usually a good idea to state your goals in terms of what the students will have achieved by the end of the lesson. (‘By the end of the lesson, students will have…’) This can help teachers to prioritize learning rather than teaching.

Focusing on the learners

Once you have your lesson objectives in mind, think about your learners. What level are they? How old are they? How many students are there in the group? What are their strengths and weaknesses? What kind of activities do they enjoy?

Assumptions

If the lesson involves teaching vocabulary, like this one, consider whether the language you will be teaching is completely new to students – or whether it is likely to be familiar already. If you want to make sure that you are planning for the right level of challenge, this question is vital. Effective teachers don’t always write their ‘assumptions’ on their lesson plans, but they always keep them in mind.

If the target language is new…

If the language is completely new, think about what the students need to know about it. All students will need to know what a new item of vocabulary means and how to pronounce it, but with older children and higher levels, you can start focusing on language in more depth. Flashcards are often a good way to convey the meaning of simple vocabulary items, while modelling and drilling new vocabulary helps students to pronounce the words correctly.

If the students have seen it before…

If you think the students are fairly familiar with the vocabulary, it’s a good idea to ‘test’ their previous knowledge rather than simply presenting all the items one at a time in a teacher-centered presentation. If you want to test your students’ knowledge of the ‘fruit’ vocabulary, a quick, easy and student-centred way to do this would be to simply write the words down one side of the board and stick the flashcards up like this:

Match the words to the pictures
bananas   apples   strawberries   oranges   grapes   pears	1. picture of apples   2. picture of grapes   3. picture of pears   4. picture of bananas   5. picture of oranges   6. picture of strawberries

Then in pairs, students could ask and answer ‘What’s number ______?’ ‘Strawberries’ while you listen and gauge how much of the vocabulary they know.

Materials

Making a checklist of the materials you will need is a good way to ensure that you have everything ready.

Once you have thought through all of this, you can start planning the procedure!

b) Lesson procedure

Consider the length of the lesson. Whether it’s a 30-minute lesson or a 60-minute lesson, it’s important to achieve a balance between ‘teaching language’ and ‘practicing language’. Make sure that students have plenty of opportunities to use the target language. Plan the procedure in logical stages so that the steps of the lesson unfold smoothly. Check that the timing is appropriate for each stage. Make sure that teacher-centred stages don’t go on for too long – or the pace of the lesson will be very slow.

Vary the interaction patterns

Check the ‘interaction’ column to make sure that you have a good variety of teacher-student (T-S), student-teacher (S-T) and student-student (S-S) interaction. If you find that teacher-student interaction dominates for long periods of the lesson, you need to change your plan!

How much detail do you need?

New teachers often benefit from ‘scripting’ or writing out what they plan to say – their ‘teacher language’. This makes it easier for teachers to simplify their language so that it’s easier for students to understand what they are saying. This is particularly true when planning how to set up activities with younger learners or lower level students. Plan how to demonstrate tasks and check your instructions to help ensure that tasks get underway smoothly.