Teach English in Hongjun Zhen - Ankang Shi

What I have learned when planning lessons is the importance of writing a lesson plan. These are the functions that are associated with it which are it creating a record of what the lass has covered, so you can recap the work with the students to check how much understanding they have gained from the lesson. Another function is it helping with the entire planning process that meaning; for example, in your lesson plan you want to indicate the teacher, observer, date, time, class level, room number, expected number of students, language point, teaching aids, learner objectives, personal aims, anticipated problems for students, anticipated problems for teacher with solutions, a procedure, timing, and interaction for the engage phase, study phase, and activate phase activities. These things are to help prepare your lesson plan and be ready to execute this in the classroom. Another function is that this acts as a document to refer to during the lesson. Another thing I learned is the basics of lesson planning which are keeping things clear and simple in the lesson, making it flexible so that I can adapt to the students' needs, and making sure there is a good mix of skills throughout the lesson. Another thing that I have learned when planning lessons is how to run a nice flowing lesson. The way you go about this is checking to ensure that all equipment is working properly, having the lesson plan ready, and being ready to discuss to the students as they arrive in the class. In the lesson plan, what I have learned about the learner's objectives is that as the teacher it’s what you are hoping the students are able to accomplish by the end of the lesson. Another thing I learned about lesson planning is what activities I could do with students in the classroom in the study phase, engage phase, and activate phase. Activities for the engage phase could be games, music, interesting pictures, and stories. For the study phase could be exercises, worksheets, or a practice and study of a single sound to an examination and practice of a verb tense. Also activities for the activate phase would be role-plays, communication games, debates, and story building. I have also learned things about these phases as well and their purposes in which the engage phase is where the teacher will try to arouse the students' interest and get them involved in the lesson. The reason why is if the students are involved and interested, they will find the lesson more fun which will reduce inhibitions and lead to a more conducive language learning environment. What I learned about the study phase is this is where students will focus on the language and how it is constructed, and this usually starts with elicitation. After the elicitation process exercises are given to students to check their understanding of the material. What I learned in the activate stage is this is where students are encouraged to use any or all of the language they know, and should be using the language as freely and communicatively as possible. The focus of the activate stage is on fluency as well with no language restrictions. Another thing I learned about lesson planning is being organized with your lesson plan. Ways I learned that you can do this is running through your lesson plan and making sure you have all the necessary materials and notes needed. Another way checking that all the equipment you need in the classroom works to present your lesson plan. Laying out materials and aids so that you can easily find them because you want to have everything in front of you so you're not taking up class time to find it when that's time for you to be teaching. Being ready to discuss the overview of the lesson with an enthusiastic attitude when the students come into the classroom because this will help break the ice with the students and get them in the mood to learn. In your lesson plan, I also learned that you should check for balance of skills, and try to make sure activities fit together to give the lesson a smooth flow. One thing that I noticed is being able to improve upon your lesson plan; so after you have taught for a certain amount of classes you should indicate the strengths and weaknesses of the lesson, effectiveness of the engage phases, study phases, and activate phases. You should also note other areas of improvement with your lesson plan. Another way you can improve on it is checking for feedback from students to see if they're really understanding the lesson and if they're not you should find ways to adjust. This explains the flexibility part of it because you may need to make changes to plans during lessons, and update and modify the aims. As outside information of your lesson plans, you should have goals of where your students of all your classes can realistically reach a certain language level or understanding of the material. I learned that as a teacher you always should have revision of your lesson plans meaning the lesson should be continually reviewed to ensure that students retain the information from the lesson. I also learned you want to have a variety and balance with your lesson plan making sure that all skills are included, and having a mix of activities in there to really engage the students to understanding the material which is what this is mainly about; writing an effective to lesson plan to make sure students are really learning the material and are progressing.