Teach English in Dongguan Zhen - Rizhao Shi

Preparation and planning are the keys to any form of presentation whether it be for work, a conference or a classroom lesson. Why is it so important? Let us say that you are asked to give a presentation for work on the new policies and procedures that have been established for your office. Unless you are very well versed in what they are and can present them without any preparation it probably will only be a presentation where you are speaking to your co-workers with no visuals or handouts. This would not be a very effective way of communicating to your co-workers to help them remember and/or understand what you are trying to tell them. You need to prepare and plan for the presentation to make it something that people will enjoy (as much as finding out about policies and procedures can be enjoyed) but also learn from. When preparing and planning a presentation you need to know 1) what your topic is; 2) who you are presenting to and how many; 3) the length of time for the presentation; and 4) what resources will you have access to. Once this information has been attained then the presentation can start being planned. In keeping with the TESOL, Engage Study Activate method of planning, and continuing with the idea of presenting the new policies and procedures from above, you know what your topic is, who you are presenting to, your co-workers, and probably how many there are. You would be given the length of time you have, and you would probably already know what resources are available to you to use. Now you need to determine how you are going to present the new policies and procedures. Do you use a PowerPoint slide show? Handouts? Whiteboard? A combination of all? Will there be discussions? To make the presentation more exciting all of them should be used. You could start by eliciting what the group currently knows about the office policies and procedures, writing down what has been said. From there the handouts can be given, the people put into groups to discuss what is in the handouts and have them write down any questions they may have. The presentation could end with the questions being asked and answered by the presenter. If a PowerPoint was created, it could be used at the end in conjunction with the question and answer session referring to the slides that help with explaining the question raised. The items written on the board would also be referred to as they come up. Preparing a lesson plan is really no different than preparing a presentation since a lesson plan is a form of presentation. Just like the steps above, 1) you need to know what you are going to be teaching for any given lesson; 2) who you are teaching, their age, language level and how many; 3) the length of time for the class; and 4) what resources you have available to you. If you know all this information, then an effective lesson plan can be generated. There are differences when comparing lesson plans with other presentations when it comes to timing. More often in lesson plans you will indicate the length of time you plan to use for each section of the lesson whereas in a presentation you do not. Also, in a lesson plan you break down each section into more specific tasks that will be done during the class than would be done for a presentation. In conclusion, whether preparing and planning for a presentation to your co-workers or preparing and planning a lesson plan the same steps are taken. The information needed for both, how you want to present/teach, what resources you will use, who you are presenting or teaching to, and length of time are key points needed to create the best possible lesson. One thing that also must be taken into account when preparing a presentation or lesson plan is flexibility. Sometimes the best plans can go astray so there must be the ability to adjust your lesson to meet the situation.