Teach English in Grande Prairie - TEFL Courses

Before building a house, a blueprint is needed. Likewise the teacher of a class needs a blueprint. Lesson planning is like the blue print which is used in building a house. According to Wikipedia, a lesson plan is a teacher's detailed description of the course of instruction for one class. Using a lesson plan teachers can accomplish their roles as a teacher for their students. A lesson plan should include three things: an objective, a procedure and an evaluation. First, the objective: This is very important in learning. We know that learning occurs when people take newfound information and incorporate it into their life. From an educator’s perspective, learning can be defined as a change of behavior. A change should be result after the learning process. Change should be the outcome of learning and the objective of learning as well. The objective is what the teacher wants their students to act on as a result of the lesson. Second, in order to accomplish the learning objective, the teacher should make a simple procedure to achieve the learning objective. This procedure includes three phases: Engage, Study, and Activate. In the Engage phase, the teachers try to arouse the students’ interest by involving their emotions. The usage of the first five minutes of class is crucial for the rest of the lesson plan. The teachers can announce to the students what the teachers want to do and what the teachers want the students to do during the first five minutes of the class. The point of the Study phase is on the teaching sequence where the students are asked to focus in on language or information and how it is constructed. The range varies from macro studying (a transcript for spoken style) to micro studying (specific verb tense). In the Activate phase, the students use the language as freely and communicatively as possible. The focus is not on construction, or practicing specific bits of language, it is for the students to use all and any language appropriate for a given situation. Finally, the objective of the class can be evaluated by the self-assessment. Generally lesson plans do not have a self-assessment phase. Self-evaluation is a very important part of every lesson even though it typically takes place after the lesson is over. It requires the teachers to think back on the lesson and consider the answers to questions. Self-evaluation is a powerful tool that will help teachers become better teachers. Reflecting on and evaluating their teaching after a lesson is over will give them insights that may save them lots of trouble later. A good lesson plan requires extra time to prepare. Sometimes the lesson plan work is not worth the effort required (for a really simple or short lesson). Sometimes teachers also cannot work or teach independently if they are too dependent on a lesson plan. But even with such disadvantages, lesson planning stimulates the teacher to think in an organized manner and helps the teacher to understand the lesson’s objectives properly. Citation 1. Anna Loseva, How important is lesson planning? http://itdi.pro/blog/2012/05/28/how-important-is-lesson-planning-anna-loseva 2. Steve Herder, How important is lesson planning? http://itdi.pro/blog/2012/05/28/how-important-is-lesson-planning-steven-herder/ 3. Wikipedia, Lesson Plan, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lesson_plan 4. Basic Instructor Training, Lesson Plan, http://www.tlcsem.com/blessonplan.htm 5. Harry and Rosemary Wong, Effective Teaching, http://teachers.net/gazette/NOV00/wong.html 6. ITTT, Learning Material(009).