TEFL Belle Glade Florida

Lesson Planning (41). Throughout the course I have found the process of lesson planning, though tricky at times, has also been quite a satisfying one. I have enjoyed the challenge of creating interesting and coherent lessons for the different units and have done my best to be inventive and innovative with my ideas, as I know this will be required for promoting motivation within myself and my students when I actually start teaching. I have also found that by going through the process of creating detailed lesson plans on at times difficult subjects, I have grown a little more confident about actually delivering a real lesson. Finding that you can overcome difficulties and understand topics when planning lessons has certainly helped my confidence within the sphere of efl teaching and I'm sure it would help me be more confident within my actual lessons. Therefore I would certainly agree with people who believe lesson planning to be a fairly important practice within efl teaching, especially for inexperienced teachers. I can also see the value of lesson plans as an aid to planning. I believe, as is stated in Unit 9 of the course, that creating a lesson plan can help you to think logically through the goals of a lesson and the way in which you want to achieve those goals with a high level of direction and clarity. I would also agree that as an inexperienced teacher I feel I would struggle without one. I believe I would find that having something present to work from and refer to would definitely help me in lessons, but as is also mentioned in Unit 9, I can see how a teacher has to be flexible and prepared within their lesson planning in case certain activities are finished more quickly or slowly than expected, or if students are getting particular value or enjoyment from a certain activity. Online I have found many different ideas for activities in the classroom and different ways of setting out lesson plans, the variety is truly mind boggling. I have been told by several efl teachers whom I know already, that these can be very useful and it is a good idea to explore them, however I have also been told that I will very soon realise which activities work with different groups of different abilities and different ages and that I will soon develop my own personally favoured activities and my own style of lesson planning, sometimes more brief outlines of a lesson, sometimes more detailed, depending on the ability of the students and the subject matter being tackled. I think that methods such as the lesson evaluation form in Unit 9 will also help in this honing of lesson plan effectiveness that will inevitably happen when I begin to teach. I am also looking forward to exploring different course books and resource books to see how they set out progression of themes within multiple lessons and look forward to using these to shape my own lesson and course plans. I have also learned through other units of the course how important it is to include different learning skills such as productive and receptive skills and that varying the teaching of these skills is not only important for the good of the student, but will also keep things fresh and rounded within lesson planning. Overall I have enjoyed the process of lesson planning throughout the course and think that it will be a major feature within my early teaching career, to give me confidence, to give the students motivation and to make my lessons flexible while also keeping them on track. I hope that once I have honed my own lesson planning style that students will find my lessons exciting, fun, useful and stimulating.