What Is a Lesson Plan?

What Is a Lesson Plan? by Melissa Kelly
Definition: A detailed description of the individual lessons that a teacher plans to teach on a given day. A lesson plan is developed by a teacher to guide instruction throughout the day. It is a method of planning and preparation. A lesson plan traditionally includes the name of the lesson, the date of the lesson, the objective the lesson focuses on, the materials that will be used, and a summary of all the activities that will be used. Lesson plans are a terrific set of guidelines for substitute teachers. * A lesson plan is a framework and a road map, which each teacher will create using an individual style. A good lesson plan is one that sees the “big picture” but includes detailed information for each activity. It's a good idea to organize your lesson plan as a unit plan. Each unit plan will cover a particular topic, and may be broken down into daily plans. An effective unit plan will include the following: * Objective(s) * While easy to ignore, identifying objectives from the beginning will vastly simplify instruction and assessment. * Activities * The meat of your lesson plan will be the various activities you use to teach students what you want them to learn. * Time estimates * Including a time estimate for each activity allows you to divide your unit plan into days and periods of time. * Required materials * Spend some time writing down exactly what materials you need for each activity so that you will be better prepared for your lesson. * Alternatives * It is always wise to plan ahead for absent students, especially if a large part of your plan is a simulation that can be hard to make up for those who miss it. * Assessments * Decide in the beginning how you are going to assess your students to help focus your instruction on what the students actually need to learn. * Unit plans are a good way of organizing your teaching. The beauty of putting together a unit plan is that you can go back and adjust activities as you get a better picture of the time needed for each day's lesson.

The essence of having a lesson plan: * It is a one step backward two steps forward approach. Although can be difficult to do and requires tones of effort to accomplish at first, it enables you to save much time in the coming years, since the lesson plans that you just made can be employed over and over again, but If updates is necessary do so though. * It allows you to manage your time, effort and resources efficiently. * It gives you a bird’s eye of view of things to be taught and learned everyday. * It provides the teacher many ways to keep the teaching process not monotonous and redundant. Keep in mind that the attention of your students and pupils is just equivalent to half of their age, and a lesson is the best way to keep the interests of students and pupils interests all throughout. * Since it is like a script in movies, lesson plans makes teaching mundane and easy. * It makes you organized whilst teaching. * You can able to determine when to insert icebreakers and interesting facts and lessons to keep your student and pupils glued to their lessons. * Variations in the activities are easily whipped out which will benefit your students. Bear in mind that you are dealing with a class that has multiple intelligence, and different activities will cater to all types of students and pupils. * Lesson plans will easily help you to achieve your goals and objectives, and same can be said on the part of your students or pupils. * Lesson plans helps you get rid of problems or avoid them. * It gives you a reality check of your everyday performance. * It improves the habit and attitude of your students or pupils. * It definitely improves your teaching skills.
Lesson plans is vital in teaching, it gives you the guide you need to pull through. Bear in mind that teaching is a difficult since you are dealing with children or teenagers with raw skills, knowledge, and wisdom. Finally, with lesson plans you will be able to impart the things they need to do the best of your abilities.
Standard Lesson Plan Format
Warm-up
* Students might arrive late, tired, stressed or otherwise distracted to class. In order to get their attention, it's best to open with a warm-up activity. The warm-up can be as simple as telling a short story or asking students questions. The warm-up can also be a more thought-out activity such as playing a song in the background, or drawing an elaborate picture on the board. While it's fine to start a lesson with a simple "How are you", it's much better to tie your warm-up into the theme of the lesson.

Presentation * The presentation can take a variety of forms: * Reading selection * Soliciting students' knowledge about a specific point * Teacher centered explanation * Listening selection * Short video * Student presentation
The presentation should include the main "meat" of the lesson. For example: If you are working on phrasal verbs, make the presentation by providing a short reading extract peppered with phrasal verbs.
Controlled practice * The controlled practice section of the lesson provides students direct feedback on their comprehension of the task at hand. Generally, controlled practice involves some type of exercise. Remember that an exercise doesn't necessarily mean dry, rote exercises, although these can be used as well. Controlled practice should help the student focus on the main task and provide them with feedback - either by the teacher or other students.
Free practice * Free practice integrates the focus structure / vocabulary / functional language into students' overall language use. Free practice exercises often encourage students to use the target language structures in: * Small group discussions * Written work (paragraphs and essays) * Longer listening comprehension practice * Games
The most important aspect of free practice is that students should be encouraged to integrate language learned into larger structures. This requires more of a "stand-off" approach to teaching. It's often useful to circulate around the room and take notes on common mistakes. In other words, students should be allowed to make more mistakes during this part of the lesson.
Feedback
* Feedback allows students to check their understanding of the lesson's topic. Feedback can be done quickly at the end of class by asking students questions about the target structures. Another approach is to have students discuss the target structures in small groups, once again giving students the chance to improve their understanding on their own.