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UNIT 5
This unit presents the functions of a lesson plan, and guidelines on how to create one. Lesson planning is a useful tool for organizing lessons especially for teachers new to the classroom, as it serves as a guide in effectively delivering and learning the expected language points within a given time. The following are some vital reasons for lesson planning:
• It helps in organizing a lesson as it helps the teacher deliver teaching and learning objective in a target time frame.
• It serves as a prompt that helps to meet the target for a particular lesson objective.
• It also serves as a reminder of what topics or language points have already been covered.
• Although a lesson plan is designed to meet a certain unique objective, it still allows room for adjustment during lessons whenever the need arises.
Ultimately, a lesson plan should follow these basic principles:
• It must be simple to facilitate easy reference
• It must not follow the exact outline of the lesson ditto.
• It must follow a structure which must be maintained in subsequent plans
• It must indicate anticipated time for each activity.
• It must consolidate all activities to suit the lesson topic or language point to enhance comprehension
• It must make room for flexibility and adaptation
Essentially, there are several important components of a lesson plan:
Learner objectives; Teacher’s personal aims; language point; teaching materials; anticipated problems faced by both students and the teacher during the lesson; the procedure for achieving learner objectives; incorporating the ESA stages in the lesson; timing each activity of the lesson; factoring in the types of interaction i.e. Teacher – student or Student – Teacher; indicating date and time for the lesson and lastly, indicating the teacher’s name and that of Class Observers present.
A sample lesson depicting the language point, “consolidation of animal vocab from previous lesson to bring out new grammar” is presented. It features all the components mentioned above.
Additionally, guidelines are presented to enable planning of a sequence of lessons .i.e. flexibility, which makes room for changes to an already made lesson plan as the need arises during a lesson; setting goals in the form end-of-week tests, revision lessons and end of chapter tests; revision that entails review of already done lessons to ensure effective retention in students; variety and balance which involves incorporation of a good mix of activities; and maintaining the same trend in equal measure for every other lesson.
Finally, a self-evaluation form is introduced. It is to assist teachers in examining their work in relation to the students’ response, and whether the skills used have been effective in achieving the objectives for the lessons. The teacher does so by writing down observations in the course of the lesson. Self-evaluation is particularly useful because it helps the teacher to identify his/her strengths and weaknesses hence adjusting accordingly. This also helps improve student response and performance.
Overall, the whole unit is very instructive. I have learnt how to design a lesson plan, how to organize myself or prepare relevant materials before beginning a lesson, how to include sequence of lesson plans during my lessons. I have also learnt the importance of self-evaluation to a teacher.
