1. Lesson Planning

Sometimes, we as new teachers may not consider lesson planning important, but the reality is that lesson planning is very important for us to have a successful learning from students. We always make planes; for example, we plan when shopping, organizing a presentation, making trips and so on to have everything in control, so we do not have to forget that planning a lesson is useful to have control in the classroom even if we do not want to do make plans. At the begging, it is hard, but we can learn to plan a class little by little.

What is lesson plan?

Lesson plan is a specific and detailed step-by-step guide that helps teachers to outline different objectives and goals that must be reach by students during the course of a lesson, and it helps to have ways about how students will learn. In short words, lesson plan is a guide that teachers have to run a lesson. Lesson plan is a good tool for teachers to set objectives, to organize time, to have activities such as warn-ups and wrap-ups, to plan the materials, to set different techniques, and so forth. We can find many lesson planning format, but the most common lesson plans have the following parts.

The general data

In this part, teachers have to write general things such as names of teachers, the name of the subject, the lesson tittle, the date, the topic, the name of the school, the unit, materials that going to be used, and so on.

Objectives or expectations

The next part is the objectives and expectations. Here, teachers need to write or set what students are going to reach; also, it tells what students are going to learn. An example of objectives may be that students will be able to use present simple correctly at the end of the lesson, or students will be able to use new vocabulary from the topic professions.

Segment or teaching strategies

In this part, teachers can plan the strategies or the ways for teaching a lesson. This part includes the following aspects.

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Warn up activity: It is the one that is done at the begging of a class to review a topic.

Introduction: They are the groups of activities that introduce a new topic.

The presentation: It is what teachers bring to the students, for example, the topic, structures, uses of a tense, and so on.

The practice: This part is the one that help students to put into practice what they have learned.

The evaluation: It is similar to the practice, but this part can have evaluated activities.

The application: This part helps students to put into practice what they have learned, and it can be in real situations.

The reflection and the wrap-up: Those are activities that go at the end of a lesson, and they help teachers to see if students have understood a topic.

Why should we use lesson planning?

As it is mentioned before, it hard to plan a lesson especially for new teachers. Sometimes, teacher cannot perform a good lesson plan because it can brings some problems. For example, teachers spend much time planning and finding the correct activities for their students; also, new teachers can have a lack of knowledge regarding to lesson planning. Some others do not do it because they do not want to do it. The ones that do not plan like to improvise. Improvising can function at some point, but it is not good option to keep in mind because the class can be a disaster, and teacher cannot find what to do. The ones who improvise have experience in teaching; that is why it can function for them. Therefore, it is better to use a lesson plan because it brings many advantages and benefits. According to my private tutor, a web page, we should use a lesson plan for the following reasons.

1-    Help to evaluate lesson: if teachers use a lesson plan, they can see when the activities are useful or not. They can notice how to run a class successfully, and they can set the correct procedures and how useful are.

2-    Bring confidence: when teachers plan, they know what to do in their class, and they can walk and speak without nervous and without afraid of making mistakes. Teachers have a control on the activities and the students, and they know how they are going to perform the activities.

3-    Stimulate student’s interest: students notice when teachers are not prepared for the class, and they notice when they are improvising. It can be a problem because students lose interest in the class. They may say that the teachers is not prepared, so they can start to talk and not pay attention. Sometimes, students get bored with the same activities, so lesson planning may help teachers to perform new activities.

4-    Makes the objectives clear to the teachers: with that in mind, lesson planning helps to see the necessities of students, so teachers set clear objectives for them to reach. Also, it helps teachers if students have learned.

5-    Provides guidance to substitute teachers: this is an important key because teachers cannot attend classes, so the institution hire another teacher to cover this absence. The new teacher can see the lesson plan that the  another coworker has prepared and be ready to teach the students.

In conclusion, lesson planning is a strong tool for  teachers because they bring many benefits and help to have an easier job when teaching. Teachers know what to do and how to do the activities.

  

Some ideas were taken from:
https://www.myprivatetutor.ae/blog/advantages-of-a-lesson-plan-for-teachers
https://www.teacher.org/lesson-plans/
https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-a-lesson-plan-2081359