GOTOCO

how to create lesson plans

unit 3 – how to createlesson plans

The aims of lesson plans

What questions need to be asked

How teachers use lesson plans

contents

unit 3how to use lesson plans

in this unit:

Learn how to create lesson plans and what questions to ask when doing so

Learn how to form a plan

Learn how to use your lesson plans

how to uselesson plans

For this third unit we will review the importance of lesson plans, how to create them as the teacher, the questions you should ask when doing so, and how the �nished product should look.

how to use lesson plans

Lesson plans are vital for all teachers,

even if they are informal plans.

It seems ideal to be able to think on your

feet, come up with new ideas at the spur

of the moment, but planning allows you to

think about where you are going to head

over the course of the next few days,

providing a chance to remind you what

you wanted to do.

A good lesson plan

needs to have logical

patterns.

It must connect

different activities in

the ESA fashion.

It should also help

integrate variety into

a lesson so as to

sustain learning and

the attention span of

the class.

A lesson plan can be as robust or as thinned out as you please. You are the teacher and you

might need to only write down the name of an activity you want to do, the corresponding page

number from the textbook, and notes for students.

On the other hand, you might need detailed paragraphs about what you want to teach.

The precise format you use is really up to you. There are teacher training courses which require

you to write out lesson plans in different formats. But no matter the format, you need three

components:

A written plan

detailing your

students (ages,

experience,

behavior, etc.…)

A plan detailing

what you want to

do (write a

narrative, read a

passage, etc.…)

A plan detailing how

the activities will take

place (the students

will work in pairs, the

teacher will play a

video and students

will listen, etc.…)

what are the aims of a lesson plan?

what should be included in a lesson plan?

Mrs. Shannon’s Lesson Plan

Day: Date:Class:Bell Ringer.

Standard:

Daily Outcome:

Topic:Chapter: Lesson: Page #sResources:

Purpose Strategy Procedure

Purpose Strategy Procedure

Purpose

RE

FLE

CTI

ON

SA

SS

ES

SA

FTE

RD

UR

ING

BE

FOR

EIN

FOR

MAT

ION

How will I measure if the outcome is met?

Strategy Procedure

T W T R L

sample lessonplan

what questions should teachers ask when creating a lesson plan?

As a teacher, you should ask eight

questions of each lesson

Who are the

students for this

activity? What is

their level of

understanding, their

background, their

age?

Why do you want

your students to

do this activity?

What will this plan

achieve? What will

students learn

from it?

How long will it

take?

What things could

go wrong?

What materials do

you need to do

the task?

How does it work? How will it fit into

the activities before

and after?

It is very important to plan classes effectively. Although

many of your Chinese students and their parents have

some idea that foreign teachers are more relaxed and

carefree than their usual teachers, they still expect a

level of professionalism. Planning classes ensures you

always know what you are doing in the classroom

and, just as importantly, look as if you know what you

are doing.

When you begin teaching there is often a moment in a

class where you finish an activity and suddenly your

brain is totally blank. You have forgotten the next part

and the students see it. You can easily avoid this by

casually glancing at the lesson plan you have in front of

you as the current activity comes to a close. By the

time it finishes and you have provided some feedback,

you can smoothly introduce the next activity.

Form

There is no ‘correct’ form for a lesson

plan. The most important thing is that the

plan is useful to you or anyone observing

you.

Sequence

The sequence of the plan is important too.

Some activities can be completed in one

day. Others must be completed over the

course of two weeks. If you are creating a

longer sequence of activities, remember

that a two week plan should be divided

into smaller lessons which can be done

each day, and of those smaller lessons

you want three or four miniature lessons

you can do during the class.

The detail of lesson plans depends on the content of the lesson. It may be a list

of vocabulary to review or just a few bullet points of activities or games that you

know well and need no more notes.

However sometimes a more detailed lesson plan can help you, particularly when

you have limited experience.

Lesson plans can sometimes be imperative for lessons on difficult grammar. Let’s

take a lesson on the present perfect as an example. As we will learn later, the

present perfect has a variety of uses that can be slightly confusing. When you are

teaching you must seem authoritative and knowledgeable about the language so

having the basic rules of the tense in a logical order can provide a reference

during the class. These can then be accompanied by ready-made examples of

usage in the form of sentences which are sometimes hard to think up on the

spot in a class.

This type of lesson plan works well with grammar that has patterns like

comparatives and superlatives where you have the pattern followed by examples:

Pattern

1. A [verb phrase] more/less than B

2. A [be] more [adj] than B

3. A [be][adj]+er than B

4. A [be] not as [adj] as B

5. A [be] the [adj.]+ est

6. A [be] the most [adj.]

Examples

1. Fred likes to eat more than Michael.

2. Books are more interesting than movies.

3. Cows are fatter than monkeys.

4. This building is not as tall as the bank.

5. Henry is the slowest.

6. That is the most dangerous thing I have done.

Using a simple plan like this with minimal preparation you will not get mixed up

with your sentences and examples as they are all pre-made.

Lesson plans help teachers to focus, especially if they lose their train of thought in the middle of class.

Formats for lesson plans tell you who you will be teaching, what they will learn, and how they are going to complete the lesson.

There are eight questions teachers should ask while planning any lesson plan.

Teachers should �nd a format for lesson plans which best �t their personal preference.

summary

worksheetunit 3

Explain the importance of a lesson plan.

Describe what should be in a lesson plan.

Explain what form lesson plans should take.

List the questions you should ask while creating a lesson plan.

Here is a simple plan for a children’s class of a fairly low level.

The title makes it clear it’s a review class so they have

probably learnt the content before and need to practise it

again and refresh the language they learnt before.

At the top there is the date, which helps you to remember

when the students did this and the class number refers to the

order of the classes which helps you organise your material

and know how many classes you have done.

Records can be kept of spelling test scores and/or homework

done. This is very useful to show parents how their children

are developing or how they have not done homework and are

not making progress.

The warm-up and main activities are laid out and with clear

examples of keywords or sentences. These kinds of notes

can be useful for planning the next class as you can see what

you have done already and if a student misses a class it is

easy to inform them of the content and the homework given

to the other students.

Of course, this plan does not detail exactly how the class

should be taken. There might be games or fun ways to carry

out the activities but the key information of what to do and in

what order is there. Often it is good to over-plan a little as

students sometimes have studied something before or find

some activities easier and need to move on faster. If you do

not use all your activities then you can do them in the next

lesson.

Always consider planning a variety of activities. Making

students write long passages can waste class time and

teacher contact time, but it does not mean you should not

do it in class. Try to plan a mixture of short writing activities,

mixed with the other skill areas: listening, reading and

speaking. Always cater to your students’ needs and try to

improve their weak areas. Variety makes the lesson more

interesting and keeps students (especially young ones)

engaged.

XX/XX/XXXX (Date)

Class #12

Names:

Homework done:

Spelling score:

First class back review

Review/warm-up: How are you? I’m fine/I’m ok

Main activity: Do you like________________? E.g. Do you like fish?

Yes, I do.

No I don’t, I like________________.

Review numbers 1-10 and play game (students line up in random order and must say

numbers out loud in order, mix up the line again and repeat).

Practise numbers and grammar: I want______(#) _______________(countable food) e.g

I want three hot dogs.

Review food vocabulary

Fruits

vegetables

hamburger

hot dog

cake

Practise ‘Th’ sound [θ] with the following words: think, thin, Thursday, throw, three.

Homework: 5 sentences: ‘I want _________(#) ______________ (countable food)

+Spellings: 1. ten 2. three 3. one 4. seven 5. eight

sample lesson plan for children’s class