5 Components a Lesson Plan Should Include

A lesson plan is a very important element for teaching. Not only it provides a standard procedure of teaching, but it also helps the teacher keep track of each lesson. Moreover, it is also very helpful in some special cases, such as substitute teachers can use the lesson provided to carry out the lesson more efficiently. Although different teachers may have different teaching styles, a lesson plan should be prepared by all teachers despite the teaching style. A good lesson plan should include the following 5 components; lesson topic, class objectives, procedure, time management, and student practice.

This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Yang L. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT.

Topic and Point of the Lesson

Lesson topic or language point if teaching English as Second Language students is the first thing that should be on the lesson plan. It shows the main topic of what will be taught in class. Lesson topics should be short and clear; for example, “Use of past tenses.” This will be enough to show that this class is about teaching students to use past tenses. We can break it down more if the topic takes up to multiple classes to teach, for example, “Use of past tenses part 1.” The lesson topic comes first on the lesson plan because it helps the teacher to keep track of what to teach, especially if one teacher teaches multiple classes.

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Objectives

The class objective is the most important thing in the lesson plan. The objectives should be the focus of each lesson. It is what does the teacher wants the students to be able to do by the end of the lesson. Using the example above, in an English class that will be teaching about past tenses. The class objective can be as follow; “By the end of the lesson, students will be able to use past tenses to write simple sentences about what they have done yesterday.” Class objectives help ensure that teachers stay on the topic and cover the relevant material during the class and helps students to understand what they should be able to do by the end of the class.

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Lesson Sequence

The procedure is the step-by-step guide for the lesson. It should show the progress of the lesson. This means it tells what should be taught first and what should be taught second accordingly till the last activity of the lesson. Using the same topic as above with ESA methodology, a simple procedure may be as follow. First, get students to think in English about what they like to do. Second, ask students questions like what they ate yesterday. Third, filling the blank activity about student’s dinner yesterday. By looking at the procedure of the lesson plan, the teacher should be able to know what to do at each stage of the class.

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Time Management

Time management is very important in the lesson plan since teachers have limited time to cover the materials. The teacher must plan their class time carefully, so they don’t run out of time or finish the class too early. For example, a 50-minutes ESL class using ESA methodology can be arranged as follow. 10 minutes on the engage phase, 20 minutes on the study phase, and 20 minutes on the activate phase. It can be broken down into more if necessary.

Practice

Practices are mainly used to check if students understood the topic, and help students memorize what they have learned during the class. Teachers usually have practiced for students every class. So, it is important to put this on the lesson plan to gets carried out at the right time.

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A lesson plan helps teachers to carry out what they need to teach and be more efficient. There are many more things can be put on the lesson plan to fulfill the needs of each lesson. But lesson topic, class objectives, procedure, time management, and student practice are the five components that a good lesson plan always includes.

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