The Best Thing I learned on The TEFL Course: Strategical Lesson Planning

In this summative task, I'll describe the best thing I've learned from my TEFL/TESOL course. Firstly I would like to state that the lesson planning learning was the best part of this course for me. For this task, I will include the methods of planning that I have learned about in this course such as materials, songs and movement, and also a short lesson plan I have come up with myself.

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

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Key Benefits of Lesson Planning

The best part throughout this course I have learned how important lesson planning can be and how being organized and prepared for a lesson is. Disorganization can cause multiple problems in class such as behavioral issues. This part of lesson planning I've learned are potential issues for teacher and students, such as refusals to participate in class, an overly noisy classroom or a particularly destructive students which may present a problem for the teacher, whereas shyness and embarrassment to speak out loud or in front of classmates may be problematic for the students. I've also learned about the most widely used methods of teaching and teaching English as a foreign language. These include the ESA (engage, study activate method and how it's essential for learning, also I've learned about the boomerang (engage, activate, study activate) method and the patchwork method (engage 1, activate 1, study, activate 2, engage 2, and activate 3. I've been given various details as to how I would provide materials such as songs, games, and worksheets for all different ages.

Also Read: How and When Should a TEFL Teacher Adjust Their Teaching Style?

Teaching Strategies Best for Young Learners

If I were to teach a class of young learners aged Five to nine I would first start with an engaging activity with a song about food. Such as 'do you like broccoli' It would entail encouraging students to sing and dance and use gestures. Following this, I would put on a short film, like ratatouille, in the first 15 to 20 minutes of this movie it shows various foods items that may be useful for adding to the classes vocabulary.

Following the engage phase comes The study phase. Here I would give the children a worksheet listing the new food names they learned about from the song and film. This worksheet would also have a matching certain food items with food pictures and letters.

Also Read: What is an ESL teacher?

After the study phase comes to The activity phase here I would go around to each child individually so they can tell to the class their favorite foods and their least favorite foods, while acting out hunger movements and gestures. While also discussing the new foods and how they feel about them. I would consider this a good method in introducing new foods of the foreign language to the students. It includes each stage of the lesson plan. I have also learned about objectives to the lesson plan and how to reach that goal. In my plans case. the objective would be to add as much food vocabulary as possible. Another part of lesson planning I've learned is potential issues for teacher and students, such as refusals to participate in class or shyness and embarrassment to speak.

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