What Should an Effective Lesson Plan Include?

Over the last few years, Teaching English in a foreign country has become very popular for the younger generation in the United States of America and other countries where English is their primary language. The reason is that nowadays, many people want to travel the world to explore cultural differences, especially among the younger generation. However, not everyone could afford to travel the world due to daily expensiveness when traveling overseas. Many young people have chosen to teach English while they are traveling because it is a good and easy way to make a decent amount of money while they are traveling to different countries. Even though most of the teachers had completed the English Teaching Certification; most of them do not have the experience and teaching skills in teaching English to a non-native English speaker.

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

Skills for teachers working abroad

Throughout my research, I’ve found many skills that would help the teachers who are teaching English oversea; however, I think one of the most important skills is to design an effective Lesson Plan for their classes. An effective lesson plan would include: find a lesson plan objective and to create a lesson plan outline.

Also Read: The Best Countries for Single Women to Teach English Abroad

The first step in creating an effective lesson plan is to find a lesson plan objective

A lesson plan objective is the goals that the teachers want their students to achieve or be able to do at the end of your class. For example, an objective for the restaurant lesson topic is for the students to be able to order their drinks and meals in English when they are walking into the restaurant in England. As the teacher, you need to find an objective for your lesson plan because by doing so will direct the rest of your planning around the lesson plan objective. Any activity for your class should construct around the lesson plan objective; if there is any activity that doesn’t fit into your lesson plan objective; you might have to rewrite that activity so that it would fit into your objective. Sometimes, it is best to scratch out that activity since the material may not be necessary for your class lesson. Also, a lesson plan objective should fit your students’ English level; you cannot expect your beginner level students to learn and use Business English to their peers. The teachers need to think clearly and carefully about the objectives for their lesson because of the more precise the lesson plan objective, the more efficient time that the teacher will have for their teaching time in the class.

Also Read: Can I learn a foreign language while teaching English abroad?

The second step in creating an effective lesson plan is to create a lesson plan outline

There are many ways to create a lesson plan outline, however, I think the lesson plan would always include the warm-up activity, Presentation, Practice, and Production. The first stage of creating a lesson plan outline is to create some type of warm-up activity. The warm-up activity at the beginning of the class is essential and important because this is a good way to get a student's attention to learning English for the class. Starting a warm-up activity at the beginning of the class will increase the students interested in learning English after a long-tired day at school or work. On top of that, by starting your class with a warm-up activity will direct the students in thinking in English before getting into learning the new materials.

Also Read: Job interview tips for teaching English abroad?

The second stage of creating a lesson plan outline is to create a presentation of the new materials for your lesson. There are many ways to present the new materials to the students; this could be the vocabulary where you introduce the new vocabulary words to your students along with the definition and an example of how to use the word in the sentence. Another way is to play the song and ask the students to write out the words that they think is related to the topic, and then you will give them the definition for those words and example how to use these words in the sentence. There are numerous ways for the teachers to choose to present the new materials to their students, however, all of these should give the students a clear definition and a concise example of how to use the words in a sentence. The third stage of creating a lesson plan outline is to have the students practice the new materials that they’ve just learned in class. The purpose of this stage is to encourage the students to practice the new materials that they’ve learned in the class; most of the time the students would work in pairs or the groups, depends on the exercises that the teacher is giving to the students. Some examples of the exercises that the teachers could give to students are a role-play based on the topic or fill in the blank assignment, where students listen to the short video. The last stage of creating a lesson plan outline is production.

In the production stage, students have the chance to use the English they’ve just learned in the class in any way they can. The goal for this stage is for the students to be able to use the new materials that they’ve learned from the class in context, without the help of the teachers.

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In conclusion, design an efficient lesson plan is one of the most important skills that the teachers will need when teaching English abroad because doing so will help the teachers to keep track of the materials that they are teaching to their students, which would maximize their teaching time.

Thus, have a good class since the students are learning the new materials and able to use them in the sentences and the activities that are giving in the class. An efficient lesson plan would help the teacher be prepared for any questions that the students might have in the classroom.

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