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Lesson planning whether it be for an English lesson or any other subject is one of the most important tasks of a teacher. Lesson planning can be time consuming for the teacher but will cut out a number of complications during the lesson and after. In the end it is worth the extra time to put together a lesson plan or plans. Below are a few reason why a teacher should plan his/her lessons beforehand. These reason are not all the reasons there are as to why you should lesson plan but they are the reasons I believe are the most important: • To make sure you are teaching students the appropriate course work - Obviously during an English course there are certain topics that you need to cover with your students and normally in a certain order (to avoid confusion and group similar topics). When you lesson plan you are guaranteeing that you will have covered each topic needed and taught them in the correct order by the end of the course. • To keep control of your classroom, especially bigger classes - When you have a lesson plan as a teacher you have an aim for your lesson. This will help with the flow of the lesson as you know where you are starting, English language skill or vocabulary the students are meant to get from the lesson, what games, activities or worksheets you will need etc. All of this means you will not have a period of time where the students are confused about what they are doing and their time will be occupied. Without the lesson plan students may loose interest as there will be periods of time where the teacher is trying to think about what to do next, this could lead to disruptions by students and veering off topic. • Keep students confidence in their teacher - When a teacher looks like he/she does not know what they are doing students will loose confidence or respect for that teacher and not be willing to listen to them in the future. • Keep students motivated - when following a lesson plan you should always be engaging a student's attention therefore the student will not have the time to start thinking of something non relevant and in turn loose focus or motivation. • Allows for lessons to be planned around what that certain group of students are interested in. (again helps with motivation) • Keeps you as the teacher looking and acting professional during your lessons - Gives your peers and students the confidence that you know what you are doing and teaching. • Allows you to tailor a lesson to a specific group of students. • Helps to make it clear to yourself and your students what is expected out of a lesson as each lesson has been planned to focus on a certain area of English. • Helps to reduce teacher anxiety as well as student anxiety - this is because when it is clear to everyone what they are learning, why and what is expected of them, this will reduce confusion and hopefully boost confidence. • Helps to keep fluidity to your lesson. • Lastly a Happy controlled classroom environment will always be the best learning environment for students. These points I have listen above (as stated before) are not all the advantages of lesson planning but are some of the main benefits. Obviously not every lesson will go to plan and a teacher must always be ready to tailor their lesson plan on the stop to accommodate the students or a problem that has arisen during the lesson. These problems will come up, an example may be that you can see your students are bored and the lesson plan you used on a different class yesterday does not resonate with this class today, when something like this happens a teacher must adapt and try to find a way to keep the students interested. In conclusion a teacher should always try lesson plan taking into account all the relevant factors (Students age, level, culture, aim of lesson etc.) this in turn will keep a healthy, happy and engaging learning environment.
