Teach English in ZhuozixianlihuA Zhen - Wulanchabu Shi — Ulanqab

The importance of a successful lesson plan Creating lesson plans are undoubtedly one of the most important skills to master for all teachers. I still recall when I first began studying to be a teacher and the creation of lesson plans seemed to be so time consuming. All the resources I had to create to make one lesson felt so unrealistic to me. However, when I look back on all the lesson plans and resources I have designed, I'm truly grateful that I spent the time and energy creating lesson plans that could be incorporated, used, adapted and/ or modified. Why do we create lesson plans? Lesson plans identify the learning objectives, how they will be taught and assessed. They also include how the student can achieve the objectives, as well as the various types of grouping (individual, pair, small group, whole class) and time allocations. Resources and ability of students is also important. Another crucial aspect is the teachers skills that need to improve. It is true that lesson plans are time consuming. However, the more we create the more strategic and specific we become in our objectives and strategies. Lesson plans can also be seen as a bank of resources. An amazing part of the lesson plan for me is reflection section and the reflection is somewhere, where I document on what worked well and what didn't work well. Where I need to spend more time, what students understand and what they do not. This helps me to redevelop new and better lesson plans for the future. Lesson plans are clearly important and in this course it mentions what would happen if you found yourself very ill and someone had to take your class. This for me is my driving point for when I create lessons. Lesson plans are personal to me, because they do not only show what I will be teaching, but they reflect my personality and my students interests as part of the fundamental aspects of how the lesson will go. My introduction is 90% of the time a game and/or talking about what the students did during the weekend, or a general conversation between friends. I believe the way I start the lesson allows for a relaxed environment where conversation flows more freely. Often during the introduction students are given a choice of one of three games to play to encourage them to speak. My lesson plans may seem to be very extensive because I break each aspect of the lesson down, for example if we are learning about parts of speech and I have already introduced the nouns, verbs and adjectives, when I start the body of the lesson, I may ask: what is a noun, what is an adjectives and what is a verb? Another option could be to hold up flashcards and the students have to say what it is? Circles can be drawn on the or hula hoops placed on the carpet and the students put the cards/words where they belong. Then I would show them a video clip of what they have seen as revision of what the parts of speech are. Students would then read a sentence and identify an adjective, then a verb and a noun. So for example red- verb, blue is a noun and green is an adjective (using specific colours for each). The next activity could be a worksheet or a pair discussion looking at different sentences. That would be my body of my lessons, so I try to break my lesson plan into very specific ideas so that if someone came to teach my class/students they would not need to know or understand anything to teach it. I sometimes think that's a little bit over-the-top but I also do realize that this allows the teacher coming in to be able to complete the lesson successfully. I love to end my lessons with a game or an activity that builds the learners self-confidence up and I always leave space at the end of my lessons for 5 minutes with the students can choose any game they would like to play. For me it is absolutely crucial that lesson plans are flexible and it's really just a plan it's not a set structure that you have to follow specifically minute-by-minute. The lesson plan is like a blueprint that is open for adaptation. Yet, we all know that lesson plans never go according to plan and very often a child asks a question which you hadn't even thought of, or they don't understand the concept you had previously taught. Sometimes the lesson plan which you thought would take one lesson ends up in three lessons. Teachers need to be very flexible and their teaching style and lesson plans need to be flexible. You can always use that lesson plan again by making some revisions. How do I know if my lesson plan has been successful. I feel like my lesson plan is successful if all my ideas are placed onto that piece of paper and when I look back at the end of the lesson I can tick off that the concept I was trying to teach was taught. Maybe not fully understood, maybe not a hundred percent sure that I got my ideas across for the students, but that the students enjoyed the lesson and learnt. Everything does not always have to be fully achieved on a lesson plan, but there is a structure in place, it was a way of achieving the goal for the students and a plan to help them enjoy the lesson and learn at the same time. As our head of school says “Classroom should provide learners to feel safe, happy and for learning to happen”.