Teach English in Caoyan Zhen - Yancheng Shi

It is hard to think about our lives and not remember a moment in which we faced a difficult situation. We had to stop everything we’re doing, the direction we’re heading, the way we used to act and carry our lives and re-organize it. To organize means to make arrangements or preparations for a future event, to plan! Why do we plan? We plan things in order to build confidence in how to deal with something or to try to make it in the best way possible. Why should it be different when it pertains to lesson planning in the classroom? Imagine being a student, attending your first day of class to learn a new language. You are excited and motivated that this new language is going to help you in your professional career or to get a new promotion at work, so you have high hopes about this class and how it can help you with your future. Then the teacher comes to class, an experienced teacher with many years of teaching. The teacher starts the class by introducing him/herself and goes to the board to start teaching the topic of the day. Throughout the lesson, the teacher keeps trying to find worksheets to give the students, when he/she finds the material and just hands it to the students with missing copies while this is occurring during the classroom activity. Was this teacher prepared for the lesson? Not necessarily, many years of experience does not mean you don't have to prepare yourself for teaching a class. There is a common mistake some teachers might make. This is to believe because they have already taught the same topics several times and being in a classroom unaccountable others assumes no need to prepare for their lessons. What they forget here is that every group, every student is different and there is a great need in preparation for what might come in the classroom and predict how we can solve questions when they arise from students. Why should teachers plan their lessons? Lesson planning is not only about being prepared for the classroom and solving potential problems or questions students might have. To plan your lesson is part of your record as a teacher as you can use the same lesson in the future with another group. For example, let's think about being inside the classroom when we prepare our lessons. We may write down the topics we need to teach and discuss, the objectives of the lesson and what we want the students to know by the end of the lesson. When we write it all down, it is easier to keep track of the lesson and carry our class in a more confident manner rather then we don't prepare and we have to improvise all the time. In addition, it is important to have in mind that sometimes we may need another person to work with one of our groups and another teacher needs to know what the group has been studying to successfully carry out the class in our absence. When you plan your lessons it is helpful to other teachers otherwise the substitute teacher could be lost without knowing what to do or what your students already studied or not. Also, planning your lesson is a way to know when a lesson from the coursebook needs to be supplemented. Changing the dynamics of the classroom allows the students to be pleased by doing a different activity from the ones in the coursebook. By only following the coursebook all the time, the learning becomes predictive and boring for the students. Therefore, is it possible to make a life decision completely without a plan? Well, it is, however it will be much more difficult and you may face a lot more problems rather than sitting down for a few minutes and planning what to do. The same thing goes for teachers and lesson planning. It is possible to step inside a classroom with no plan, but the students will notice the lack of preparation and you may be in a hard position. Planning is good for the teacher and the students. The teacher will feel more confident when prepared for the topic with correct activities to give the students. It helps to predict problems the students might face during the lesson and which steps should be taken going forward. Moreover, it is imperative to know what is expected for the students to learn and what teachers to improve in every lesson. The students are going to be happy to know the teacher is prepared and they keep track of the learning process. Lesson planning is equally important for the students and teachers In conclusion, lesson planning is a way to keep track of your teaching process, to know where improvement is needed, for both teachers and students as well as a way to make predictions about the classroom. However, it does not mean you cannot make any changes during the time you are teaching, to carry the lesson in a better way for the students` needs.