Teach English in Yuhua Zhen - Yueyang Shi

Teaching is the subject that humanity has been dealing with since the beginning of creation and has existed throughout the history. Generally, teaching methods have been changed to improve the quality of education and increase the efficiency of the educational system. Lesson plan is a type of teaching method that I became familiar with in my EFL course. In this essay I intend to answer the question of why lesson plan is really essential to achieving the lesson goals. Before discussing the necessity of lesson plans, I’ll try to introduce it briefly. In the first step in lesson planning, the teacher defines for himself language point, teaching aids, learner objectives, personal aims, anticipated problems and solutions exactly related to the lesson subject. And in the execution phase, with lesson planning the class time is managed in some sequential phases. In each phase the teacher based on previous mentioned items tries to prepare and use some resources, plans, activities and preplanned interactions related to the lesson to manage the class and gain more efficiency. Phases are engage, study and activate which is known as ESA. In the two following paragraphs, we will compare 2 classes without lesson plans and with aiming to have a dynamic class through using teaching aids. This comparison will be done in order to prove the necessity of lesson plans to promote teaching efficiency. After that in a paragraph I will share my teaching experience related to this article subject. Obviously a constantly dynamic class is an attractive class for students and teachers. Now we look at a class where the teacher doesn’t have lesson plans. He just knows the lesson subject and has an obscure image of teaching procedure. As a result, in class time he resorts to everything and welcomes any event to manage the class. As a result, the class will be run on chance. On the other hand, a teacher with lesson plans has a plan for teaching subjects and never lets unwanted things make the class boring or distract the deviate from the main subject. For example, a teacher with lesson plan who wants to teach vocabulary related to people’s appearance, at first shows different pictures to students and engages them with the subject of the lesson. In the second step for “study” phase the teacher teaches new vocabulary and how to use words correctly. For third step, in the “activate” phase, students use some photo from magazines and newspapers in order to explain the appearance of different people as well as language production. As a result, this class is far from boring and students will eagerly learn by the end of the class. In addition, without lesson plans, applying teaching aids appropriately is not possible. Teaching aids as all we know include flash cards, pictures, video projectors, films, drawing papers and etc. which make the class pleasant and help the students to learn lessons faster and more permanently. But employing teaching aids inevitably needs prior planning and without lesson plans the teacher won’t be able to anticipate them resulting in an increase in teacher talk time. For example, imagine a beginner class where the teacher wants to teach animal vocabularies. By using flash cards, students will be able to learn visually without any need to listening to long teacher explanations. Appropriate lesson plans result in using teaching aids suitably. Finally, I would like to share my teaching experience before and after the TEFL course. These comments are in support of the teacher’s lesson plan. A few months ago I was employed as an English teacher at a private school outside my home country. In that school the class time was 35 minutes and the break time was 10. Although the class time was very short, I was not able to manage the class perfectly. The class time was full of drilling new words, showing flash cards and painting and using this method repetitively. Honestly, I would say the class time was so boring for me and students. After a month I was not satisfied with my performance. Eventually I become familiar with the TEFL course and began using its methods in my classes. After some months, I was invited to teach in an English institute for elementary level. Surprisingly I was able to manage the class without tiring students and myself. With lesson plan and the many useful web sites that I know now, I have to say I am more satisfied with my teaching and I am almost certain about my students. In conclusion, we all know that there are effective ways to achieve any goals but by applying the best methods the speed of reaching the goal and appropriate results will be dramatically increased. The Methodology of lesson plan is especially effective for novice teachers. They can experience interactive classes, enthusiastic students and desired results without spending long years in teaching.