Lessons plans are a powerful planning tool, especially for trainees or new teachers. It provides a roadmap for the teacher. They can help you with organization, content, and sequencing. They also give you confidence in what you are doing and where you are going.
A plan is also a log of what has been taught. This can be useful for teachers with many classes to keep track of progress.
What is a lesson plan?
The lesson plan is a document that outlines the procedures you’ll be following during an activity, a lesson, or a course. Richards (1998) suggests that lesson plans help the teacher think about the lesson in advance to “resolve problems and difficulties, to provide a structure for a lesson, to provide a ‘map’ for the teacher to follow, and to provide a record of what has been taught” (p. 103)
There is no objective way of doing a lesson plan. It can be as basic or complex as you’d like it to be. Some teachers might just write down a list of activities to execute during the class, and some might have a lengthy document with detailed procedures.
In some cases, lesson plans may be required by your administration, or it could be for your personal organization.
Elements of the lesson plan
In this blog post, I’m going to present a simple way of making lesson plans, and provide a template to follow.
First, you need to take into consideration some important elements:
Learning objectives
The objectives are a description of the desired learning outcomes. Having clear objectives will help you realize your vision.
Simply, think about this:
What would you like to achieve in the time frame you have?
You may also share the learning objectives with your students at the beginning of the lesson. This raises their awareness as to what exactly they’re working on and what they will have accomplished.
Students’ profile
First, it’s important to know your students; their level and preferences. By preferences, I am referring to how students like to learn. Do they like games? Do they like lectures? Do they like watching videos? Try to test different things to discover what works best with your class.
When students feel that the lessons are suited and crafted for them, they appreciate the lesson. You will be able to go over the material more smoothly.
Students’ needs
Every class is different. You may spend a shorter time on a specific subject with one class than another. It’s important to understand their needs; where you need to focus on and spend your resources on.
For example, you might find that one of your classes needs more grammar practices, and another one needs communication practices. You can quickly go over the task which they don’t need and spend most of the class time on the one they do.
Timing
Your lesson plan is based on the amount of time you have during your lesson. It is crucial to plan your activities so that your students have the time to complete them. I would recommend to plan with a few minutes to spare in case you underestimate how long a task is going to take. It would also be wise to have an extra task or activity in case you end up finishing before.
Lesson plan example
Here is an example for a 15 minute segment:
| Lesson Title | Grammar Focus: “Can for ability” |
| Class/Level | Beginner |
| Duration | 15 minutes |
| Objective | At the end of this lesson, students will be able to use can and can’t for expressing ability |
| Materials | Student’s book Projector |
| Procedure | Time | Interaction |
| T shows students short text and asks them to read. | 2 minutes | Individual |
| T presents exercise and explains that students are supposed to check if the statements are true or false from the text. | 3 minute | Individual |
| T asks students to check their answers in pairs before classroom correction. | 1 minute | Pairs |
| Correction of the exercise | 2 minutes | Whole class |
| T showcases pictures on the screen and asks students if they think the people in the picture can or can’t do an activity. | 2 minute | Whole class |
| T asks students to give examples of something they can or can’t do. | 5 minutes | Whole class |
For each procedure you might add a section and write down the objectives.
You may also add a section at the end for reflection comments.
Conclusion
Lessons plans are a powerful planning tool that can help you with organization, content, and sequencing.
To write a lesson plan you need to first think about these main aspects:
- Learning objectives
- Students’ profile
- Students’ needs
- Timing
After taking these into consideration, you may write down your procedures in a chronological order, as shown in the example given, with the time for each procedure and the interactions you wish to use. You may also write the objective of each procedure.
Remember that lesson plans can be customized based on your needs as well. Have fun with it ✨
References
Richards, J. C. (1998). Beyond training. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
