Pre-planning stage of a lesson plan

Pre-planning stage of a lesson plan

Here is an article about what a teacher needs to do to become a good English teacher.

A teacher needs to plan the lessons before entering a classroom. A well-prepared lesson makes a teacher confident in a classroom. A teacher, while preparing a lesson plan, should consider the following factors:

Age of the learners;
Grading of language according to level of the learners;
Prior knowledge of the learners;
Strength of the class;
· Ability of the learners’;
What to say and how to say while presenting the lesson;
Frame the learning objectives of the lesson;
A tentative time given to each steps in order to manage time;
Anticipate the problems the teacher may come across during the class and think of precautionary measures to deal with such situation if it arises;
Strategies adopted to keep the learners motivated and make the lesson fun;
Information should be delivered in manageable chunks;
Classroom language should consist of the target language. Simple commands like ‘keep quite’ or ‘listen’ should be accompanied by action;
Using learning tasks to keep the learners motivated;
The learners should be asked to repeat the new sounds they listen to in order to check the material has been perceived correctly by the learners;
Links between the images and associated sound should be established so that the learners can remember the new sounds;
For better retention, language should be taught in context with help of visual;
Rather than accuracy, fluency should be emphasized at upper primary level;
All the skills are integrated. So, skills cannot be taught in isolation;
Reflect of the previous teaching experience and plan the lesson accordingly;
Last but not the least, a connection should be maintained between what is going inside the classroom and the guiding principles of National Curriculum Framework.

Here is a video to show how a teacher starts a lesson:

While conducting the survey for my study, two major concerns of the teachers in relation to teaching-learning were observed. First one is related to speaking skill. The teachers seemed to be worried about pronunciation. Second, how they could have a better lesson plan. Teachers can use online resources as a remedy to their problems.

While making a lesson plan, a teacher follows the preparation, presentation, practice template. Before concretizing the plan, a teacher needs resources to deal with the particular lesson. This stage of preparation through self learning can be termed as pre-planning stage of a lesson plan. A teacher can either collaborate face-to-face with other teachers in this stage, can take inputs from previous lesson plans or can use ICT for creating a range of learning materials according to their needs. The teachers will actively participate in the process of learning. The use of ICT to provide meaningful instruction and activities will in turn ensure long-term teachers’ engagement facilitating autonomous learning environment.

Let us take the poem Macavity. Tips for the pre-planning stage of this lesson:

The teacher can look for audio or video clips of the poem being recited to get them familiar with pronunciation, stress and intonation. The teacher can listen, practice and record the poem and then make the learners listen to it or can show a video from YouTube.