What is lesson plan?

I helped a friend this week by subbing her class. When she asked me to do so, she promised me that all the lesson plans are made and all I have to do is to follow it. After I read the so called “lesson plan,” I was shocked. It was only a list of all the activities that need to be done. No instructions, no materials, no time, no objective….. I can’t help myself wondering what is a lesson plan, what are the essential elements?

From my TESOL training, I have learned a few different style of lesson plan. The style serves for different purposes--- readerships, content, teaching styles.

  Although it might be different in details, here are some of the must-have parts:

○        Topic: An easy way to inform others/or you the focus for the class.

○        Level: Indicate the level of the students.

○        Objective: Objective keeps people who made the lesson plan (you) and execute them (you or others) on track with the goal of the lesson. 

○        Time: List out the time of the whole class or each task. It served the purpose to manage time more efficiently.

○        Materials: Listed out materials helps you visualize the lesson and make it easy to execute. (No need to be hectic about not having it.)

○        Introduction:  brief or elaborated---up to you introduction to your students the purpose and the studying focus of the day.

○        Teaching: This is the main body of the lesson plan. You can list out all the vocabulary, sentence pattern, and grammar rule, anything that will be covered in the lesson. You can even put in detailed instructions for teaching styles and techniques. You can also include worksheet if you have one.

○        Activity: It could be game, show-and-tell, presentation, group discussion or anything. Just keeps it relevant to the lesson.

○        Review: Wrap up the class and make an ending.

○        After class evaluation: No matter you are designing your lesson for others or just yourself, it is very helpful to learn how much do the students understand and their feedbacks.

Lesson planning will help you along the way, especially for inexperience teachers. It helps you foresee the lesson and be more comfortable and confident in your teaching. For more experienced teacher, it will be a great way to accumulate teaching resources and build up your own lesson plan database.