The Importance of Lesson Planning for a TEFL Classroom
A lesson plan, developed by a teacher, is a detailed description of the lesson. It can be also considered as a guide providing step-by-step the direction in which the teacher designs his/her lesson. Is it really necessary for an effective lesson? If so, What makes it so crucial?
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This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Beste D. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT.
Clear Lesson Procedure
As mentioned above, being a teachers' route-map, a lesson plan sheds light on the procedures of teaching in a definite way. It benefits teachers in more ways. First, it maintains perfect time management. As organized teaching saves time. When a teacher comes to the class with a daily lesson plan, the key components have already been cleared such as the lesson objectives, the types of activities, the materials needed, etc. So the teacher is well aware of which steps to take to maintain a systematic lesson.
Furthermore, lesson planning helps teachers to be well prepared and to be aware of exactly what to do exactly in the class. It can be said that it builds confidence in the teacher. So it helps reducing discipline problems and create a more natural environment for learning with more relaxed learners. A teacher with his/her plan feels more confident. As he/she knows clearly what the objectives of the lesson are and what activities to do to meet these objectives. For a teacher, a sense of control and direction is essential.
Also Read: How long does a TEFL course take?
Achieving Results
Moreover, lesson planning is result-oriented. So, what does it mean? A result-oriented plan? As well as the objective, the result is extremely important. It means the way of measuring how well the aim of the lesson is reached, which parties of the lesson remain uncompleted or what topics students don't understand. Assessing a student's progress, a teacher gives ongoing feedback. To be able to do it, he/she should evaluate the student first. A lesson plan provides a record for a teacher and it allows him/her to make connections between the lessons, go back and analyze what goes well and what doesn't in the class, and take notes, etc. So with a lesson plan, it is much easier to evaluate a student. Otherwise, it must be impossible to remember all the lessons process and feedbacks.
Creativity
A lesson plan is also a creative process. It allows a teacher to evaluate his/her knowledge. For example, let's say the teacher will tell the present perfect tense; next week. While writing the lesson plan, he/she can take steps to acquire the necessary information, If the teacher thinks, he/she knows a little about the lesson subject. Or let's say, the teacher will teach a grammar subject that he/she knows better, but not so sure the way he/she explain it to the class. While writing a plan, he/she can find many activities and develop different strategies.
Also Read: What is the difference between TESOL and TEFL?
Another benefit of a lesson plan is to provide more unified lessons. All the components of the teaching process should fit together such as engage, study and activate parts, etc.. That's how a teacher can adapt his/her plan to respond to the student's needs.
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To sum up, it can be said that the teaching process looks like the process of building construction. In this case, the lesson plan refers to a brick, and the teacher refers to the contractor of the building. The pre-planned lesson, a well-managed class with confident teacher maybe inspiration for a learner. But even the best-planned lesson is worthless unless performed effectively during class time.
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