How important do you think a lesson plan is to a successful lesson? 

      
      What features do you think a lesson plan should include?

Planning for a class is an important and integral part of the complex activity of teaching. A lesson plan should provide teachers with a general outline of their teaching goals, learning objectives, and means to accomplish them.

A lesson plan is the teacher’s road map of what students need to learn and how it will be done effectively during the class time.

A good language lesson consists of much more than a series of activities and exercises that the teacher has put together to have students busy or occupy classroom time. It involves much more than simply presenting the material in your textbook, since student learning is correlated to teacher planning.

These should be the basic steps:

•      Perspective or opening

•      Stimulation

•      Instruction/participation

•      Closure.

•      Follow-up.

OUTLINE LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Determine what you want students to learn and what they will be able to do by the end of class.

DEVELOP THE INTRODUCTION

Come up with a creative introduction to the topic, in order to create expectation, stimulate interest and encourage thinking

PLAN THE SPECIFIC LEARNING ACTIVITIES

Keep students´ motivation, learning styles and interests in mind, when preparing the activities for the class

PLAN TO CHECK FOR UNDERSTANDING

Think about specific questions you can ask students in order to check for understanding, write them down, and then paraphrase them so that you are prepared to ask the questions in different ways.

DEVELOP A CONCLUSION AND A PREVIEW

Create an activity to go over the material just covered in class.

CREATE A REALISTIC TIMELINE

Allot specific time for each of the activities, keeping in mind, difficulty of the activity, students´ level, motivation, tech glitches.