Success in any given field of labor entails multiple yet intertwined factors which serve their very own purposes along the process. In teaching, effective student learning is the result of the series of consistent planning and thorough preparation which happen not just within an overnight snap but within an enough course of time.
The making of the lesson plan is a very essential part of becoming a teacher since this will serve as the backbone of one’s instruction and basis for direction during the a specific class. All these years, though institutions tend to apply different formats, still the reforms made with the lesson plans in general are directed towards the purpose of serving the learners with their needs and a way of responding to the changing structure of the society.
Attached below is a sample of the lesson plan handed to me by my cooperating teacher. This lesson plan was made by one of the pre-service teachers of the VRU Faculty of Education who also happened to be a former SEA-Teacher. This was originally written in Thai but was translated into English.
The lesson plan presented below is centered into teaching its specific topic which is past continuous tense. Stated as basic concepts, upon teaching the lesson, students are expected to apply these concepts when engaging in real life conversations so as to achieve mastery and fluency in speaking as well as to develop coherence and application of correct grammar in writing. Proceeding into the learning activities, the teacher starts by presenting a picture, making it the basis for formulating questions. However, it might have been more concrete if the students were really asked about the activities that they did yesterday since the lesson involves time of the occurrences of such activities instead of merely showing them pictures. It may also cause confusion or misunderstanding relying only in pictures since these cannot tell concretely that the activities shows were already done in the past.
A teacher’s art of questioning can be best employed and developed during the processing since most of the time is spent in this part. It is good that there is a quite a smooth transition from one part of the lesson plan to the another since the previous activity was used as the springboard. I think it would be better to incorporate more questions for the students in between the discussion so as to keep track whether or not they are getting the idea of the lesson presented. It is also a way of assessing as to how far understanding has come and how much concepts are still needed. The class continues to flow, followed by a series of activities to be done and answer sheets to be answered. Looking into the group activities, I would suggest if the groups have different pictures/scenarios to work on instead of having only a common picture to have. The teacher may also have employed differentiated activities for each group since she can easily give instructions for they both speak in Thai.
The abovementioned observations and suggestions came along as I have looked into the parts and the lesson plan as a whole. Generally, it was good. I can see that there was really planning and employment of different yet limited strategies. I firmly believe that the succeeding lesson plans are made more carefully and more activities were utilized.