026 Lesson planning-the TOP TEN:

Lesson planning-the TOP TEN:

Lesson planning can be a very diffiuclt part of CELTA as it can take up a lot of your time. Every teacher has their own strategy which works for them but a few general points to remember are:

1. Your overall aim needs to be appropriate to the learners you are teaching. So, teaching a high level group the present perfect continous ('Who's been eating my porridge?') from Goldilocks and the 3 bears may be linguistically challenging but it certainly wouldn't be appropriate for their cognitive level
2. Keep your overall aim in mind at every step of the planning process. Ask yourself how each task, activity or instruction is helping you achieve your overall aim
3. Ensure that you have a context and if you are struggling with that, at least have a text where the language you want to teach occurs naturally.
4. Try planning from a spidergram or mindmap first. Throw all your ideas around the overall aims and then be selective in plotting these into a more standard plan.
5. Some people find it very useful to plan backwards. Starting from the final activity which shows that your aim has been achieved work backwards and this will also help you with your stage-aims.
6. A recurring issue is timing. Candidates often struggle with meeting their aims in a 40 minute lesson. Be realistic and ensure that the activity which shows that you have achieved your main aim is implemented no later than three quarters of the way in your plan!
7. Don't spend hours browsing the web for a perfect picture. If you want to use the Olympics as a topic draw 5 interlinking rings on the board, don't print off multiple pages of different Olympic sports, for example!
8. Try and limit handouts to a manageable number- can't learners copy from the board rather than have a blank table on a handout, for example?
9. Use the course book! Check the related teacher's book for ideas. Check workbooks or CDroms for material on the item or area you want to focus on.
10. Take notes on your plan in real-time so that you can change less successful moments when you edit the plan for future use!

Here is a selection of some sample lesson plans you could take a look at. DO REFER TO THESE!!! THEY ARE EXAMPLES OF WHAT YOU ARE EXPECTED TO DO BY TP6- TP8


NOTE: ELISA (a former CELTA trainee), was VERY kind to let us use ALL her lesson plans from TP1 to TP8.... She got a CELTA A on her course! Although these lesson plans are old and do not always follow the "new" formats used on your course, they are good models of what you should aim to do! :)

http://celtacourse.wikispaces.com/CELTA+Lesson+plans