How do I make a lesson plan?

Before the actual delivery of a lesson, teacher engage in a planning process.

The process involves determining the lesson topic within a chapter or unit usually derived from the syllabus and not the textbook as is common practice.

The syllabus does provide the lesson objectives per topic

These objectives suggest to the teacher the instructional strategies, determine the learning activities to achieve the objectives of the lesson, also the resources to support teaching and learning.

Where the objectives are not adequate the experienced teacher creates additional objectives for the lesson considering the following;

• Audience – learners for whom the objective is written
• Behavior – the verb in the objective statement that describes what the learners will be able to do (e.g., describe, explain, locate, synthesize, argue, communicate); 

Lesson Planning is imagining the lesson before it happens.

Therefore a teacher must engage in  anticipation,prediction, sequencing, organizing while simplifying.

When teachers plan a lesson, they have to make different types of decisions which are related to the following items:

-     The aims to be achieved;

-     The content to be taught;

-     The learners to be taught: considering their background, previous knowledge, age, interests,

-     The lessons in the text book to be included or skipped;

-     The tasks and activities to be presented;

-     The other resources needed in the intended lesson, 

The final outcomes of the lesson depend on the teaching situation, the learners´ level, needs, their interests and the teacher’s understanding of how learners learn best, the time at the back drop of the resources available.

Common components of a lesson plan

All lesson plans will have the following parts in the title section;

• School name
• Class 
• Time of lesson
• Subject
• Chapter/Unit
• Topic

The good lesson plan will also include;

• Introduction usually allocated 5 minutes of the lesson
• Lesson development allocated bulk of the lesson time,
• Conclusion usually allocated another 5 minutes

After the lesson make comments at the bottom of the lesson plan and sign against the date of the lesson.

File the lesson plan for future reference.