Are you relying too much on your lesson plan hoping it is the ticket to your students’ success?
Do you find yourself sometimes overplanning your lessons to the point of overkill?
Are you relying too much on a lesson planning formula that you were taught only to find that it isn’t particularly working for you?
If you find yourself doing any of these things, then you’re in the discipline trap. And you’ve missed the point about lesson planning.
Too much overplanning is not effective because in fact, you overlook other important teaching elements early on. Being caught in this trap also won’t help you achieve your teaching goals because you are not developing other important “flexibilities” that you need.
Don’t get me wrong – a lesson plan should include the following components, but many new teachers fall victim to the lesson planning trap because:
they think they need to overplan in order to cater to all students in mixed ability classes
they aren’t confident of their own teaching abilities so they overplan
they don’t want a miserable lesson so they overplan
they want to maintain an image of control
they want to avoid their own failures
they were taught in their teacher education classes the importance of a “good lesson” and stick to that
HOW TO ESCAPE THE LESSON PLANNING TRAP
The trick to escaping from this trap is to write a lesson plan that is also true to your teaching style. Every teacher has a teaching style that is unique to him/her. In my ESL classrooms for example, I gradually introduced songs for teaching vocabulary. Since I am also a visual learner, I also brought lots of posters for brainstorming new themes and topics. Finally, I believe in cooperative teaching strategies and so, I differentiated instruction to include individual, pair and group work activities.
PERSONALIZE THOSE LESSONS!
But most of all I personalized lessons. Sometimes this personal element might create a nice spontaneity. Be open to that to happen too. It is part of the teaching/learning process.
When I introduced my eighth grade students to student journal entries in their coursebook after reading about the earthquakes in Turkey, I brought in my own Snoopy journal from eighth grade and I read brief parts to them. (not private ones!) After this, usually most of my students were relaxed and it was time to do the main reading task of the lesson. They even asked me questions!
After these lessons, I never got caught again in the lesson planning trap again because I avoided sticking to any formula of what is “a good lesson”. When I knew what excited my students, I continued to build upon these experiences by doing something “beyond the box.”
So avoid the lesson planning trap today by using a few of these important lesson planning strategies. Stepping away from the formula of planning “a good lesson.” Try this advice. I believe it will work for you.
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