THE NEED FOR A LESSON PLAN IN THE TEACHING LEARNING PROCESS.

THE NEED FOR A LESSON PLAN IN THE TEACHING LEARNING PROCESS. 

Authors:

Introduction

What is a lesson plan? It is the most important document in the teaching learning process. This document is considered to be the teacher’s detailed description of the process during the whole academic course, it contains the objectives, contents, abilities to develop and other instructions for any class and the whole subject or syllabus and some other information the teacher saves to plan, organize, regulate and control in the process. A daily lesson plan is developed by a teacher to guide class instructions during the teaching learning process. The steps to follow will vary depending on the preference of the teacher, subject being covered, and the need for teachers and students, character of knowledge, etc, though the system of education, the level of education also differs one from the other. There may be requirements mandated by the school system regarding the lesson plan. The main purpose of the material is to provide the staff with information to bear in mind and to make them see the importance of keeping the process planned. 

Main body

When developing a lesson plan, bear in mind the following points.

 As there are many formats for a lesson plan, most lesson plans must contain some or all of these elements, typically in this order or covered in a similar way:

• Subject
• Title of the lesson 
• Activity number according to plan
• Time required or allotted to complete the lesson 
• List of required teaching aids to be used during the lesson
• Method and procedures to follow 
• Objectives, which may be behavioral objectives (what the student can do at lesson completion) or knowledge objectives (what the student must master at lesson completion) Instructive y educative ones
• Topics or communicative functions (purposes) to focus on.
• The set (or lead-in, or bridge-in) that focuses students on the lesson's skills or concepts—these include showing pictures or models, asking leading questions, or reviewing previous lessons, writing activities, pair work, group work, etc.  so as to connect the previous activity with the following one.
• The main body or an instructional component that describes the sequence of activities that makes up the lesson, including the teacher's instructional elements and guided practice the students use to try new skills or work with new ideas or widen the developed skills in previous lessons. 
• Independent practice that allows students to extend skills or knowledge on their own.
• Wrap up or summary of the activity where the teacher summarizes the discussion and answers to questions or any thing else made mainly by the students to show or test the students are grasping their own knowledge and skills.
• An evaluation component or a test to check the mastery of the instructed skills by means of exercises scheduled by the teacher or the ones which appear in the workbook or student’s book..
• Validation component for the teacher to use and reflect on the lesson itself —such as what was worked, what is needed to  improve, what  is missing, what is coming next, what or who must be benefited from and  for the next lesson, unit, semester, subject, syllabus.  

In foreign language teaching, it is very fruitful to order class assignments to the whole class, they may be in small groups, in the form of workshops, as an independent work, with the character of peer learning, or contractual assignments to do outside the classroom in most of the cases:

• Whole-class—the teacher lectures to the class as a whole and has the class collectively participated in classroom discussions. 
• Small groups—students work on assignments in groups of three or four. 
• Workshops—students perform various tasks simultaneously. Workshop activities must be tailored to the lesson plan. 
• Independent work—students complete assignments individually. 
• Peer learning—students work together, face to face, so they can learn from one another. 
• Contractual work—teacher and student establish an agreement that the student must perform a certain amount of work by a deadline.
• All these activities can be performed orally or written and there must be guidance towards what to do, how to do it and what is it for.

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