It’s time for part two in our new series where will be sharing real lessons plans that have been taught by our teachers to classes of students across China. The goal of this series is to give you an idea of what a successful lesson plan looks like so you can create your own. Good lesson plans are at the core of positive relationships with your students, classes that assist in their progress, and a confident teacher who can deliver quality lessons.
This lesson plan is for older or more advanced learners, the content is about countries and the world.
A warm up usually refreshes student’s memories about what they learnt last class or gets them thinking about the content they will be learning that day. In this lesson plan, students are asked to write as many countries as they can on the board within five minutes. The plan doesn’t specify that it is a game but I recommend turning it into one. Two teams line up on either sides of the board and have a set amount of time to write as many of the target vocabulary words as they can, whoever has the most in the end wins. It can be hard to manage with cheating and general misbehaving, but is a great warm up game if you can manage it, I call it ‘board race’.
Introduction / Context / Practice
As this class is more advanced, repetition would not be the best way to introduce the class content. Instead you can speak, ask questions and have a conversation. It is a fun way to see what students know and gauge their understanding of the topic. Make sure to involve as much of the class as you can, encourage those students who are less confident to speak, praising and supporting them when they do. In this lesson plan, the introduction consists of discussing what students know about different countries as a class, and uses a map of the world as a visual aid.
Next, the context part of the lesson is where the teacher can show students what it is they want them to achieve by the end of the class. This could be using basic vocabulary within sentences for younger learners, or something more advanced, like is the case in this lesson plan. As the students have a better understanding of English, they can understand when the teacher speaks. An example of a country fact file is presented by the teacher in this lesson plan, with some input from the students.
Now it is time for the practice section of the class, students are put into groups and instructed to make their own country fact files in this lesson plan. Practice is when students must use the information they have learned in the introduction and context to further their understanding.
The assessment part of the class is an opportunity for the teacher to see how much students have learned and if progress has been made. In this lesson plan, each group will present their country fact file to the rest of the students. It’s crucial that the whole group speaks and everyone gets involved. The content about countries is important but the students English ability is the real focus of the lesson.
You can really have some fun in the cool down with older or more advanced students, and it’s also another opportunity to assess their learning. A game that uses content from the class is usually the best idea, as older students are generally more socially awkward and don’t enjoy songs. This lesson plan uses the game ‘hot seat’, where one student sits in a chair facing away from the board as the teacher writes a word from the lesson on it, the whole class other than the student in the hot seat can see. Students must raise their hands and describe the word to the person in the hot seat for them to guess.
We hope you have enjoyed and found value in seeing what a great lesson plan contains. As you can see, it isn’t rocket science and is nothing to be afraid of. Your first lesson plan will not be perfect but you will learn as you go, and you’ll be great!