New Teachers - You Need a Weekly Lesson Plan

Business people and marketing teams all have weekly plans. Why shouldn't you start the first few weeks of school off right with a weekly lesson plan? Most new teachers starting out with a new class can honestly look back on their first year and say that the hardest part of teaching is working the ropes of classroom management. Many feel that finding the balance between lesson planning and classroom management is really difficult for them. But your chances of keeping students attentive are higher when you have a more structured and appealing lesson that speaks to them.

This is why developing a weekly lesson plan for all the classes can ease your transition as a new teacher. If you find this too much, then you can break down the planning for different classes. By doing this weekly, you will notice what areas of planning need more attention and which areas need less.

Your weekly lesson plan should consist of the following:

1. Educational and learning goals and objectives. Even if you don't explicitly share this with the students, this will help with the rest of the planning. Plan on also writing an enabling skill or two. For example, if one of your goals is to teach summarization, make sure you teach them note taking and how to find the main idea first.

2. A List of activities for each part of the lesson. A typical lesson should have a beginning, a middle and an end. See which activities are more suitable for the beginning. Do you also want to include group work activities? Then you'll also need to factor that into your lesson plan.

3. Vary the mode of interaction - Don't teach all your lessons frontally. A good way to diversify the teaching is to include pair or group work. Think about which types of materials you intend on using. Try also alternating between the whiteboard (or blackboard) and other information technologies (ie. Internet, power point presentation, etc.)

4. Back-up plans - Many new teachers underestimate the importance of a back-up plan. If you know your class reasonably well, this should not be so hard to do. Always have a resource back-up of materials in your teacher's bag for those unanticipated surprising moments.

As you get to know what especially ticks your students, you will try and find ways to duplicate the success. Of course, each class works differently so you won't be using the same activities over and over again. After you teach the lesson, you can make comments such as how well students coped, specific difficulties, what was especially challenging.

Students can smell out an organized teacher. The difference in your planning might be a more organized lesson. So put your planning gear into action and make your weekly lesson plans today.

Dorit Sasson is an ESL teacher and a full time freelance writer. For more tips, ideas and articles on strategic teaching and how to engage students in your lessons, visit Dorit Sasson's blog at: http://newteacherresourcecenter.blogspot.com/

You can also read additional articles at the new teacher support website at: http://newteachersupport.suite101.com