{"id":598,"date":"2012-05-28T00:48:55","date_gmt":"2012-05-28T00:48:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/?p=598"},"modified":"2012-05-28T00:48:55","modified_gmt":"2012-05-28T00:48:55","slug":"how-important-is-lesson-planning-barbara-sakamoto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/2012\/05\/28\/how-important-is-lesson-planning-barbara-sakamoto\/","title":{"rendered":"How important is lesson planning? – Barbara Sakamoto"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Barbara<\/a>I used to think of lesson plans as road maps. They gave me the general idea of where I was headed, but there were still plenty of opportunities for interesting detours along the way. I\u2019ve noticed that very few people actually use paper maps anymore, so perhaps a car navigator is now a better analogy for lesson planning. I can\u2019t imagine traveling without my navigator, nor can I imagine teaching without a lesson plan.<\/p>\n

Know where you\u2019re going before you start your trip<\/strong><\/p>\n

The very first thing you need to do before beginning to drive is tell the navigator where you\u2019re going. In the same way, you should know your final destination before you begin a class. Where do you want students to be at the end of class? What goals do you have for them? How do the objectives for this class fit into your big picture? Where do you want them to be at the end of the school year? Lesson plans are a bit like traveling backwards. You start at the final destination, and then work backwards to see what steps will get you there. You certainly don\u2019t want to fill in the details for lessons further in the future\u2014that would eliminate all the fun side trips and make you feel trapped by your plan\u2014but you do need to know where you\u2019re headed.<\/p>\n

Detailed steps vs. a general route<\/strong><\/p>\n

When I first started teaching, my lesson plans were very detailed. For a one hour class, I would spend at least two hours planning. Lesson plans looked a bit like this:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

When I was a new teacher, it really helped to have a detailed plan because it made me visualize each class before I taught it. I imagined the flow from one activity to the next, made sure there was a balance of skills and types of activities, and anticipated places where we might detour from the lesson. Knowing what came next helped me avoid \u201cdead\u201d zones in class.<\/p>\n

These days, a lesson plan for the same partial lesson looks more like this:<\/p>\n

1. Review family vocabulary\u2014matching game<\/p>\n

2. Introduce he\/she<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not ignoring all of the steps from my early lesson plans. I\u2019ve simply internalized them. I\u2019ve become so familiar with the various routes for this particular destination that I don\u2019t actually need a navigator any longer.<\/p>\n

The journey or the destination<\/strong><\/p>\n

When you travel, sometimes getting to your destination is the most important consideration. Sometimes the interests of the other people in your car are most important, and you stop to see sights that they\u2019re interested in. There are even times when the ultimate destination is almost incidental to the trip itself.<\/p>\n

With teaching, it often depends on the reason your students are in class. If you are teaching a class preparing for the TOEIC, I guarantee that the destination matters. If you are teaching senior citizens who are more interested in keeping their brains active, quite likely they\u2019ll be game for wherever your lesson takes them. If you are teaching children, parents will trust you with the side trips as long as they feel their children are making progress. However, in all cases, students (or parents) are probably paying for your time so they will want to know that you are headed somewhere.<\/p>\n

From plan to record<\/strong><\/p>\n

For me, the ultimate value of lesson planning is the record it provides of where my class has been, what we did along the way, and what they enjoyed (and didn\u2019t enjoy). That\u2019s the main reason I won\u2019t be giving up my lesson plan notebooks anytime soon. They give me a place to reflect on lessons\u2014what worked and what didn\u2019t\u2014and to note what we actually did in class (as opposed to what I had planned to do). I also take notes about what\u2019s happening in my students\u2019 lives so that I can include content in future lessons that will resonate with them, record observations about language that is a challenge and progress they\u2019ve made.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I used to think of lesson plans as road maps. They gave me the general idea of where I was headed, but there were still plenty of opportunities for interesting detours along the way. I\u2019ve noticed that very few people actually use paper maps anymore, so perhaps a car navigator is now a better analogy … Continue reading How important is lesson planning? – Barbara Sakamoto<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":35,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lesson-planning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}