One of the most important things in the process of creating lessons is determining the content that you will be teaching to your students. I had a parent who approached me the other day who asked about daily lessons that would challenge their child more. This child is not a beginner, but they are still young and need movement and content that is interesting and fun.
I am in the beginning process of creating a lesson that would fit younger students with more advanced English and I wanted to show the beginning stages of my process for designing lessons.
So, let’s get right into it!
Step 1: The Student’s Needs
I always, always, always asked the student (or parents) about their expectations for the classes. I want to understand what their expectations are and then from there I can plan the rest of the lesson out.
Type out these notes and save them because this is how you will structure your lesson plans.
Step 2: Determine the Areas of Language you Want to Cover in Your Lessons
After I gather this information from the students, I take a look at their expectations and decide what content I would like to include. I usually create a 3 – 6-month syllabus for each student. This way, if they want to end the lessons we can end them when the course is finished as opposed to them thinking there is no end or organization to the lessons.
There are four areas of language that I look at when determining content for a lesson: writing, reading, listening, speaking.
These are important to try to incorporate for each lesson because they influence every area of our lives. I have mentioned these in other blog posts, but I want to stress that it is important to help people develop each of these areas because you are there to strengthen their weaknesses, not just practice what they are good at. If somebody is not able to complete listening exercises, you should focus more on those, instead of just working on reading which they are good at.
For example, in the lesson I am creating for this student I am including areas of reading, listening (the book and song), writing, and a lot of speaking. I do expect my students to speak during the entire class. I want to encourage them to use the language and speaking is a skill that we use every day and more often than other forms of communication.
(I have highlighted the parts that I included)
Let's play a guessing game...
You can see that the first week is easier and has some random vocabulary words. Keep reading and try to figure out why I chose these random words. Can you guess? :)
Step 3: Set a Goal and Get Specific
It is so important to have goals for your students. There are many ways to create goals, and yes there are more specific types like SMART goals and if this is what you would like to do, absolutely do it! I have unspecific goals for my students because I want to adjust them frequently and not put too much pressure on the student or myself. This is my preference, and you are free to create goals whatever way your heart desires. 😊
Below, I have snipped a rough example of one the goals I created for this student.
Have you figure out the vocabulary words yet??
I incorporated vocabulary from a book! I used a Dr. Suess book to help teach the vocabulary words. :'D
Now that you have determined which areas you want to include and what you want to focus on, get more specific. I made monthly themes with this student’s lesson.
The first is mostly introductions, the second is traveling, and I think the third will be places (city, country, farm), but I have not decided that yet.
This is the part that I find so fun because you can use creativity to determine what goes into your lesson plan. The best part is that, when you design lesson content yourself and have your own students, you are able to determine how you want to teach them and what you will teach them.
I am including pictures of a really rough idea on how to do this up above in the last section. Again, I am still in the process of creating this lesson plan, so it is not complete.
Step 4: Create a Syllabus
Now that I have a messy representation of how I want to structure my lessons, it is time to put it into a neat schedule that is easy for the parents to follow. This would be a syllabus. You want to include everything you decide to teach to the student in there, so they know what is expected. This could include homework, lesson content, goals, dates, etc. I also include my expectations for the students, the materials, and price. 😊
Why do I include a syllabus at all?
Because it makes you organized as a teacher, it is a way to schedule and track your student's learning progress, and it looks professional to your students and parents. These reasons are enough to create lesson plans.
You can find a link to the article where I explain my syllabus creation here:
I am also including a cut example from the syllabus again because I want to show how I organized my thoughts and ideas in an easy and accessible way. This is from another student’s already finished syllabus, so it includes different content.
That is all for this week! I am so happy and excited to share this process with you! Please like and subscribe to keep updated on my content.
I will be taking you along with me while creating lessons with different criteria for students from various cultures. I am happy and thankful to have so many people reading and I hope this helps you!
Have a great week and stay safe! :)
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