Title: Unit 11: Preparing a Lesson
Course: STEP DEV > Section: Preparing a Lesson

OBJECTIVES

- Recognize the elements in a lesson plan.

- Identify the importance of adapting the lesson to the tutee’s needs.

- Apply the elements to write in a mini-lesson plan.

INTRODUCTION

Lesson planning is an essential part of tutoring. A good lesson plan has a clear learning objective, which is based on the needs of the tutee. In addition, it indicates the activities to be completed.

A learning objective can be defined as what a learner should be able to do by the end of the lesson.  All the Step by Step grammar and speaking lessons have a clear learning objective.  For instance, with the grammar lessons, the learning objective is for the tutee to be able to understand and use the target structure in an authentic situation. In regards to the speaking lessons, the objective would be to use the vocabulary related to the topic in an authentic situation.  Below are examples of learning objectives for all the skills and sub-skills.

- Understand and use the simple present tense by playing tic-tac-toe (grammar lesson).

- Understand and use the vocabulary related to a job interview (job market vocabulary lesson).

- Summarize a movie using vocabulary related to movies (speaking lesson).

- Understand and discuss the text “My Panic Attacks” (reading lesson).

- Revise a paragraph with a topic sentence and supporting details (writing lesson).

- Recognize the main ideas from listening to the Ted Talk, “How to Make Stress Your Friend” and discuss them (listening lesson).

Even though many grammar and speaking lessons have been prepared for you,  you will need to do some planning in order to adapt the lesson to your tutee’s needs. Such being the case, for each lesson, you should write a mini-lesson plan.

Just remember that as long as the tutee has the opportunity to use language in a meaningful way, your lesson was successful. Your focus should not be to complete the whole lesson.

PRE-ACTIVITY

1. How should you start a lesson?

2.  What should you review before starting a lesson?

3. What should you do after the final review?

4. What should you write in a mini-lesson plan?

ACTIVITY

Warm-up

Using a warm-up at the beginning of the session helps create a comfortable atmosphere for the tutee to work in and sets the stage for speaking in English. During the warm-up, the tutee and tutor can develop a good rapport by sharing experiences with each other, and at the same time the tutee can practise their fluency and listening skills. Good subjects to discuss would be: the weekend, their English class, English TV programs and, of course, any other topic that leads to a meaningful conversation. The tutor should ask the tutee at this time what they want to work on,  just in case the tutee has something in mind that is more pressing than the planned lesson.

Vocabulary Review (previous tutorial)

Reinforcement and review are an important part of learning. Most language learners need to see, hear and use a word 6 to 20 times before they remember it^1. Therefore, it is very important to review  new vocabulary as much as possible before, during and at the end of a session.

In the lesson plan, the vocabulary from the previous lesson (not more than five new words), should be reviewed.

Lesson Review (previous tutorial)

During this section for grammar, the tutor can use a chart, such as the one below to do a quick review. This resource is found in the Tutor Resource section.

 For other skills, the tutor could ask some general questions about the topic.  In both cases, the tutor can also do an activity that was not completed in the last tutorial.

If the tutee has trouble with the review, they must decide if they want to go over that topic in more detail, or continue with what the tutor had planned.

Wrap-up

After the final review, the tutor should ask the tutee what they want to do the following week, so that they can plan accordingly.

What did you do?

At the end of the lesson, a tutor should write down which parts of the lesson were completed for their records.  In doing so, as a tutor, you can reflect on the positive and negative points of the lesson, as well as on how it could be improved.

Note:  During the lesson, it is also important that the tutor adjust to the tutee’s needs.

Below are some questions that you should ask yourself while the lesson is in progress.

1. Uchihara, T., Webb, S. & Yanagisawa, A. 2019. The Effects of Repetition on Incidental Vocabulary Learning: A Meta-Analysis of Correlational Studies. Language Learning, 69 (3): 559 – 599 available online

MINI-LESSON PLAN

Mini-Lesson Plan

Although grammar and speaking five-step lessons have been prepared for you, always  write down the materials you need, the words you need to review from the previous tutorial and the subject of the previous lesson.  When your lesson is finished, you can write down what you did and the words you want to review for next time.

Note: As long as the tutee has the opportunity to use language in a meaningful way, it is not necessary to complete the whole lesson.

         You can find the mini-lesson template in the Tutor Resources section.

POST-ACTIVITY

POST-ACTIVITY