It is perhaps the utimate understatement to say that life as a teacher can be unpredictable! Every day, every lesson and every student is different, so it can be beneficial to plan and prepare for every eventuality.
A key part of this for teachers is the use of a lesson plan to organise each student-facing session. This helps ensure that you’re as prepared as you can be and that you have a clear idea of what’s happening every time you step into the classroom.
Each lesson plan will be different, but they’re formed upon common building blocks and teaching approaches. Here are the 5 key parts of any great language lesson – around which a compelling lesson plan can be constructed.
Key components of a language lesson
- Preparation
- Presentation/Modeling
- Practice
- Evaluation
- Expansion
PREPARATION
Begin by giving all students a clear of what the lesson's key activities and learning objectives are. It may also be beneficial to start with a warm-up activity that gets students' minds stimulated and ready to go - teaser questins can be a good way to trigger curiosity and create expectations. Similarly, get volunteers to provide a quick review of the last lesson/homework so that students see how this lesson builds on the last.
PRESENTATION/MODELING
Educator outlines the lesson's intended learning content in a meaningful context or situation to their learners. This block provides the language input from the educator that provides a firm foundation, underpinning the learner's understanding. It is important that educators deliver this content in the target language. Realia, flashcards, miming, and short audio or film clips are fun ways to present the language.
PRACTICE
Having demonstrated a good level of understanding, students can now move onto completing a specific, designated communication task. This stage should be focused on encouraging students to use the target language as much and as fluently as possible to build their confidence and motivation. Students will typically work in pairs or small groups.
EVALUATION
It is important to assess progress and students' understanding. Ask students to recap the work that they have undertaken and to explain how they used their newly-acquired skills to carry out the task. This provides educators with an opportunity to address any misunderstandings as part of a summary of what has been covered.
EXPANSION
The expansion phase gives students the opportunity to extend their learning beyond the classroom walls. This might involve a specific homework task for students to complete their own time ready for the next lesson. Or it could simply be to encourage them to continue their language learning through books, films and podcasts in their target language.
How do Sanako products help educators through these 5 key stages?
Sanako produces a range of language teaching tools that help educators to improve their students’ core language skills. For example, our browser-based language teaching solution Sanako Connect supports educators across all stages of the core lesson structure outlined above.
PREPARATION - Students' understanding of grammar concepts and key vocabulary can be tested by creating exercises and questions for them to answer through gap-fill and multiple-choice quizzes.
PRESENTATION/MODELING - Educators can create distinctive contexts and situations in Sanako Connect using a wide variety of easily uploadable stimulus materials including text files, PDFs, presentations, audio clips, video, and web pages. Teachers can also give live instructions even when using Sanako Connect in hybrid or remote teaching.
PRACTICE – Students can be easily divided into pairs or group discussions and be assigned role play and live discussion activities. Outputs and deliverables can be collected, and reviewed on the same platform.
EVALUATION – Educators can collect, review and give feedback on students’ work in real-time or asynchronously. Teachers can give feedback to their students individually or as a group via speech or text at any time.
EXPANSION – Students can easily access extension activities at any time and in any location. They simply click on a unique URL to find extra worksheets as well as reading lists, recommended podcasts or suggested film / video content.
If you’d like to find out more about how Sanako’s dedicated language teaching solutions could transform your approach to language teaching, please contact us now to arrange your FREE demo!