A thought about Lesson Planning.

When you create a lesson plan, your first concern is understanding what you are going to teach. Then your next concern is how you are going to teach by addressing your students' needs and completing the syllabus. How the lesson is written is your last concern. Lesson planning is based on understanding what the students need to know, what are the gaps in their knowledge, and the requirements of the syllabus. Lesson plans that are successful should be kept and reused.

Lesson planning requires that the teacher/ tutor knows the subject matter very well. This prerequisite is needed because knowing the content well translates into accurate delivery of the learning content. There will be no errors or omissions in the delivery of the subject matter. The teacher/tutor knows how to provide the lesson in a sequence that is logical and in a way the students can understand.

Lesson planning must take into consideration the needs of the students which is a heavy task as students will come with varying degrees of competency and the necessary language and cognitive skills all in a single class. Addressing this will be a daunting task indeed. The learning content must be designed to cater for everyone. This can be best resolved with assessment tests that gauge the competency of the students so that they are put into classes with the same or similar levels of aptitude. In this way, that teacher/tutor can design the lesson and deliver the lessons according to the level of the students' needs and competency. In this way successful completion of the syllabus is achieved.

Lesson plans, which after reflection are deemed successful should be kept for re-use as long as they comply with the syllabus. Reflection of the lesson that took place determines how future lessons are to be delivered.