Hello Exam Seekers,

The past few Fridays I’ve been talking about How to Prepare an Effective Lesson Plan. This model that I’m guiding you through is based on my Authentic Material Lesson for the CELTA Course, but you can use this lesson plan in any of your lessons. It is a complete guide, as you can see below:

There are basically 5 steps to prepare a proper Lesson Plan:

• Part 1: Describe the lesson (add information about the type of lesson, number of students, time, etc.);
• Part 2: Language Analysis (write about the language you will use in class – vocab/grammar);
• Part 3: Procedures / Steps (write how you will develop the lesson dividing it into stages, grouping, and timing);
• Part 4: Board Plan (preplan your board to keep it organized);
• Part 5: Handouts (prepare the materials you will use in class).

Today, I’m talking about the fourth step: Board Plan.

As I mentioned in the previous CELTA Lesson Plan posts, I was teaching a Listening Lesson based on authentic material. Students were supposed to watch a video called Travel Tips: Real Discounts on Airfare Found by Sonia Gil and grasp information from it.

My role as a teacher is to facilitate their learning in any way. Therefore, you must think about all the steps. Some people might think that preplanning your board is not necessary or “too much”. The thing is, planning how your board will look at the end of your lesson has some advantages and some usefulness. By planning your board, you will:

• know if it is clear or confusing for students understanding;
• be prepared for the amount of chalk/markers (board material) you will need;
• have the answers for your tasks easy for you to find;
• use it as a guide throughout your lesson.

There are many advantages to have your board planned. For this lesson, my board would look like this:

Let’s recap the procedures/steps I would take while I explain my board plan:

1) My lesson starts with me telling my students that I would travel and I would ask them if they had travel tips to offer me;

For this step, I would write the words “TRAVEL TIPS” on the board for students to keep the topic in mind. Around these words, I would write their suggestions.

I can write possible suggestions on my board plan. This is optional because I don’t really know what they would say, but I can be prepared for that. As you can see, I only wrote “Travel Tips” around a speech bubble.

I’d then expect students to suggest the use of “Search Engines”. So I have it written down. This is my connection to the next stage.

2) Then I would pre-teach vocabulary;

If students suggest “search engine”, great! If they don’t, I suggest it myself, and I board it.

For this step, I would ECDB all the vocabulary necessary for students to be prepared for the listening tasks. These words/expressions are in the Language Analysis sheet, as we saw previously.

So, I would Elicit the word; work on the Concept; Drill the correct pronunciation; and finally, Board it. On my board, I marked where the stress of each term/expression is and if it is a noun or an idiom so students are aware.

3) After that, I’d provide them with the video for listening to gist and listening for detail activities;

After having them watch and do the task, I would check the answers. Therefore, I have them on my board plan to quickly look and write them on the board.

This is an excellent way to avoid missing answers or getting lost. Moreover, you won’t be thinking about how to write the answers on the spot, you will have it planned already.

4) Then I would finish by offering them time to react to the video by sharing their thought on it in the “follow up” stage.

I don’t have any board plan for my last step, but I have the space to write if something comes up.

As you can see, my board is clear and well organized. The order of stages is obvious, which means that students can look and find what they need easily.

Of course, this board plan is based on a physical black/whiteboard. Nowadays, many teachers don’t use these kinds of boards anymore. They use digital ones or PowerPoint presentations.

If you are planning to use PowerPoint and show your presentation on a screen, you must prepare your slides clear and attach them to your lesson plan so that you know which is the following slide/step of your lesson. Moreover, your tutor at the CELTA Course also needs to see it.

Above is a sample of how you can plan your digital board/slides presentation. If you want me to go more into detail about this board plan, write in the comments.

I hope this was a clear explanation of board planning and the reasons why you should preplan your board and have it written down. Write in the comment section your questions and general comments about this lesson plan.

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You can also listen to this post at Anchor!!!

Have a great week,
Patricia Moura