The typical lesson 'must have'

So what do you need to have a successful lesson? Is it a magic? Is there anything special you should know?

Well, yes and no. Yes, you need to get some knowledge of the teaching logic. No, it's not a magic. But you should have some understanding when to stop.

One bite at a time.

Before the beginning of a class your task is to set goals for the lesson. Answer these questions to get the clear understanding of you aims. What do you want your students to remember? How difficult is the material? Do you need to split it up into sections? 

First of all, I suggest a lesson should start with a warm-up activity. It can help to create a friendly atmosphere at the beginning of a class and introduce students to the topic you want to teach. You can use a warm-up to introduce vocabulary or grammar material or just as a speaking practice. You can find a list of my favorite ones here on my blog. Try to use them all, but remember the main rule: everything you use in the classroom must stick to the purpose of your lesson. So if you want to teach conditional sentences, make sure the warm-up activity will introduce it to your students.

The next part of the lesson must be more informative. I advise to take a new material as the students are less tired at the beginning of a class. The best way to introduce unfamiliar material is to put it into a context. New words or piece of grammar would appear naturally in the form of a speech (written or oral). That means we have only several options: reading a text, listening to some audio file or watching a video. 

Choose what activity will fit your group the best and move on.

The exercises for practicing should follow next. Students won't understand everything from the very beginning. So prepare a bunch of drills for practice and pay attention that the exercises will differ from each other and the final goal to use them is to make your students speak. 

You can finish your lesson with the check point in order to assess what they have learnt in the class, what they need to practice more. Make it in a funny form, use pictures to help you or even Power Point Presentation will do.

Don’t forget about giving and checking the home task every class!!! Good luck!