The Daily Lesson Plan

A curriculum states what pupils should learn, and it states it as objectives. These objectives are usually of three kinds: objectives about knowledge, objectives about skills, and objectives about attitudes and behaviour. An objective written in a curriculum does not achieve itself. It is achieved in the classroom, through what the teacher and the pupils actually do together. So a teacher needs a practical plan for what will happen in class each day.

Suppose the curriculum says that grade 10 pupils should be able to read a poem aloud with the right flow, pauses and rhythm. That is a skill objective. Printing it in the curriculum does not teach a single pupil to read aloud. Someone has to decide on which day, with which poem, using which materials and through what kind of practice the skill will be taught. That someone is the teacher, and the written form of that decision is called a daily lesson plan.

A daily lesson plan is made by the subject teacher. The maths teacher plans the maths lessons and the Nepali teacher plans the Nepali lessons, and each then teaches from that plan. While planning, the teacher makes clear what the lesson's objectives are, which teaching materials, teaching method and activities will be used, how the learning will be evaluated, and what homework will be set. These parts are not put down in any order the teacher happens to like. They are arranged in sequence, so that each part leads naturally into the next.

A lesson plan also sets limits of time. It decides beforehand how much will be taught in one period, exactly what will be taught, and over how many days one lesson will be completed. For example, a single period of 40 minutes cannot hold the poet's introduction, the reading, the word meanings, the explanation and the exercises of a whole poem. So the teacher may plan to cover only the poet's introduction and the reading of the poem today, and keep the rest for the following days.

A teacher who comes to class with a plan comes with confidence, because what will happen in the room has already been decided. In a planned class the teaching-learning activities become interesting and effective. What pupils learn stays with them for a long time; in other words, the learning lasts. The classroom also becomes an enjoyable place to learn in. Taken together, a daily lesson plan helps to make teaching purposeful and effective.

The importance of a lesson plan can be set out point by point:

• (a) It gives clear direction on what to teach the pupils, how, why and how much.
• (b) It helps to make teaching purposeful and effective.
• (c) It raises the teacher's confidence.
• (d) It makes teaching more practical and keeps the experience from earlier lessons in use.
• (e) It makes the teacher's work organised and regular.
• (f) It helps to organise the content of the lesson.
• (g) It helps the teacher to fix the objectives, choose and use teaching materials, choose a teaching method and choose the tools of evaluation.
• (h) Planned teaching builds a sense of trust and discipline in pupils.
• (i) It helps pupils to recall what they already know.
• (j) It makes teaching and learning simple, organised and orderly.
• (k) It makes the atmosphere of teaching and learning enjoyable.
• (l) Learning becomes lasting and easy to remember.
• (m) It helps pupils to learn in a simple and comfortable way.

A lesson plan is written to a fixed framework, and the framework of a daily lesson plan has five components. Each component answers a different question that the teacher has to settle before the class begins:

The objective is called the main component of a lesson plan, and fixing the objectives is the very first step in making one. Just as nobody can choose a road without knowing where they are going, a teacher cannot choose materials, activities or questions without knowing where the pupils are meant to arrive. A specific objective states what pupils will be able to do once the lesson has been taught. Objectives are set to suit the nature of each lesson, keeping in mind all three sides of learning: knowledge, skills and attitudes.

Teaching objectives must be practical and specific, and they must be written so that they can be measured. Measurable means that the change in the pupil can be checked or confirmed. So an objective is never written in words that have a double meaning, that are uncertain, or that can be read in many ways. It must be something the teacher can clearly observe and measure. The table below shows the same aim written first vaguely and then measurably.

Teaching materials make classroom activities interesting, effective and meaningful. Pupils can soon forget something they were only told, but they remember for longer what they have seen with their eyes and handled with their hands. In this way materials make teaching easier and simpler, and they make learning lasting. Not every material suits every lesson, though. Materials must match the objective, the content and the level of the pupils. Large bright picture cards made for grade 1 children may be quite wrong for a grade 10 poetry lesson.

Many kinds of teaching materials can be used in teaching:

• Printed materials: textbooks, charts, tables, pictures and maps.
• Audio-visual materials: things that can be heard and seen, such as a recorded reading of a poem or an educational video.
• Electronic materials: equipment that runs on electricity, such as a computer, a projector or a smart board.

This is another important component of the plan. Here the teacher decides how to present the content, which activities to run and at what moment to bring out each teaching material. A suitable teaching method is also chosen at this point, to make the teaching effective. The activities chosen should bring the classroom to life. In a lesson plan format this component is also called facilitation activities, because the teacher's job here is to make learning easier for the pupils.

At the end of the teaching-learning activities, the teacher must evaluate whether the pupils have reached the expected achievements. Evaluation can take place in the middle of the lesson as well as at the end. It is done through different kinds of questions, through observation, or in other ways. For example, knowledge of the poet's life can be checked with spoken questions, but the skill of reading a poem aloud can only be checked by asking a pupil to read a stanza and listening carefully, which is observation.

Evaluation tests the teacher as well as the pupils. If many pupils cannot answer the same question, the teacher must ask whether that part was taught well. Where checking is a regular habit, pupils take part with interest. Evaluation also finds each pupil's weak points and helps the teacher to plan teaching that corrects them. For all these reasons, evaluation should be carried out continuously throughout the teaching, not saved for one moment.

Homework is also a component of the lesson plan, and it is set at the end of every class. Doing again at home what was learnt in class makes it stick and makes it easier to use in daily life. Homework also helps pupils to study on their own, to think things over deeply, to develop their creative ability and to investigate the subject further. Homework can take forms like these:

• Reading: read tomorrow's poem once at home before the class.
• Writing: copy the new words from the lesson into an exercise book.
• Making: draw a small map of your village or neighbourhood.
• Collecting: collect the leaves of five different kinds of trees.

A lesson plan can be prepared in several formats. In one simple format, the basic details of the lesson are written at the top, and a table of five columns is drawn below them. The top part records these details:

• Class
• Subject
• Lesson
• Date
• Time
• Number of students

The five columns of the table then hold the five components of the plan, in order. The second row shows what goes into each column:

Here is a complete daily lesson plan for one grade 10 Nepali lesson, built on the format above. The lesson is a poem by the poet Parijat whose title means 'I Am the Road Speaking'.

(a) Specific objectives. By the end of the class, pupils will be able to:

• (i) give a short introduction to the poet Parijat;
• (ii) read the poem aloud with the right flow, pauses and rhythm.

Flow means how smoothly the lines move when read, pauses are the natural stopping points within and between lines, and rhythm is the beat or tune of the poem. When all three are right, the poem sounds the way the poet meant it to.

(b) Teaching materials:

• (i) a picture of the poet Parijat;
• (ii) a chart of facts about the poet's life.

(c) Facilitation activities. The class work is divided into two parts. Activity 1 serves the first specific objective, (i), giving a short introduction to the poet. Activity 2 serves the second specific objective, (ii), reading the poem aloud with the right flow, pauses and rhythm.

Activity 1:

• 1. The teacher shows the picture of the poet Parijat and asks the pupils to read the introduction to the poet.
• 2. The teacher puts up the chart of facts and uses it to tell the class about the poet's birth, inspiration, works, prizes and honours, death and so on, while the pupils look at the chart and listen carefully.
• 3. Two pupils are asked to say five points each about the poet Parijat.

Activity 2:

• 1. The teacher reads the first stanza aloud with the right flow, pauses and rhythm, while the pupils follow in their books and listen carefully.
• 2. The teacher and the whole class read the same stanza aloud together, keeping the flow, pauses and rhythm.
• 3. A group of five or six pupils reads the stanza, while the rest follow in their books and listen.
• 4. One pupil reads the stanza alone with the right flow, pauses and rhythm, while the others follow the poem in the textbook.
• 5. The teacher reads the stanza once more as a model, while the pupils follow and listen.
• 6. The teacher reads all the stanzas of the poem aloud with the right flow, pauses and rhythm.
• 7. The teacher and the whole class read all the stanzas aloud together.
• 8. Groups of five or six pupils read all the stanzas, while the rest follow and listen.
• 9. One pupil reads the whole poem aloud with the right flow, pauses and rhythm.
• 10. For as long as time allows, pupils read the whole poem one by one, and the teacher corrects them wherever it is needed.

(d) Evaluation. At the end of the lesson the teacher asks:

• 1. When and where was the poet Parijat born?
• 2. Name any three works by the poet Parijat.
• 3. Read the first stanza of the poem aloud with the right flow, pauses and rhythm.

(e) Homework. Copy the new words used in the poem 'I Am the Road Speaking' into your exercise book and bring them to class.

Look closely at the sample and you will find that no part of it stands alone. Every activity is there to achieve one of the objectives, and every objective is checked in the evaluation. The table below lays out these links:

The order of Activity 2 is worth noticing too. First the teacher models the reading, then everyone reads together, then small groups read, and finally single pupils read alone. The same pattern is used first on one stanza and then on the whole poem. Pupils move towards reading alone only after they have listened, read with others and slowly gained confidence. Because the pupils themselves are reading for most of the period, the activity is student-centred. The homework at the end sends them home to go over the new words they met in class.