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Planning lessons

Its 5:50pm and you've just finished signing in students for class. Probably a good time to start planning the class right? Wrong! If you are to be an effective teacher and your students are to get the most out of your class, you will need to plan it. So where do you start?

Curriculum

A curriculum is an overview or summary of what is to be taught. For karate, this would include kihon, kata, and kumite, etc. A typically curriculum provides general principles and concepts. However, if you wish to be thorough in your planning, your curriculum would contain a more specific and perhaps prescriptive syllabus for each area of training.

Experienced instructors would generally be able to remember all areas of their curriculum to reasonable detail. However, for newer instructors, a written curriculum is a good starting point. In modern society, a written curriculum is also somewhat more professional as it is less mystical and allows the instructor to be more accountable and thus thorough and self-critical in their teaching. Without constant attention to their teaching methods and content, even the best instructor can become sloppy.

Lesson Plans

A detailed syllabus should include both the principles of the curriculum and a combination of activities and the instructor's judgements about what is important for their class. Lessons plans are even more specific as they take items from the syllabus and develop a plan of action to teach the concepts to particular students. Planning a lesson is vitally important as it enables the teacher to:

• Develop a clear idea of the main theme of a lesson

• Select interesting and relevant content and activities

• Structure the lesson appropriately

• Be prepared to teach the ideas in an interesting and coherent manner

• Develop appropriate explanations or questions

A lesson plan should include a rationale of its theme. Next it should contain specific objectives and the specific activities or teaching content required to achieve these objectives. Each section of teaching and its accompanying activity should have a realistic time allocated to it. There should also be a plan B if the designated activity doesn't work for the students. Remember that you are not teaching karate, you are teaching students. Therefore remember that you are facilitating learning experiences - think about what it would be like to train in the class you have prepared. As a final element, some form of evaluation can be useful for both you and your students.