If you work at a tutoring center or teach small groups of students English, you will know how difficult it is sometimes to come up with ideas to get through each session. Let me share some of my lesson planning tips:
1. Establish your genre and what your aim is
You need to know what students need to learn.
2. Find a good topic.
The topic has to be interesting and hopefully relevant to student's lives. Hopefully it's also a topic which is discussable and possibly controversial. The news is a great place to start. "Teachers adding students as friends on Facebook" or "Hong Kong tutor kings".
3. Find source reading material
This will usually come from books, websites, emails or your brain. Videos are also a great way to hook your students and give them background information on the topic. Simplify the text if necessary, but it should contain some challenging new vocabulary. Highlight those.
4. Construct some reading comprehension questions
If you are lazy, simply do it as you go in a pop quiz style format. But it helps to prepare a list of questions beforehand.
5. Find a language focus
Ideally it will be linked to text genre.
It could be grammar - using adjectives, passive voice, imperatives or structure etc. If the class is 2 hours, I like to try and make my language focus a game to refocus them after the break.
6. Homework prep / wrap up
Have some planning (e.g. storyboard / story map / vocab recap) for homework so weaker students are clear on their homework task.
7. Final game
Wind down with a game of DODO or Pass the Hamburger and end the class on a high note. I sometimes give extra points / rewards if the word is related to the day's topic.
