PREPARING THE LESSON PLAN (continued)

Prepare your notes. The best place to put the notes of your lesson plan is on the pages of the lesson. Use red ink for these instructions to yourself. Use blue or black ink for comments on the content of the lessons. Underline or circle for emphasis. Draw connecting arrows for progression or cause and effect. Highlighting in yellow can help. Put assignments for your students in red at the end of each lesson. Make your notes brief, simple, clear, thorough, and very legible ... remember you will be referring to them as you teach.

TEACHING THE LESSON

Good teaching is a product of the proper preparation of the teacher and the proper preparation of a good lesson plan. Consistently good teaching doesn't happen without both of these. A few more guidelines will help you during the actual teaching time.

Take time to focus. In the few minutes just before teaching ... take some time to focus your mind and heart on the lesson. Pray for yourself, your students, and your teaching. Think about the goal of the lesson. Briefly review the lesson ... especially the beginning of it.

State the purpose. Briefly tell your students the goal of the lesson. Tell them the purpose of your teaching. Their knowing what to expect makes your teaching and their learning easier.

Encourage learning and application. Paul encouraged his students. "You know how we were exhorting and encouraging and imploring each one of you as a father would his own children, so that you may walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory." 1 Thessalonians 2:11-12. Encourage your students. Your mastery of the lesson material shows that it can be learned. Personal examples from your own life can be a great encouragement.

Be clear ... be simple ... be brief. Complexity is usually the enemy of understanding. Many words, and especially many big words, add complexity and confusion to the teaching process. One of the most famous speeches given in the United States was President Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address in 1863. His eloquent and moving speech was an illustration of simplicity adding to the impact of communication. Lincoln spoke for about two minutes. His speech contained only 262 words ... and 202 were one-syllable words. Keep these ten lessons simple. Don't add much to the material provided. Adding a lot of extra detail takes away from the students' understanding of the whole lesson ... and it makes the lesson less transferable to others.

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Disciplemaking 1, copyright 2003, is available free from www.MyDisciplemaker.org where you can study online or print free copies. You may copy this course, any any part of it, for free or at-cost distribution ... without change to the content ... and with this copyright policy attached. Published by www.ActsOneEight.org. Bible Quotations are from the NASB unless noted.