Page 53 - Teaching Principles and Methods Student Textbook short

Study Section 10: How to Prepare to Teach a Lesson

10.1 Connect

An olympic athletic spends YEARS of his life preparing to compete in the olympics. You
can’t just decide to go to the olympics, sign up, and compete. You wouldn’t get too far.
You have to practice and prepare, developing your skills over a life-time to even consider
being able to compete at that level.

Teaching is the same way. You can’t just stand up in front of a bunch of people and “shoot the breeze”
off the top of your head. You have to spend some time preparing and planning before you will have
success as a teacher. Today we are going to learn how to do the hard job of preparing to teach. Let’s
dig in…..

10.2 Objectives

1. The student should be able to explain that before you start working on a particular verse,
you have to find out background information about the book of the verse.

2. The student should be able to explain that history, geography, culture, and language are
extremely important to properly understand and interpret Scripture.

10.3 How to Prepare to Teach a Lesson

Preparation is the most important part of teaching a lesson or passage of Scripture.
Diligent preparation is the foundation of the lesson. Without it, you can build a house
called your lesson, but it will collapse in disaster simply because the lesson is not moored
on the foundation of meticulous research into the background of the passage. Not only
will the lesson fall flat, but you might end of teaching false doctrine to your class just
because of your own ignorance and lack of preparation. Let me suggest some general principles to help
you prepare and then I will give you 14 specific steps in creating a lesson. Let’s start with some general
principles.

1. Background Information. You must find out some background information about
the book from which the verse or verses are to be taught. If you have a study Bible,
normally this information will be located just before chapter 1 of the book you are
studying. This information will include the author of the book, approximately when
it was written, the purpose of the letter or book, historical events occurring at the
time of writing, to whom it was written, and so on. Knowing this information will
help you understand why the particular verse or verses are in the book.

A good study Bible is essential for the proper preparation in God’s Word. It will contain:

A. Charts
B. Cross References (generally in the margin next to passage)
C. Notes which clarify meanings of various verses (generally located at the
bottom of each page and reference verses contained on the same page.)

52