Methodology3 Lesson Planning2011

8/13/2019 Methodology3 Lesson Planning2011

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Catedra de Limba si Li teratura englezaELT Methodology 2011

LESSON PLANNING

The success with which a teacher conducts a lesson is oftenthought to depend on the effectiveness with which the lesson wasplanned. (Richards 1998: 103)

Many of your decisions intended to promote learning in the classroom will be basedon your answer to the question: How do I plan my lessons to promote as much learning aspossible? Planning includes all the decisions you make before working directly with thepupils. Before you teach a lesson it helps to be clear about what exactly you want to do. Alot is going to happen on the spot in the class, but the better prepared you are, the morelikely it is that you will be ready to cope with whatever happens.

Most teachers have in advance some idea of any lesson they are about to teach:they have an idea of what they will try to cover and how. Fewer teachers prepare theirlessons in detail. However, we encourage you to write a wide range of lesson plans. Eventhough you may later on choose to plan your lessons more skeletally, the exercise ofthorough and disciplined planning will provide you with an insight into your teaching andwill make your lessons more effective.

During the planning phase, you will make decisions about goals, activities, resources,timing, pupils grouping, and other aspects of the lesson.

Objectives

By the end of this lecture you will:

have a good idea of what needs to be included in a lesson plan

be able to formulate main and subsidiary lesson aims for various types oflessons

distinguish aims from activities

use a suitable lesson plan layout.

Key Concepts: pre-planning, planning, timetable fit, assumed knowledge,anticipated problems, aims, timing, plan layout, timetabling, lesson implementation,lesson plan evaluation

1 Introduction to lesson planningLesson planning means the daily decisions a teacher makes for the successful

outcome of the lesson. (Richards and Renandya, 30)Planning is a key aspect of effective teaching. Most teachers engage in yearly, term,

unit, weekly, and daily lesson planning. Yearly and term planning usually involve listing theobjectives for a particular programme. A unit plan is a series of related lessons around aspecific theme, such as Going shopping (see also Timetabling, below). Planning dailylessons is the result of a complex planning process that includes the yearly, term, and unitplans. A daily lesson plan describes how you will organise the pupils learning in order toattain specific objectives, in other words how your teaching behaviour will result in pupillearning.

Lesson plans are systematic records of the teachers thoughts about what will becovered in a lesson. A lesson plan helps the teacher think about the lesson in advance and


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be prepared to resolve problems, deal with difficulties, provide a structure for the lesson.According to Richards (1998, 103), a lesson plan is like a map for the teacher to follow anda record of what has been taught.

Although planning is sometimes seen as a chore, lesson planning has enormousadvantages for both pupils and teachers. Here are a few of the (internal) advantages ateacher may have from planning:

it means anticipation, coherence, balance and clarity of purpose

it helps you learn the subject matter better

it makes lesson execution easier

it makes the lesson run smoothly

it allows for flexibility in lesson execution

it saves time in the long run

it looks professional

it makes you understand that some things are more important than others

it helps you teach more confidently it makes self-appraisal much easier.

The pupils will benefit from the decisions made by the teacher after considering theirbackgrounds, interests, learning styles and abilities. The result of these decisions will be acoherent, varied, well-targeted and well-shaped lesson, which will be appreciated byyour pupils.

Moreover, there are externalreasons for planning lessons: teachers may be askedto do this by the school principal or a supervisor or to guide a substitute teacher. A lessonplan will also be a guide to anybody observing your teaching or reading about yourlessons:

A lesson plan will help your observer or reader see how you have prepared foryour lesson and the factors you have taken into consideration.

A lesson plan makes the task of commenting upon lessons much easier. Itexplains why you are doing something at a particular point in a lesson, and it maylocate and identify any problems.

A lesson plan is something concrete that can be referred to. This is useful eitherin feedback with your inspector, observer and tutor or for your reader.

2 Pre-planning

Think first!

What elements do you need to plan for an English lesson?


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There are some general areas to consider when planning:

The learners. Will they enjoy the lesson? Will they benefit from it?

The aims. What will the learners achieve? What are you going to achieveyourself?

The teaching point. What is the subject matter of the lesson the skills orlanguage areas that will be studied and the topics you will deal with?

The teaching procedures. What activities will you use? What sequence will theycome in?

Materials. What texts, tapes, pictures, exercises, role-cards, etc. will you use?

Classroom management. What will you say? How will the seating be arranged?How much time will each stage take?

Plan for your pupils. If you do not know much about the class, try to find out as muchas possible about them before you decide what to teach. Bear in mind their level oflanguage, their background, their motivation and their learning styles. Remember thatbesides knowledge of the pupils, you also need to have knowledge of the syllabus.

Harmer (2001) says that in your lesson plan you will need to include four mainelements: activities, skills, language andcontent:

Decide what the pupils will be doing in the classroom and how they will begrouped. Think what kind of activity would fit them at any particular point in thelesson. Vary and balance the activities so that each pupil gets a chance of findingthe lesson engaging and motivating.

Decide which language skill(s) you need to develop in that lesson. Your choicemay be limited by the syllabus or the textbook. However, you still need to planhow the pupils will work on the respective skill(s) and what sub-skills you want todevelop.

Decide what language (e.g. lexical items, grammar structures) you need tointroduce and practise.

The key question, probably, is What are the aims of the lesson? If you can answerthis if you can be clear about what you hope your learners will have achieved by the endof the lesson then perhaps the other questions will become easier to answer.

Starting from the textbook, select the content. Keep in mind that the textbook is justa guide and that you are free to replace what is given in the textbook with something else.You are, after all, the class teacher who knows the pupils personally and can predict whichtopics will be found interesting and which boring. Remember however, that the mostinteresting topic will become boring if the task set for the pupils is uninteresting and that, on

the other hand, topics that are not particularly interesting can become very successful if youassign a task that your pupils find engaging.


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Fig. 3.1 Lesson Planning

(after Harmer, J., 2001, The Practice of English Language Teaching, p. 310)

Your lesson plan will reflect many of the important features of your lesson:

your understanding of aims (main and subsidiary)

your awareness of the language

your ability to anticipate problems

the balance and variety of activities in the lesson

the interaction patterns used

whether or not whole stages of the lesson are missing

the allocation of time to particular activities

We therefore need to look at writing lesson plans and consider what they shouldcontain.

3 Writing a lesson plan

Even though a lesson may have already been planned by the textbook writer, the

teacher still needs to relate that lesson to the needs of the specific class s/he teaches, tothe needs, wants, problems and interests of the pupils. During this process of adaptation,the teacher transforms the content of the lesson and makes decisions that will make thelesson successful. Not all these decisions will be included in the written lesson plan. Manyexperienced teachers teach successful lessons based on brief notes or mental plans.However, student teachers are expected to produce a detailed lesson plan for each lessontaught, as an awareness-raising tool. Requiring you to sit down and think through your aimsand procedure very carefully may help you to become clearer about what works and why. Alesson plan turns a potential lesson (such as a textbook lesson) into the basis for anengaging and effective lesson. A lesson plan results from a number of thinking processesand involves making decisions about what topics to study, what the pupils should know or

be able to do by the end of the lesson, what examples are needed, what strategies can beused and how learning will be assessed.

Teachers knowledge of the studentsTeachers knowledge of the syllabus

Acti vi ties Languageskills Languagetype Subject andcontent

Practical realities

The plan


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Harmer (1991) includes the following elements in a lesson plan:a. description of the classb. recent workc. objectivesd. contents (context, activity and class organisation, aids, language, possible

problems)e. additional possibilities.

Lesson planning involves decisions about the pedagogical dimensions of the lesson,but also decisions about the management of the class during the lesson: eliciting pupilsattention, maintaining their engagement in the lesson, organising their interaction,monitoring their learning.

The dominant model of lesson planning is Tylers rational-linear framework (1949).This model has four sequential steps: (1) specify objectives; (2) select learning activities; (3)organise learning activities; (4) specify methods of evaluation.

A lesson plan normally contains preliminary information under several headings.

Think first!

What preliminary information do you think is usually introducedat the beginning of a lesson plan?

3.1 Preliminary information

The preliminary information sheet is usually about 1 or 2 pages:

1. Timetable fit2. Level3. Time4. Class profile5. Aims (main and subsidiary)6. Assumed knowledge and anticipated problems7. Materials and aids

1. Timetable fit.This shows how your lesson fits into a sequence of lessons. Hereyou need to show how this lesson relates to other lessons that have gone before and thosethat will follow. State brieflywhat textbook you are using with the class, the work relevant tothe lesson that you have covered and give some indication of how the lesson will beconsolidated in future lessons.

2. Level. Here you state the level of the class: Beginner, Elementary, Lower or UpperIntermediate, Advanced, or Proficient and the year of study.

3. Time. The usual length of a lesson is about 50 minutes.

4. Class profile. Make some brief general comments about the class as a whole(atmosphere, etc) and mention any relevant points about individual students (age, particularstrengths or weaknesses, etc). This information is particularly useful if your reader, tutor or

inspector has not seen your lesson.


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5. Aims (main aim/objecti ve and subsidiary aims).For every lesson you teach,and for each activity within that lesson, it is useful to be able to state what the aims are. Anaim is the description of a learning outcome, the destination wher you want to take yourpupils (not the journey itself). It is important, therefore, to separate mentally the followingfrom the aims of the lesson:

(a) the material you use;(b) the activities that will be done;(c) the teaching point (the language skills or systems that the lesson will work on);(d) the topics or contexts that will be used;

You cannot say, for instance, that your aim is to do a role-play since this is anactivity, not an aim. Youi need to specify what your aim for the activity(subsidiary aim) is(e.g. to consolidate vocabulary related to previous work in class or to recycle expressingpolite refusals, or to develop fluency in etc.)

In the following list of headings, say which is an aimand which is

an activity.a) Develop the scan reading skill;b) Dialogue building;c) Headwayp. 36;d) Grammar revision: conditional clauses;e) Jigsaw reading;f) Further practice of /s/ vs. /z/ and /iz/ in plural endings;g) Introduction of the language of disagreeing;h) Warmer;i) Elicit use of Present Perfect.

6. Assumed knowledge and ant ic ipated problems. Thinking about your pupilswhen you are planning is crucial. The assumptions and anticipated problems are thespecific things, relevant to the aims of your lesson, which you anticipate your pupils mayeither find easy or have problems with. This is an important part of your lesson plan since itshows your ability to analyse language.

Specify briefly what relevant language you think your pupils already know(vocabulary, structures, etc). If you intend to do some skill work, state the level of abilityyour pupils have with that skill.

It is more difficult to make assumptions about levels of skill than about levels ofknowledge. If you have recently taken over a class, then you may need to test out thepupils skills before you can make any safe assumptions.

Analyse anticipated problems under the following headings on your lesson plan: a)meaning, b) form, c) phonology, and d) level ofskill(e.g.present level of your pupils abilityin coping with listening tasks). Occasionally, you may need to add a fifth heading, e) socio-cultural problems.

Here are some example statements of assumptions and anticipated problems:

The pupils have good gist listening skills but are not very used to listening toloudspeaker announcements.

The pupils have come across most of the vocabulary before, but only in theirreading.

The pupils are familiar with the topic area; it was the subject of a discussion in a

previous lesson.The pupils have good higher processing skills but tend to make mistakes in


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interpreting grammatical discourse markers.

Alternatively, you can analyse separately the pupils assumed knowledge and theproblems you anticipate when teaching that lesson.

7. Materials and aids. List any materials, references, tapes, pictures, board

drawings, diagrams, handouts, realia, etc. you intend to use. State also if the material isyour own or where you took it from (as this will be very useful when you teach the samelesson again.)

3.2 Formulating aims

You are expected to offer a clear statement of aims before you start teaching alesson. This is a useful training discipline, forcing you to concentrate on deciding whatactivities and procedures are most likely to lead to specific outcomes for the learners. Thisis probably the most important part of your lesson plan since your lesson will ultimately be

judged in terms of your aims.It is essential that the lesson aims are realistic, achievable, clearly specified anddirected towards an outcome that can be measured. Clear, well-written aims are the firststep in daily lesson planning. They state precisely what you want your pupils to learn; theyalso help you guide the selection of the activities, the overall lesson focus and direction.They also help you evaluate what the pupils have learned at the end of the lesson. If youare unsure about the aims of your lesson, use this maxim: What is it that my pupils shouldbe able to do by the end of the lesson that they couldnt do at the beginning?

The most important aim concerns intended student achievements: things that theywill have learned by the end of the lesson. You can deal with aims under two headings:main/major and subsidiary. In a lesson of 50 minutes you will normally have two or three

main aims. These should encapsulate what the lesson is basically about. Aims refer toeither language development or skills improvement. In an English lesson, language-oriented aims may be for instance the introduction and controlled oral practice of a certaingrammar structure, while askill-oriented aim may be to improve the pupils listening skill orto increase the pupils confidence and ability to scan a text. Subsidiary aims will be derivedfrom the main aims (e.g. to give the pupils practice in selective listening, in anticipatingcontent, and in using guessing strategies to overcome lexical difficulties).

In an English class, the lesson aims will be mainly cognitiveand affective. Generallyspeaking, the cognitive aimsare statements that describe the knowledge that the pupilsare expected to acquire or construct. Use in the formulation of these aims verbs like:remember, understand, apply, analyse, evaluate andcreate. Apply these verbs to the four

main dimensions of knowledge: factual, conceptual, procedural and metacognitive, as youwill most probably want your pupils to do more than remember facts. In the 21stcentury,your pupils will expect thinking, decision making and problem solving to be increasinglyemphasised in the classroom.

A number of aims that fit into the affectivedomain, which focus on attitudes, valuesand on the development of the pupils personal and emotional growth, are alsorecommended. Although much of the focus in the affective domain is implicit, sometimeswe need to concentrate on it deliberately. For example, in a lesson with reference tomulticulturalism, your aim may be to develop your pupils awareness of and appreciation ofanother cultures values and customs. Remember that attitudes, values and emotions

strongly affect learning, and when you plan and teach a lesson, you should keep in mindfactors like willingness to listen, open-mindedness, commitment to values and involvement.


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If you have a clear objective (main aim) for a lesson, you can bear this in mind all theway through the class. Knowing where you are going enables you to make moment-by-moment decisions about different paths or options to take en route, while keeping the mainobjective always clearly in front of you. Good lesson planning, and especially goodspecifying of objectives does not restrict you, but in clarifying the end point you intend to

teach, sets you free to go towards that point in the most appropriate ways in class.Remeber that the lesson has limited aims (2 3), and that you shouldnt try to achieve toomuch.

Is teaching the present perfect a realistic aim for a lesson? Howabout doing a listening exercise?

Try to formulate aims that are learner-centred, such as to enable thepupils to usethe present perfect with a greater degree of accuracy.

Distinguish between teaching aims and learning aims. You may have aims foryourself in the lesson (teaching aims), such as to improve the clarity of my instructions.These should be expressed in a separate section.

The following headings can help you specify aims for a reading or listening lesson:text type, style and register, reading or listening style, specific language aim, specific skillsaim, and so on. Here are some examples of lesson aims:

Text type, style and register: To provide practice in reading magazine articles in informal style.

To present an ESP (medical) journal article, with formal style and marked register. To provide practice in listening to loudspeaker announcements. To provide practice in listening to formal speeches.

Reading or listening style: To test pupils intensive reading abilities To provide practice in skim listening

Specific language aims To provide receptive practice of some discourse connectors (e.g. however,although, though) To present comment segments introduced by which (e.g. I got there early,

which is why I had to wait so long, etc.)

Specific skills aim To help pupils use their background knowledge to make correct inferences To present a way of dealing with unfamiliar words by breaking them down intoparts

It is often desirable to kill two or more birds with one stone and set aims, thus:

To provide practice in reading magazine articles in informal style and to help thepupils use background knowledge to make correct inferences.

To present discourse linkers such as however, although, though.


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How could you formulate the above aims in a more learner-centred way?

The languageyou use for stating aims is important. Action verbs are typically usedto identify the desired pupil behaviour. Vague verbs such as understand, appreciate, enjoyor learnare avoided because these situations are difficult to quantify. Action verbs such asidentify, present, describe, explain, demonstrate, list, contrastor debateare clearer and thesituations easier to understand and evaluate. The best-known source for useful actionverbs is Blooms Taxonomy of Thinking Processes. Here are a few verbs taken fromBlooms taxonomy, together with the cognitive process involved:

Knowledge: tell, list, define, name, identify, state, remember, repeat;

Comprehension/understanding: transform, change, restate, describe, explain,review, paraphrase, relate, generalise, infer;Appl icat ion: apply, practice, employ, use, demonstrate, illustrate, show, report;Analysis : analyse, distinguish, examine, compare, contrast, survey, investigate,

separate, categorize, classify, organise;Synthesis: compose, construct, design, modify, imagine, produce, proposeEvaluation: judge, decide, select, evaluate, critique, debate, verify, recommend,

assess.

3.3 Procedure

After writing the preliminary information, you must decide the activities andprocedures that you will use to ensure the successful attainment of the aims. Therefore, atthis stage you need to think through the purposes and structures of the activities, in othewords, the shape of the lesson. A generic lesson plan has five phases (Shrum and Glisan1994):

1. Perspective or opening. The teacher asks the pupils what was the previousactivity (what was previously learned)? Then the teacher gives a preview of thenew lesson.

2. Stimulation. This phase prepares the pupils for the new activity. The teacher (a)poses a question to get the pupils thinking about the coming activity; (b) helps thepupils to relate the activity to their lives; (c) begins with an attention grabber: ananecdote, a picture, or a song; and (d) uses the response to the attention grabberas a lead into the activity.

3. Instruction/participation. This phase involves the teacher in presenting theactivity, checking for pupils understanding and encouraging active pupilinvolvement. Interaction can be stimulated by pair and/or group work.

4. Closure. The teacher asks what the pupils have learned by asking questionssuch as What did you learn? how do you feel about these activities? Theteache then gives a preview about the possibilities for future lessons.

5. Follow-up. The teacher uses other activities to reinforce some concepts and

even introduce some new ones. The teacher gives the pupils opportunities to doindependent work and can set certain activities or tasks taken from the lesson as


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homework.

Of course, teachers can have variations on this generic model. As pupils gaincompetence, they can take on a larger role in choosing the content and the structure of thelesson. On the other hand, language lessons may be different form other lessons becausethe concepts may need to be reinforced time and again using various procedures.

If the question What do you want the pupils to learn and why? needs to beaddressed before reaching the procedure part of the lesson plan, the following questions,suggested by Farrell (in Richards and Renandya, 34) may be useful for you to answerbefore starting to write the procedure part of the lesson plan:

Are all the tasks necessary worth doing and at the right level?

What materials, aids, will you use, why and when?

What type of interaction will you encourage pair work or group work andwhy?

What instructions will you have to give and how will you give them (written,

oral)? What questions will you ask? How will you monitor pupil understanding during different stages of the

lesson?

A good lesson plan should be clear and logical, and make the lesson reconstructable(i.e. someone else should be able to teach it following your lesson plan). You do not needto write a word-for-word script, but you need more than brief notes that only youunderstand.

When teaching the lesson, you may wish to have a simpler working document foryourself, which shows major stages, concept questions, types of interaction, timing, etc.Some teachers like to use a series of cards that carry instructions and contain the mainpoints of a particular stage so that they can easily refer to them during the lesson.

Show how you will convey meaning and check understanding. Write conceptquestions on your lesson plan, with the answers you expect. Remember that you may alsoneed to ask questions about style, register, connotation, etc. All this will demonstrate thatyou have analysed the language you are teaching. On the lesson plan, show the formclearly.

Where you anticipate pronunciation problems, show awareness of sounds, stressand intonation. On the lesson plan, give the phonetic transcription of problematic words orchunks of language and mark stress and intonation patterns. When teaching vocabulary,mark word stress on lexical items.

These will make clear why you are doing something at a particular point in your

lesson. They will also help your observer, tutor, inspector or reader to assess theeffectiveness of any part of the lesson and help you to clarify the distinction between aimsand activities.

In the list below, the left-hand column contains subsidiary aimswhich were written by various teachers, but which may deserve closerscrutiny. Analyse these aims and write your own comments in theright-hand column.

Aims Your CommentsTo develop the listeningskill

To practise the skill oflistening for detailed


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information.

To practise gist listening.

To practise reading forunderstanding.

To practise skimming along written text.

To practise scanning forspecific information

Showing the type of interaction for each stage and activity (e.g. T - S, S - S, ingroups, in pairs, etc.), will help you to assess if there is sufficient variety of focus in thelesson.

Show the approximate amount of time you expect to spend on each stage or activityin the lesson. Be realistic about this. A lot will depend on your experience and judgement.Sometimes the timing can go wrong, so dont be afraid of being flexible in the lesson.

Timing

The time you give to particular stages or activities is often a reflection of what youperceive to be important in the lesson, so you will need to make appropriate decisionsabout timing. Remember to allow for thinking time and keep in mind that the pupilsconcentration span on any activity is only about 20 - 30 minutes.

Giving an approximate timing can also help you to limit your aims, and it can helpyou to learn from experience how long some kinds of activities can take. If you have timingproblems with lessons, this may be due to several causes:

poor understanding of aims

confusion over what the main aims and subsidiary aims are unanticipated problems due to insufficient language analysis

different learning rates among pupils

the pupils unfamiliarity with the concepts used

poor language grading

insufficient or confusing instructions

slow pace of the lesson, etc.

One possible solution to timing problems is to build flexible slots into the lessonplan, which can be used or dropped as necessary.

Include brief but clear class management instructions, e.g. for organising pair work,

group work, for the use of the textbook, etc.

Board work

Plan board work before the lesson so that it is clearly organised and legible. Show onyour lesson plan how you will make use of the board during the lesson. Board work willinclude titles, rules, diagrams, example sentences, phonological features, i.e.anything thatthe pupils will write down as a record of the lesson.

Remember to go round the classroom and check whether the pupils are copyingdown accurately. Alternatively, a well designed handout (e.g. a grammar referencehandout) can be given to save time in the lesson. Board work can also be prepared beforethe lesson on OHP transparencies.


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Skills work

Show how you will prepare and interest the pupils in these activities. For instance,say what questions you prepared to elicit contributions. Include pre-set questions forreading or listening tasks and their expected answers. For listening activities, indicate thenumber of times you intend to play the tape.

Homework

Make sure the homework task you set is meant to consolidate what has beencovered in the lesson and to check if learning has taken place.

To sum up the features of good lesson plan, this should have:

clearly specified aims

evidence of language analysis

logical staging of the lesson

clear and easy to read procedure.

The stages of the lesson should be clearly indicated on the plan. Being able to referto stages numerically makes the plan easier to read (e.g.1.a, 3.b, etc.). The ending andbeginning of stages should also be made clear to the pupils during the lesson.

3.4 A final check of the lesson plan

Having done all the above, spend some time thinking:

Is there sufficient variety? Look at the activities, focus, pace and interactionpatterns.

Could the pupils be more involved at each stage?

What are the pupils asked to contribute at each stage? What are the pupilsrequired to do?

What is your role at each stage (corrector, monitor, resource, participant)?

4 Layout of lesson plans

The layout style you adopt for the Procedure part of the lesson plan is a question ofindividual taste. Here are some tips:

Give a heading to each stage. This will help you to plan logically staged lessons andmake it clear how the stages of the lesson develop, e.g.:

presenting new language getting across meaning

highlighting form and pronunciation

controlled practice

less controlled practice

freer practice / personalisation / creative stage

The heading also helps to ensure that important stages of the lesson are not left outand that appropriate materials are prepared for the practice stages.

Your lesson plan layout can be linear or tabular (arranged in the form of a table).Linear plans are written as any normal text would be, with headings and sub-headings.

If you choose to use a tabular layout, here are two versions of what it may look like:


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Aims Time InteractionPatterns

Aids Teacheractivity

PupilActivi ty

Step/Stage

Time Tasks (teacher) Tasks(pupils)

Interaction

Aims(purpose)

1 510mins

Opening: introductionto the topic sport. Tactivates schema forsport.T asks Ss to help herwrite down as manydifferent kinds of sporton the board within 3minutes.

T asks Ss to rank theirfavourite sports inorder of importance

Listen

Ss call out theanswer to thequestion as theT writes theanswers on theboard.T writes theanswers.

TSs

Arouse interest.Activate schemafor sport.

(from Farrell, 36)

The advantage of the tabular layout is that you have to think about what needs tobe written in each of the columns for each stage of the lesson. It is also easy to see if thelesson is too teacher-centred. However, some people may find this layout difficult to follow.

A compromise layout can also work quite well:

Stage Procedure Aim

Practice

10 20minutes

Pair work

1. Each pupil writes down three ways inwhich s/he thinks they are different fromtheir partners. S/he does not show thepartner what s/he has written.

2. Both pupils tell each other about thedifferences and talk about where theywere right or wrong, then they talk about

the similarities.

To give pupils written andspoken practice inexpressing their opinions,in agreeing anddisagreeing.

To encourage pupils to getto know someone better.

(from Klippel F., Keep Talking, CUP, 1991)

This layout has several advantages. The name of the stage, the time and type ofinteraction all fit into the Stagecolumn, and there is plenty of space left for detail in theProcedurecolumn. Also, there is space in the Aimcolumn to indicate the aim of particularstages and activities in the lesson. The lesson plan is also easy to follow for your tutor,reader, observer or inspector.

5 Implementing the lesson planImplementing the lesson plan is the most important and the most difficult phase of


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the planning cycle as the reality of the class often takes over. Unplanned events may occurwhich may hinder you from following the plan. After having spent so much time to producethe lesson plan, you will feel inclined to follow it closely, for fear of failing to achieve any ofyour stated aims. However, you should feel free to diverge from it when you have to dealwith any unanticipated events or difficulties that you may encounter. It is often the case that

you need to adjust or even change the original plan when the lesson is not going well. Thiswill show your willingness to respond to the classroom situation as it develops, and you willbe given credit for doing this.

Think first!

What reasons may teachers have to deviate from their lessonplans?

It is not a good idea to stick to your lesson plan, regardless of what happens in theclassroom. Remeber that the original plan was designed with specific intentions in mind andbased on your diagnosis of the learning needs of the pupils. However, you may need tomake adjustments to the lesson at the implementation stage. Thomas Farrell (in Richardsand Renandya, 2002: 34) suggests there are two broad reasons for adjustments at theimplementation stage: (a) the lesson is going badly and the plan may not be likely toproduce the desired outcomes, and (b) something unexpected happens during an early partof the lesson that necessitates improvisation (for instance interruptions due to loud noises,visits, etc.).

Sometimes teachers respond to issues raised by the pupils that they perceive tobe relevant for the other pupils;

They may decide to discuss some unplanned event because they appreciate it tobe timely for the class;

They may change the procedure as a means of promoting the progress of thelesson;

They may depart from the original plan when they understand they haventaccommodated the pupils learning styles;

They may eliminate some steps in the lesson plans in order to promote pupilinvolvement, especially if the pupils are not responding;

They may change the lesson plan to encourage quiet pupils to participate moreand to keep the more active students from dominating the class time.

If the lesson is going badly or not as planned, and immediate adjustments orimprovisations are necessary, a student teacher may not be able to either recognise thereis a problem, diagnose it, or think out the necessary adjustments quickly. This kind ofknowledge is built up with experience.

However, never be afraid to go back and clarify, reintroduce, check concepts again,or stop the class and repeat your instructions. As a general rule: prepare thoroughly, but inclass, teach the learners, not the plan. This means that you should be prepared torespond to the learners and adapt what you have planned as you go, even to the extent of

throwing the plan away if appropriate. The execution of a lesson involves a whole series ofdecisions that you are called to make as the lesson progresses. You need to show


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sensitivity to pupils and their difficulties and an ability to respond appropriately.A carefully thought out plan enables you to think logically through the content of the

lesson before the lesson and prepare material and aids. It then informsyour teaching inclass whether you follow it completely or not. However, a teacher who is mainlyconcerned with following a lesson plan to the letter is unlikely to be responding to what is

actually happening in class. On the other hand, if you do not follow your lesson plan, beprepared to explain afterwards why you decided to diverge from it. Do not be afraid to showflexibility, confidence and independence.

When implementing the lesson plan, try to monitor two important issues: variety andpace. Variety of delivery and variety of activities will keep your pupils interested. Variety isensured not only by the activities themselves but also by changes in their tempo (from fastto slow). The patterns of interaction also provide variety: individual tasks, pair work, groupwork, whole class interaction. The level of difficulty of the activities (from easy to moredemanding) also contributes to variety and pupil involvement. Penny Ur (1996) suggeststhat the harder activities should be placed earlier in the lesson and the quieter before the

lively ones.Pace is linked to the speed at which the activities progress, and lesson timing. Inorder for you to develop a sense of pace, Brown (1994) suggests a few guidelines:

1. Activities should not be too long or too short;2. Various techniques for delivering the activities should flow together;3. There should be clear transitions between each activity.

Avoid racing through different activities just because they have been written in thelesson plan and always remember that you work for the benefit of the pupils.

6. Evaluating the planAlthough experienced teachers already have a sense a what goes on well and what

does not while they are teaching, after having implemented the lesson, everyone mustevaluate the success or the failure of a lesson. Ur (1996) says that it is important to thinkafter teaching a lesson and ask whether it was a good one or not, and why (p. 219). Thisform of reflection is crucial for self-development. Even if success and failure are relativeterms, without evaluation the teacher has no way of assessing the success of the studentsor the adjustments that need to be made. Evaluation is thus important as it provides theopportunity to reflect on what has gone on in the lesson regarding the aims of the lesson,the success of the tasks, the appropriateness of the materials and, consequently, whatchanges need to be made in future lessons.

The main criterion of evaluation (Ur, 1996: 220) is pupil learning. Even though it isdifficult to judge how much learning has taken place, we can still make a good guess basedon our knowledge of the class, the type of activities the class was engaged in or on someinformal test activities that provide feedback on learning. Ur also offers ( ibidem) a fewcriteria for evaluating lesson effectiveness:

1. The class seemed to be learning the material well;2. The learners were engaging with the foreign language throughout;3. The learners were attentive all the time;4. The learners enjoyed the lesson and were motivated;5. The learners were active all throughout.

A few questions may also be helpful for you to reflect on after conducting a lesson


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Farell, 35):

What do you think the pupils actually learned?

What tasks were most successful? Least successful? Why?

Did you finish the lesson on time?

What changes (if any) will you make in your teaching and why (not)?Another source of feedback on the lesson success are the pupils themselves. You

can ask them questions at the end of the class, avoiding judgemental questions such asDid you enjoy the lesson and telling them that you need assistance with future lessonplanning. Such questions can be:

What do you think todays lesson was about?

What part was easy?

What part was difficult?

What changes would you suggest the teacher make?

To conclude, carefully thought-out lesson plans are likely to result in more efficientuse of instructional time and more successful teaching and learning opportunities.Remember also that teachers make choices before, during and after each lesson.

6 Timetabling

Timetabling involves planning and sequencing a whole series of lessons. The twofundamental questions that you need to answer are:

What will I teach? What is the syllabus?

How will the separate items be sequenced (what is the timetable)?

You need to consider a few more questions when you sequence a series of lessons.Here are some:

1. How far ahead do I plan (in terms of lesson hours)?2. What do I need to include in your timetable?3. What factors do I need to consider when timetabling?4. How do I see the role of the textbook in timetabling?5. What problems can I anticipate and what solutions?

The syllabus provides a longer term overview. It lists the contents of a course andputs the separate items in an order. In Romania there is a national syllabus for eachsubject, but in other parts of the world the syllabus is given by the coursebook or decided

by the teacher.

Having a syllabus can be of great help as it sets out clearly what you as a teacherare expected to cover with your class. It can be a burden too, if it is unrealistic for yourstudents in terms of what they need or are likely to achieve within a certain time.

6.1 Timetabling in Practice

The day-to-day, weekto week decisions about how to interpret a syllabus into aseries of lessons are usually wholly or partly the teachers job. This process typicallyinvolves the teacher looking at the school syllabus or/and coursebook contents page and

trying to map out how s/he will cover the content in the time that is available, selecting itemsfrom the syllabus and writing them into the appropriate spaces on a plan. Timetables are


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usually written out in advance (at the beginning of the school year, in this country). In mostschools a head of the department or school principal may provide you with a timetableformat.

A time table enables other teachers to understand what work is being done in yourclass. The information it provides may be especially important if another teacher shares

your class with you or takes over from you. The timetable should give others a clear idea ofwhat work was planned for a particular lesson and also show how that fits into the overallshape of the week and the course.

Here are some practical guidelines for timetabling:

1. Analyse the contents of the textbook unit and fill in an analysis sheet.

2. Review and note down separately:

a) links with previous units work;b) your perceptions of the pupils needs (in terms of language needs, skills,recycling and remedial work).

3. Take a look at the next unit.

4. Using the information from 1 and 2 decide:

a) what to teach, and what to omit;b) which material is useable for what (input and practice, skills and freer

practice, warmers and homework, etc.);

c) where you need to supplement with other material.

5. Fill in the immovable slots, e.g.tests, which may be given to you by the schoolsadministration.

6. Allocate:a) input and skills, paying attention to the balance within and betweenlessons;b) relevant bits of textbook; c) homework (including balance and variety).

7. Review and make changes as appropriate. Think about when you teachvocabulary and pronunciation, what and how often you recycle, when you introducenew language receptively for later activation, when you set grammar preparationhomework, etc.

Conclusions

Planning lessons is an operation that needs to take place before teaching can beeffective, and it is entirely the teachers responsibility. However, as teachers have differentstyles of teaching, their style of planning will also be duffernt. You must always allowyourself flexibility to plan your own way, keeping in mind the yearly, term and unit plans.Also, allow yourself the flexibility of diverging from the lesson plan in response to theactuality of the classroom, in order to maximise teaching and learning opportunities. Andyet, clearly thought-out lesson plans will maintain the attention of the students and increasethe likelihood that they will be interested in the lesson. A clear plan will also maximise timeand minimise confusion of whar is expected of the students, thus making classroommanagement easier (Farrell, idem, 37).

Here are some of the principles that a teacher should follow:

Take your pupils from dependence to independence. Build in your lesson plan, backward and forward links (revision, consolidation, skills


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work, presentation, practice, etc.)

Formulate aims clearly.

Be realistic: do not attempt to cover more than you can in the time you have. Limit youraims.

Provide balance of input, skills work, controlled / freer / free practice activities.

Provide variety of pace, focus, activity, intensity, interaction patterns. Ensure logical progression in the staging of activities.

Make the plan layout clear and easily accessible.

Provide enough detail to make the lesson reconstructable

Include in the lesson ways of checking that your pupils have understood or can producesomething of what you have introduced or practised.

Further Reading

Brown H. D., 1994. Teaching by Principles: An interactive approach to language pedagogy.Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall Regents

Harmer, J., 2001. The Practice of English Language Teaching, LongmanRichards, Jack C. and Renandya Willy A., 2002. Methodology in Language Teaching.

Cambridge: CUP.Scrivener, J. 1994. Learning Teaching. Heinemann.Ur, Penny. 1996.A course in language teaching: Practice and Theory. Cambridge: CUP.

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