lesson planning certtesol
TRANSCRIPT
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When teaching, whether we are working from a course book or designing a lesson from
scratch, we need a thorough plan of where we want to go and how we want to get there.
Its a little bit like planning a journey: you need to determine what to pack, which route to
take, and you need to anticipate some of the problems you will encounter along the way.As with planning for a journey, effective lesson planning is one of the most important
elements in successful teaching. A plan is a guide for the teacher on where to go and howto get there.
In this Study Resource for the CertTESOL, we will have a closer look at:
What is a lesson plan?
Why do we need to write lesson plans?
What is the key to lesson planning?
What are the main stages of a lesson?
What are some questions to ask myself when planning?
How can we anticipate problems and solutions?
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WHAT IS A LESSON PLAN?
A lesson plan sets out what language and/or skills you intend to cover with your learners
during the lesson (i.e. the aims of the lesson) and how you intend to do this (i.e. the
activities that the learners will be engaged in to help them achieve these aims). In many
ways, the lesson plan represents a mental picture of the thought and preparation that you
have put into the lesson and how you envisage it unfolding in reality.
Your plan should include details about:
learners
learning aims
context
anticipated problems and solutions
materials and aids
procedure
The Procedure page may be laid out something like this:
Stage Aim Teacher Activity Student Activity Interaction Timing
WHY DO WE NEED TO WRITE LESSON PLANS?
One of the most important reasons is for you to identify your aims for the lesson. You
need to be able to pinpoint exactly what language items and skills you want your learners
to be able to use better by the end of the lesson.
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Careful planning and preparation will also:
help you to think logically through the stages in relation to the time available
keep you on target
give you confidence
give your learners confidence in you
make sure that lesson is balanced and appropriate for class
help you focus on teaching areas you need to improve in
provide you with a useful record
WHAT IS THE KEY TO LESSON PLANNING?
Your learners
Think about their language level, age, educational and cultural background, motivation,
strengths and weaknesses, learning styles, etc. Try to base your activities and materials
around the needs and interests of your group to make learning relevant. The better you
know your learners, the more you can personalize your lesson content and make it suit
your group.
Aims
One of the main principles of planning is establishing clear and realistic aims that are
achievable and meet the learners needs. Your aims specify language items that they will
have learned and skills they will have improved by the end of the lesson. Aims are stated
from the learners perspective, rather than focused on what the teacher is going to do.
Some examples are:
for learners to be able to use the past simple tense of irregular verbs when talking
about their last holiday
for learners to be able to read a news article for gist
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Clearly stated aims, and achieving them, are key indicators of good plans and good
teaching.
Context
To make it meaningful to our learners, it is important that language is always encountered
in context. Consider how the language naturally occurs, who uses it, about what, where,
when, why, and how. Try to keep the situation relevant to your learners.
Variety
Variety keeps the learners motivated and engaged, and also helps
you cater for different learning styles within your class (visual,
auditory, kinesthetic). Plan to vary your teaching techniques,
activities, materials and interactions.
Learner involvement
Try to engage the learners as much as possible: include plenty of student-centred
activities and maximum student talking time, elicit language and concepts from the
learners rather than tell them, and personalise language work so they can use English fordescribing their own lives.
Flexibility
It is never possible to predict exactly what will happen in the
classroom and you will sometimes need to adapt your plan to suit the
circumstances. Consider optional activities that you may do if time
allows or that you can skip if necessary.
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WHAT ARE THE MAIN STAGES IN A LESSON?
For learners to benefit from classroom language learning they need to be
motivated, exposed to the language, and given opportunities to use it.
There are different ways of approaching and describing the staging of lessons. One such
way is set out in How to Teach English (Longman, 2007 [2nd
edition]), where Jeremy
Harmer suggests the three stages ofEngage, Study andActivate.
During the Engage phase, the teacher tries to arouse the learners' interest and engage
their involvement. This might be through a game, the use of pictures, an amusing story,
etc. Learners who participate and enjoy themselves tend to make better progress.
The Study phase uses the engagement to direct attention to
the meaning of language items, how they are used and
formed. This may be related to pronunciation, grammar, lexis
or skills development, and include analysis and controlled
practice. The Study stage could be learner-centred or teacher-led.
For learners to develop their use of English they need to have a chance to produce it in a
personalized and communicative way. In the Activate stage, tasks require the learners to
use not only the target language of the lesson, but their full language knowledge.
Plan to include all these stages in your lessons.
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QUESTIONS TO ASK WHEN PLANNING YOUR LESSON
1. What is the teaching point? specific language (in the context of grammar, lexis, and
pronunciation)?
specific skills (speaking, reading, listening, writing)?Think about what you expect the learners to be able to do by the end of the lesson
(youraims).
2. What is a good way to set the context for the language? This can be done by usinga dialogue, a description, realia, pictures, mime, a story, questions, a reading text,
etc. Consider when and how we use this language naturally.
3. How are you going to highlight the language to the learners? Tell the learnersdirectly? Ask them to discover it?
4. What activities are you going to use? What order will they come in? How muchtime will each stage take? Suppose your learners take more, or less, time to carry
out each activity? How could that affect the whole timing of the lesson?
5. What materials are you going to use: texts, pictures, CD, tasks? Are they relevantto your learners? Do they relate back to your aim?
6. What opportunities are you going to give learners to practise the language anduseit in a meaningful way?
7. Consider yourclass management. How are you going to give your instructions?Are your learners going to work in pairs, groups, mingle? How can you give them
a good variety of listening and talking to you, and working with each other?
8.
How can you engage the learners at the beginning of thelesson? A good way of doing this is often through a warmer
or an ice-breaker.
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Even with the best preparation, unexpected difficulties and situations mayarise. These may relate to both language and classroom management. As
part of your planning, you need to predict pitfalls and suggest ways of
dealing with them.
anticipated difficulties suggested solutions
concept what the grammatical or lexical
item actually means e.g. when
you appear to ask a question, areyou actually giving an instruction,
e.g. Would you like to closeyour books, please
concept checking, examples,
demonstrations, translation
form how the structure is made
(e.g. I live in Montevideo:
present simple tense to describecurrent state.
board work, drilling
context when the item is used naturally
and appropriately
e.g. the roof of my house, the roof
of my mouth
situation, written or recorded text,
pictures
pronunciation how to say the grammatical orlexical item, or how to copy the
sound and intonation, e.g. similar
spellings but different sounds cough, rough, dough
demonstration, phonetic alphabet,
drilling
class
management
timing, group dynamics,
instructions, e.g. when will we
work as a whole class, and whenin groups
pace, back-up activities, varied
interactions, instructions check
cultural
aspects
how content can be specific to or
sensitive in certain groups, e.g.What is the significance of abirthday in different cultures?
Or my family?
awareness, discussion
As a trainee on a CertTESOL course, you are required to produce
very detailed plans, as careful planning will help you process
every aspect of your upcoming lesson.
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After teaching, you will reflect on your plan, and receive feedback from your tutor.
You will learn how to plan individual lessons which normallyextend over40to 60minutes. However, as you become a more experienced teacher, you will need totake intoaccount what your learners have done in previous lessons, with you or with another
teacher, and what their whole syllabus or learning programme for - say - a week or a
termlooks like.
We hope you have enjoyed this introduction to Lesson Planning. Thank you to Fusion Teaching
([email protected]) for their work on this Trinity TESOL Study Resource