lesson planning certtesol

7/28/2019 Lesson Planning CertTESOL

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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

lesson planning certtesol

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