Unit 4 Lesson Planning

Module 2 Lesson Stages and Plans

At the end of this module you will:-

1. understand the importance of adequate planning over a series of lessons

2. understand the importance of planning stages and activities

within a lesson

3. be aware of teacher and student roles at each stage

4. be able to write a detailed lesson plan

5. have considered ways to become a reflective teacher in your future career

This is the final module of the course and you will be asked to submit a lesson plan for a full lesson - it will be time to show off what you have learnt. If you have been doing the course slowly you may find yourself leafing back through earlier modules to remind yourself of their content and relevance to lesson planning. In any case, your mind should be making links between all you have learnt as you work through these final sections.

Your second task in this section is related to teacher development and how learning continues after you finish the course. To misquote Whitney Houston:

‘Learning to assess yourself is the greatest assessment of all’.

PART 1 LESSON PLANNING

LESSON PLANS AND HOLIDAYS

Lesson plans and lesson planning worry teachers a lot. Some even have lesson planning dreams, where they leave their plan on the bus or it flies out of the window….. But lesson planning is not as scary as it seems.

Think for a moment about going on holiday. When we are about to go on holiday here are some questions we ask ourselves:

How long do I have?

Where is my holiday going to be and what do I want to do when I get there?

How am I going to travel around and what do I need to take?

Can you see already how a holiday is like a course of lessons? Then, having made a plan, when we arrive in the place we have chosen for our holiday we find:

That something is more interesting than we thought or not as interesting

That we cannot get somewhere because there is no transport

That the weather is better or worse than we had expected.

But if we plan well and have a guidebook, we are able to make changes without panicking or getting confused.

SELF-CHECK 4:2 1

Which parts of a holiday are like which parts of lesson planning?

Write the lesson planning point next to the holiday point it resembles.

Holiday	Lesson
Something is more interesting than we thought or not as interesting	Day to day changes in plans can be made depending on students’ interests
We cannot get somewhere because there is no transport
How am I going to get around and what do I need to take?
That the weather is better or worse than we had expected so we do different things.	.
Where is the holiday going to be and what do I want to do when I get there?
How long do I have?

1. Sometimes you cannot do what you planned to do because of equipment problems.

2. Timing of the course and each lesson.

3. Questions about planning language and materials.

4. Questions about long term planning of overall aims.

5. Students can be unpredictable so we have to be able to adapt.

There are different kinds of lesson planning to take into consideration:

Long term planning (over a term or year)

Study the book you are using and check that you have the basic materials that you need and if materials are already prepared.

Find out the aims of your school for this level of student

Are you supposed to concentrate on speaking more than reading? Is there a special exam?

Think about timing - how long do you have? (including missed lessons for holidays, etc.)

Divide your course up into sections in some way and give a period of time to each one. This often goes with course book chapters. Try to stick to it and not race ahead or get behind.

Units 1 and 2 The future

Units 3 and 4 Past tenses and storytelling

Units 5 and 6 Likes and dislikes Units 7 and 8 Descriptions planning within a section of work

Sections of work are sometimes called Schemes of Work or Units. There are a number of aims for a Unit of work and these may be in your course book, so read it!

Some teachers just pick up the book and go on from where they left off last lesson without thinking about the overall plan for the section. Here’s why that is not a good idea:

It’s boring for you and the students.

Pages in the text book do not fit exactly into lessons and you will often have unfinished exercises.

The lessons may not have interesting and personalised materials to make links with real life.

Students do not understand why they are studying certain things - just ‘it’s in the book.’

A spidergram could help you understand what is going on in a unit. Make one together when your class starts a new topic. Here’s one on sport:

2.Reading and grammar:

Magazine biographies

1.Speaking:

Pair presentations on a

famous sports person

or sport

Powerpoint. ?

• Sports

7.Project work:

Preparing

presentation, wall

displays

3.Writing:

Report on a sport -

clear info and use of

bullet points

6.Listening: Interviews -

note taking,

being a good listener

5.Grammar:

Commands and

rules.

Have to, must.

Present perfect

tense.

4.Vocabulary:

Sports and equipment,

food and health

Remember also to consult the beginning of your course book. You often find a double page spread with a clear idea of what is going on in each unit. And there should be a teacher’s book to go with your course to give you more help and advice.

DAY TO DAY LESSON PLANNING.

You also need a plan for each day. Concentrate on having clear aims for every lesson. Write them at the top of your lesson notes. Write some of them on the board, introduce them at the beginning of the lesson. Aims for a lesson can be all sorts of things:

There are language aims-

To introduce the present perfect used with ‘for’ and ‘since’

To revise number recognition to 100

But there are other aims too:

To improve speed reading of short texts

(skill)

To investigate how and when we use dictionaries

(study skill)

To work together in different pairs

(class atmosphere)

Sometimes there are a teacher’s aims that are NOT shared with the class!

To give Aisha more chance to answer questions

(individual student)

To improve timing and give homework clearly.

(teacher’s personal development)

There is very rarely one aim for a lesson, there are usually lots of different ones.

And remember, if something unexpected comes up, you may have to change your aim. A lesson plan is not set in stone, it should be flexible.

SELF-CHECK 4:2 2

Have a look at these aims for lessons and sort them into the right columns:

A couple have been done for you.

Language	Skills	Study skills	Classroom dynamics	Student/teacher development
A		C

A) To introduce times of the day and greetings.

B) Extensive reading of document for gist

C) To introduce vocabulary notebooks and how to use them

D) To work individually with Group 3 on handwriting problems

E) To test new seating arrangement for group work

F) To work on giving clearer instructions with gestures.

G) To plan a first draft using bullet point system