the effective lesson plan a proposal for action
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The effective lesson plan:a proposal for action
Bruna Caltabiano
Martins Fontes, São Paulo - Brazil
January 24, 2014.
Which of the metaphors expresses best, in your opinion, the essence of a lesson?
The teacher’s planning of the class The activity she proposed Her attitude in general
Watch part of the movie ‘Bad Teacher’ and discuss:
“ If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there”
LEWIS CARROLL (rephrased from Alice in Wonderland – chapter 6)
“The success with which a teacher conducts a lesson is often thought to depend on the effectiveness with which the lesson
was planned”
– Richards, 1998.
What is the use of planning lessons?
How long before a specific lesson do you prepare it? Do you write down notes to guide you? Or do you rely on a lesson
format? If so, are these notes brief (a single page or less) or long (more than
one page)? What do they consist of? Do you note down your objectives? Do you actually look at your notes during the class? If so, rarely?
Occasionally? Frequently? What do you do with your lessons notes after the class?
(Ur, 2002)
Questions on lesson preparationDiscuss
How many separate activities will there be? Where will I stand or sit? What do learners need? What skills will learners be working on? How will I control timing? What are some of the things that could cause difficulties or go
wrong? How am I going to deal with mistakes? Is there going to be variety of activities in the lesson? How do the lesson aims fit with longer-term goals? What do they know already?(Scrivener, 2005)
Considerations when planning a lesson
1.Aims/objectives
The outcomes I am trying to achieve.
Example:By the end of the lesson students will be better able to listen and understand
consultations with difficult patients as well as to use spoken strategies in order to deal with challenging patients by means of encouraging a withdrawn patient to speak and calming an aggressive or angry patient.
Personal aim:To get students to interact better with each other. The class is subdivided into two
groups because (…)
Writing a lesson plan:a template(Harmer, 2007)
2. Class profile
A class description which tells us who the students are, and what can be expected of them.
Example:The group is composed of 6 students. They are all sophomores at medical school and their age ranges from 20-22 years old. They have studied English at different schools and for different periods of time. They are taking this course (Medical English for Advanced Students) in order to learn medical vocabulary as well as how to deal with patients in English in case they need to see a foreigner which sometimes happens(…)
3. Assumptions
It is saying what we assume students can do.
Example: Students have worked with the third conditional (would have done), then they will have little trouble with the grammar of should have done. They will be able to think of things (...)
4. Skill and language focus
The language and skills students are going to be focusing on.
Example:
Skills: Listening and Speaking
Language: Vocabulary concerning body language, emotions, and states of mind
5. Timetable Fit
It is where the lesson fits in a sequence of lessons.
Example:In the lesson from the coursebook called “Special Examinations”, students have learned how to conduct a consultation when the patient is a child and when the patient is elderly. In this class, they will learn another kind of special examination: when the patient, from any age, is challenging.
6. Anticipated problems and possible solutions
A good plan tries to predict potential pitfalls and suggest ways of dealing with them.
Example: As my students are in the second year of college, they still do not have much contact with patients. Therefore, it might be difficult for them to imagine that a patient might not speak. They expect to find patients who are straightforward, which is not always the reality. In order to establish the context, I will use cards in which the role of the difficult patient is very well described so that the student will not need too much imagination to act it out. (…)
7. Success Indicators
Both teacher and students can evaluate if the lesson aims/objectives have been achieved.Example:I will have evidence the objective of this lesson has been achieved if, by the end of the lesson, students show, in the last activity, they are ready to use the suitable questions and comments in order to encourage a challenging patient to cooperate with the examination.
Activity/aids Interaction Procedure Time
1. Warm-up
Power point presentation
S-S
T-C
Teacher shows a Power Point presentation with the question:“What kind of patients might a doctor have difficulty dealing with?”Students discuss in pairs for two minutes.(…)
5 minutes
The learners were active all the time The learners were attentive all the time The learners enjoyed the lesson, were motivated The class seemed to be learning the material well The lesson went according to plan The language was used communicatively throughout The learners were engaging with the foreign language
throughout(Ur, 2002)
How successful a lesson was?Put the criteria in order of priority.
1. How far do you agree with these guidelines?2. Are they appropriate for your own teaching context as they stand,
or would you with to omit, add to or change any of them?
Put the harder tasks earlier Have quieter activities before lively ones Think about transitions Pull the class together at the beginning and at the end End on a positive note.
(Ur, 2002)
General Guidelines – Discuss
Prepare more than you need Note in advance which components of the lesson you will
sacrifice if you find yourself with too little time Keep a watch or clock easily visible Do not leave the giving of homework to the last minute If you are doing group work, give instructions and make sure
these are understood before dividing into groups(Ur, 2002)
Hints for lesson management
Do I have to write a detailed planfor every class I teach?
Never think of it as a set of instructions to be slavishly followed
Consider the paradox of lesson planning- Magic Moments- Sensible Diversion- Unforeseen problems(Harmer, 2007)
The lesson plan as a proposal for action
Harmer, Jeremy. How To Teach English. Essex: Pearson Education Limited, 2007.
Harmer, Jeremy. The Practice of English Language Teaching. Essex: Pearson Education Limited, 2007.
Richards, Jack.; Farrel, Thomas. Practice Teaching – A Reflective Approach. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Scrivener, Jim. Learning Teaching. Oxford: Macmillan Education, 2005.
Ur, Penny. A Course in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
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