MBEG 209 Revision 5-10 Lesson Planning PDF

PLANNING AND PREPARING A LESSON OR SEQUENCE OF 1 LESSONS How do we identify and select aims? Aims are…  what we want to learn or be able to do at the end of a lesson, a sequence (i.e.series) of lessons or a whole course. 2 Aims may focus on…  a function  a gramm...

PLANNING AND PREPARING A LESSON OR SEQUENCE OF 1 LESSONS How do we identify and select aims? Aims are…  what we want to learn or be able to do at the end of a lesson, a sequence (i.e.series) of lessons or a whole course. 2 Aims may focus on…  a function  a grammatical structure  the vocabulary of a particular topic  on developing a language skill  Aims may not always focus on particular areas of language for young learners.  To identify and select the most appropriate 3 aims, we need to ask ourselves two questions… 1. What do my learners already know? 2. What do they need to know? 4 Main Aim… Describes the most important thing we want to achieve in a lesson or sequence of lessons.  Subsidiary Aims 5 …show the language or skills learners must be able to use well in order to achieve the main aim of the lesson.  Stating both main and subsidiary aims is a good way of making sure that our lesson plan focuses on what we want our learners to learn, or to be able to do.  It enables us to see how the lesson should develop, from one stage (or part) to the next, building up our learners’ knowledge or skills in the best possible order. 6 Personal Aims …show what we would like to improve or focus on in our own teaching. …these might be about improving the way that we handle aids and materials Or …particular teaching techniques Or …they might be about our relationship with the learners  Some more examples… 7  To try different correction techniques  To remember to check instructions  To write more clearly on the blackboard/whiteboard  To make more use of the phonemic chart (a poster with phonemic symbols)  To get learners to work with different partners  To get quieter learners to answer questions  Key concepts… 8  We should not confuse aims and procedures. Aims describe what the learners will learn or what they will be able to do with the language, while procedures-for example, listening to a recording and answering questions about it – are what the teacher and learners will do at each stage of the lesson.  Aims should not be too general. To teach the past simple or to develop learners reading skills do not say enough about the purpose of the lesson. More specific aims might be to introduce and practice in predicting content, scanning for specific information and guessing meaning from context.  Key concepts… 9  We shouldn’t plan to do too much in a lesson. The amount we plan to cover will depend on the lenght of the lesson and the learners’ level.  Learners also need to know what the lesson is going to be about. It is often helpful to announce our aims (or to write them on the board) at the beginning of the lesson, and/or to repeat them at the end.  Learners of all languages find it helpful to know why they are doing things. For younger learners the aims of a lesson can be described in very simple language, focusing on the things they will do in the lesson and the language knowledge they will take away from it. (for example,’ Today we’re going to read a story and learn how to describe people in English’.) 10 A lesson plan......is a set of notes that helps us to think through what we are going to teach and how we are going to teach it. It also guides us during and after the lesson. We can identify the most important components of a lesson by thinking carefully about...  What we want our learners to do  How we want them to do it 11 The main components of a lesson plan shows us...  The aims ( what the lesson is for)  The procedures ( what the teacher and the learners will do during the lesson and how they will do it)  SMART 12  PLANNING AN INDIVIDUAL LESSON OR A SEQUENCE OF LESSONS 13 How do we plan an individual lesson or a sequence of lessons? When planning lessons we...  Think about its aims  The shape of the lesson  The kind of techniques that we are most appropriate for a particular group of learners. 14 For example...  If we are introducing a new grammatical structure, we might choose a PPP approach or a TBL approach.  Skill lessons too have regular shapes that we can use to organise lesson plans:  For receptive skills; We usually plan tasks or activities for learners to do before, while and after reading or listening  Identifying possible procedures... 15  the available materials  the length of the lesson  the information we have about our learners But the most important thing is...  to make sure that the materials, tasks and activities we select are the ones that will help a particular group of learners to achieve the aim we have identified.  A sequence of lessons... 16...is a number of related lessons that develop language knowledge and/or language skills over a period of time....sequences may develop a single topic or language area, or may involve topics or language areas that are very closely connected.  Engage, Study, Activate (ESA) 17 Jeremy Harmer  Engage, Study, Activate (ESA) is a method of sequencing activities in your lessons and was first proposed by Jeremy Harmer in his book, ‘How to Teach English’. 18 Schemes of Work-Lesson Plan  Schemes of work are less detailed than lesson plans. A sequence of lessons should have a logical and learning-friendly progression and a good balance of approaches and activities.  Like a lesson plan, a scheme of work helps us to identify our aims and make sure we choose materials and procedures that match those aims.  Key Concepts 19  It’s a good idea to make lesson plans look as simple as possible, so notes are better than full sentences, and there is no need to describe every step in great deal. However we may want to write down some important things in a complete form- for example 1. prompts for drilling, 2. questions to check learners’ understanding, 3. instructions, etc.  Key concepts... 20  A lesson plan should be clear and easy to read during lesson. Different colours, boxes, underlining, etc. are useful. It is often helpful to include drawings of the way the writeboard will look at different stages.  Variety is very important both in a sequence of lessons and in a single lesson. We should avoid always doing the same kind of things in the same order, e.g. always beginning the lesson with a conversation or always ending with a role play. There are several different ways of introducing variety into lessons..............  List of things we can vary... 21 1. Pace: Quick and fast-moving or slow and reflective. 2. Interaction: Individual, pairs, groups, whole class 3. Skill: Productive or receptive 4. Level of difficulty: Non-demanding or requiring effort and concentration 5. Content: Changing from one language point to another; from one subject to another 6. Mood: Light or serious; happy or sad; tense or relaxed 7. Exciting or calming activities: ‘Stirring’ (lively and active) or ‘settling’ (quietining down)  Key concepts... 22  Learners may well require more frequent revision than the coursebook provides. A scheme of work is a good way to make sure that we recycle language (i.e.use it again) and include regular revision activities during a sequence of lessons.  Coursebook units are often arranged around a specific topic (such as sport or relationships), which may be a useful way of linking together a sequence of lessons. This kind of sequence gives us the chance to develop particular areas of vocabulary, but learners may feel that the lessons are repetitive, so we need plenty of variety of texts and tasks.