Unit 4 Lesson Planning

Aims of the Unit to know what a lesson plan is to understand why lesson planning is necessary and important to know the difference between macro planning and micro planning to understand the principles for a good lesson planning to know the components of macro planning and micro planning able to do lesson plans

What is a lesson plan ? A lesson plan is a framework of a lesson in which teachers make advanced decisions about what they hope to achieve and how they would like to achieve it.

Why is lesson planning necessary? A prepared lesson is the beginning of a successful lesson; Unprepared teachers receive much less trust and cooperation from the students; Teaching and learning situation is constantly changing

Why is lesson planning important? A clear lesson plan makes the teacher aware of the aims, the language contents, the skills to be developed, the activities to be organized, the procedures and steps to be designed, the time to be spent on them and the techniques to be chosen in the class clearly. It helps the teacher to distinguish the various stages of a lesson and their relationships so that the activities of different difficulty levels can be arranged properly and the lesson can move smoothly from one stage to another.

Proper lesson planning gives the teachers the opportunity to anticipate potential problems that may arise in class so that they can be prepared with some possible solutions or other option for the lesson. Good planning gives teachers, especially novice teachers confidence in class. When planning the lessons, the teachers also become aware of the teaching aids that are needed for the lesson.

Planning is a good practice and a sign of professional development; The plan will enable the teacher to improve class timing; Lesson plans are also an aid to continuing improvement by teaching reflection and comments .

Principles for good lesson planning Aims: the realistic goals for the lesson. Variety: planning a number of different types of activities and introducing students to a wide selection of materials. Flexibility: preparing some extra and alternative tasks and activities to cope with the unexpected situations ; planning to use a number of different methods and techniques.

Learnability: the content and task planned for the lesson should be within the learning capability of the students. Linkage: the stages and the steps within each stage are planned in such a way that they are somehow linked with one another.

Macro planning vs. micro planning Macro planning is the planning for a whole programme or a whole-year course which is often done by a group of teachers who are to teach the same course. Micro planning is for a specific unit or a lesson, which usually lasts one or two weeks or 40 or 50 minutes respectively. It is often an individual activity .

What are involved in macro planning? Knowing about the profession: language areas, language skills ,materials, teaching aids methods and techniques; Knowing about the institution: time, length, frequency of lessons, physical conditions of classroom ,exam requirements; Knowing about the learners: students’ age range, sex proportion, social background, motivation, attitudes, interests, learning needs and other individual factors;

Components of A Lesson Plan background information, teaching aims, language contents and skills, stages and procedures, teaching aids, end of lesson summary, optional activities and assignments, and teacher’s after-lesson reflection.

Knowing about Curriculum Standards : teaching principles, teaching purposes, teaching requirements and targets specified by the Standards, also the teaching suggestions and assessment requirement for the course . Knowing about the textbook: how many units and lessons, the organization of the learning contents, major topics, etc. Knowing about the overall objectives: what the learner are expected to achieve and able to do after one semester or a year’s learning

Background information number of the students in a class, the ages, the grade, genders, foundation or level of English, differences, learning habits, or even their characters, and also the time and the date as well as the duration of the lesson

Teaching aims Discussion 1: what is more suitable for the aims of a lesson.(Task3,p56-57) Discussion 2: Study the contents carefully and write a few objectives for the lesson. (Task 4,p57)

Language contents and skills Discussion Task 5:Study the sample lesson and discuss what l+anguage contents and skills are intended and what teaching aims should be achieved.(p58)

A Awarm-up or starter: it is an activity or a series of activities that a teacher does at the beginning of the lesson which can fulfill a wide range of purposes: to develop students early levels of learning motivation; to help get all students quickly focus on the learning task; to create an expectation for participating in the lesson; to create a climate of interaction and involvement; and in particularly, to make students use of students prior knowledge to introduce new topics. but the activity does not take long.

Teaching procedures are detailed steps in each teaching stages. Stages and procedures Teaching stages refer to the major chunks of activities that teachers go through in a lesson. Teaching procedures are detailed steps in each teaching stages.

The forms(activities)of a warm-up or starter： a song, questions and answers, a daily conversation, a story, a guessing game, a picture description, homework checking, etc.

PPP model of a new structure-based lesson It refers to presentation, practice and production. At the presentation stage, the teacher introduces new vocabulary and grammatical structures in any appropriate way for basic underdading the formand the meaning and its sound. At the practice stage, the lesson moves from controlled practice to guided practice of the text when necessary for deep understanding and accurate memorizing of the forms and using. At the production stage, the students are encouraged to use what they have learned and practiced to perform communicative tasks, it focuses on free use.

PWP model of a skill-based lesson It refers to the pre-stage, while-stage and post-stage. The pre-stage involves preparation work, such as setting the scene, warming-up, or providing key information (such as key words). The while-stage involves activities or tasks that the students must perform while they are reading or listening. The post-stage provides a chance for students to obtain feedback on their performance in the while-stage.

Teaching aids including resources needed for the lesson such as pictures, models, real objects etc. End of lesson summary: to take learning further and deeper by helping students to refer back to the learning objectives ; to create a sense of achievement and completion of task for the students; to develop with the students a habit of reflection on learning; stimulate interest, curiosity, and anticipation about the next phase of learning; help students draw out applications of what has been learned and highlight the important conceptions which developed.

Optional activities and assignments: Optional activities are used as backups in case the lesson goes on or there are a few minutes left before the class ends. Assignments left to students to finish after class should be flexible and various, students can do some writing work, oral work, collecting information or group-cooperative work, etc.

Teacher’s after-lesson reflection: to keep a brief account of what happened in the lesson, including the feelings about the lesson, students’ performance, unexpected incidents, surprises, things that went well and went wrong, and things to be improved and to be given more attention in the nest lesson.

Assignment Evaluate the Sample lesson plans in the textbook (Task 6,P62-65) Do a mini-lesson plan as a new structure-based lesson or skill-based lesson with reference to Task 5 ,P58.

A case：a lesson plan Teaching aims: Background information: Students: 40 Junior high school students, grade 2 Lesson duration: 45mins Date: 8:00-8:45, Sep the 4th, 2008 , Friday morning Teaching aims: Students are able to master a set of vocabulary describing towns and cities. Students are able to understand and talk about things in the past, ask questions to find out information from others and give proper answers with the structure “there be”。 Students are able to write sentences with “there be ” to describe thing in the past.

Type of lesson: a skills-based lesson Teaching aids：tapes，blackboard，chalk，PPT, pictures

Language contents and skills: New vocabulary：words describing towns and cities such as: church, museum, office building, downtown, town hall, pollution, traffic problem, graffiti ，tourist； Grammar：The past tense of “there be”, Sentence structures：The affirmative form “there was”, “there were”； The negative form “there wasn’t”, “there weren’t” and the interrogative form “were there” , “was there”. Language skills:listening and speaking.

Stages and procedures: Step1 A starter: Ask students to introduce a familiar city Step2 Pre-listening Present the new words by pictures, the sentence structure“there be ”by the situations and the present and past tenses“there was ，there were”or “there wasn’t，there weren’t”by the introduction of the a city or some other things. Step3 While-listening Listen to the tape and answer the questions. At the same time, strengthen the words and the structures and the tenses) Step4 Post-listening Students introduce the city Jefferson Students introduce his or her home city using “there is/are; there was/ were” Ask and answer using “are there…? Or were there…?” Write the about the city Jefferson Step5 End of lesson summary.

Optional activities and assignments: Write a paragraph to introduce your hometown or yourself. Teacher’s after-lesson reflection

The key points What is a lesson plan ? Principles for good lesson planning Macro planning vs. micro planning What are involved in macro planning? Components of A Lesson Plan PWP model of a skill-based lesson A warm-up or starter