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More than about the perfect lesson planning

Lesson planning is a pregnant element of the teaching-learning system. It helps teachers to create a logical sequence of stages and activities to achieve the learning objectives, call back over better timing for activities, reverberate on the lesson and so on. A lot of teachers wonder how to create an constructive lesson programme, what stages information technology should include, how to set clear lesson goals, the list goes on.

Skyteach invited Mihaela Dascalu to conduct a webinar «The Perfect Lesson Programme «. Mihaela shared her knowledge on the best strategies of lesson planning and main components of a lesson plan, talked about the difference between lesson aims and learning outcomes, writing clear and measurable learning outcomes. Beneath you lot'll discover the answers to the questions the speaker didn't take time to respond during the webinar.

Exercise you think a 25min lesson can be productive? We spend v min for administrative problems, v min for warm up, results of the lesson — 5 min. And then only10 min for chief activity.

I assume that a 25-minute lesson is for very immature learners, whose attention span is very express. I confess I have never taught such a short lesson. Perchance I have wrongly causeless that the most common classroom time is 50 minutes minimum.

For the main activity, 10 minutes can be enough, depending on what you want to do, but a lesson cannot be made of one activeness. At that place should be a number of ii or three activities that build up into the principal/productive activity, which, if not finished in class, can exist taken abode as homework. But once more, it depends.

For a 25-minute lesson, the admin stuff should be kept to a minimum or ignored if possible (just notice and do it right before grade or afterward class). The warm up could exist just questions 'How are you lot today?' and get into a atomic number 82 in activity to introduce the students to the new topic. For very young learners a vocabulary building activity and a game with that vocabulary equally the main 'production' activity seems enough.

When is the all-time time to create a lesson plan: while creating a term plan or but earlier the lesson?

Although I do know that the policies of some schools crave that the teachers nowadays their lesson plans for a month in advance at least, this seems a non-sense to me. You can set up your lessons a week in advance or the twenty-four hour period before the lesson. If you are an experienced teacher and saved some lessons that worked well earlier, you just demand to modify the program to fit your new group of students (the class profile volition help you lot brand these adjustments).

In a term, y'all practise know how many classes you take. After you have studied the curriculum objectives and the syllabus for that class, yous need to create a framework of work. So now that you have the whole course objectives and the number of course hours, you lot demand to allocate one course for 'getting to know your students', for diagnostic testing to find out the language needs of your students (this volition go in the grade profile), mid-form testing/assessment if necessary, and final class or classes for exams, and the rest goes to class pedagogy the material.

You lot programme just the topics and the aims. You can fifty-fifty sketch a plan for each, merely not detailed lesson plans, considering you do not know what is going to happen in the reality of the class. Go out the writing of full lesson plans till you are closer to the lessons themselves simply at least you lot have a framework to work from.

How tin I understand that the plan was a success from educatee's feedback?

It is NOT the plan that is successful but the lesson you taught guided by that plan. Good indicators might include the smiles the students give you at the end of the class, the fact that some may want to chat with y'all about the lesson at the end, that they may leave the classroom chatting in English, or past formally giving them a bank check-out bill of fare two minutes before the bong rings where they have to write one activeness they enjoyed, and ane activity that was non useful. Naturally, these will be bearding and yous will collect them from each educatee leaving the classroom.

Is it better to have a lesson plan every lesson printed or in my mind?

It tin can be printed, handwritten equally a full plan or in the form of notes with each activity and its timing but nigh importantly, write the learning objectives of that lesson not to lose sight of what you want your students to learn in that lesson. Yes, the students might achieve them all or not, but these are the ruddy flags that drive your lesson and will help you reverberate on your lesson later it is done.

Should I prepare a lesson program (like you lot introduced in the webinar) every lesson?

If you lot are a beginner instructor, I would strongly recommend that you write total lesson plans fifty-fifty though they take time. This total lesson program is a deep-thinking process, merely it is well worth it. Later yous go used to it, you do not demand to write as much because yous will become accepted to this flow of thinking about your lessons. The instructor'south aim and the learning objectives will still have to exist written downward…and fifty-fifty on the board for your students so that they too can see where you are going and the reasons behind the activities you are doing with them.

Should we check homework earlier warm-up?

If you gave them homework, aye.

How much time do we have to check the previous homework?

It all depends on the blazon of homework that yous have given them. The time for checking homework is upwards to you. Practice non spend a lot of time doing it. If it is a written piece, just collect and correct them later on form or and during class if your students are engaged in contained activities that do not crave your firsthand control (naturally, withal continue an eye on them).

Is information technology possible (and wise) to set upward homework at the starting time of a lesson?

I have never tried myself and I cannot imagine it washed this way. I recollect if yous practise this, some students might think only of it and will effort to showtime doing it during your class to avoid working at dwelling, and this can be very disruptive.

What do you exercise if the time allotted for the speaking action (e.g. discussion) has run out, simply the students haven't finished the action and feel similar speaking on?

This is a classroom management issue. That is why we need to limit the students' time for doing an activity. This fourth dimension limit has to be set when you give them the instructions. Just allow a reasonable and realistic corporeality of time for a speaking activity (in groups or pairs). The students need to know how long they accept, and you can even ask them again when you check instructions: 'How much time practise you have?' Tell them that they will not be granted extra fourth dimension. This will keep them focused and on track. You only need to be quite strict. Well, if something really interesting comes up, then let them a trivial more than time to cease if y'all have that time.

How to mensurate your time on activities, especially with large groups?

This comes with feel and noesis of your group of students. Try setting one time limit for a type of activity and if it works well you lot tin can allow the same amount of time again when y'all have the same blazon of activity. It is just trial-and-error based on your noesis of the group. After a few attempts, you will time your activities better.

Which part of the lesson planning can be the most time-consuming?

Good question. For me, information technology is the writing of the SMART learning objectives because it takes a lot of thinking based on knowledge of the group, the aims of the lesson taken from the official curriculum, the didactics aids I take bachelor, and the amount of time I have.

I forgot to mention this during the webinar: the learning objectives should exist S.Yard.A.R.T., i.e. Specific, Measurable, Achievable (in the time-frame we have at our disposal), Relevant, and Time-bound.

Choosing the correct activities leading to the final productive/creative activity could be time-consuming for a novice teacher. The coursebooks are usually helpful considering you have everything there unless you decide that some coursebook activities are boring, not that useful to attain ane learning objective or another, or not quite relevant for your students, in which instance you need to look for something else and this may accept some time.

How long does information technology take you to write a lesson plan like this (like presented in the webinar)?

It takes me between an hour or two if I build a lesson from scratch, i.eastward. when I do not follow a coursebook. I repeat, it takes some time in the beginning when y'all are not used to it but when you get familiar with the thinking processes behind information technology, it does not take more than half an hr. I am not counting here the time to practice photocopies or write your ain task-sheets or handouts.

If a student has some questions not connected with this item aim of the lesson ( maybe he doesn't understand something and it can make problems in the futurity) is it possible to answer them to make it clear and and so go back to the programme?

It depends on the question. If y'all can respond apace only to that student, yes, of course, become back to your programme. In case there are more students who accept the same question and they need extended explanations that are really of import because, otherwise, you lot will not be able to continue your lesson, then terminate everything, explain/analyze/elicit from other students and try to move on. Sometimes, these situations tin can become LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES, and these you cannot programme. They only happen so do non ignore them. Leave the plan aside and bargain with what the students need at that moment. (You need to use your knowledge of the group and your intuition to run into if that is a genuine learning need and non a 'trap' ready by your students to throw you off track.)

May the teacher employ communicative games for reflection?

The reflections that I was talking about in the webinar is the teacher's post-lesson self-reflection to come across what went well, what did not and why, and how they can meliorate his/her teaching by choosing new personal aims.

If you want, you can have your students reflect on their own learning at the end of the lesson and this reflection tin be done every bit a chatty pair or grouping activity. The teacher could use the results of this kind of activity for his/her own post-lesson reflections in combination with self-reflection on the lesson.

To practise this, the students have to be trained and to be quite responsible and serious, even though it can be quite fun. Grooming the students to be reflective learners can be a topic for another webinar. This topic is quite helpful, given the fact that we live in such a fast-paced earth that pedagogy the students to be independent and responsible learners with developed critical thinking skills has become a necessity.

How to check if you accept succeeded with your plan?

We cheque if the lesson was successful or to what extent it was successful. Yes, information technology was based on a plan. Have the students achieved the learning objectives? If yous wrote them on the lath at the beginning of your lesson and, with your students, ticked them ane by one equally done, yous can say…and the students tin can say that the lesson was successful.

At present, allow's say you have achieved them all. Await back to your lesson programme and ask yourself: have I used all the activities planned? Have I used the time finer for each activity? What has deterred me from doing ane of the activities that I planned? I did not get to exercise information technology, but was it important? Did it stop the flow of learning? …..and the like. If you managed to do all the carefully planned activities, achieved the learning objectives, you feel adept inside and the students left your course satisfied, then your lesson was nifty and the plan worked.

Is it possible for a lesson to be effective without getting feedback from your students?

At the end of each activity, we need to organize feedback. The purpose is for the students to check if what they did was correct, to correct themselves, to know if they did well or partly well, to have a feeling that that activity is done and another ane is following. Without this feedback at the terminate of each activeness, I practice not think the lesson would be and then effective as a whole.

If you lot refer to getting feedback from the students at the stop of the lesson so that yous tin have some thought of how this lesson was perceived past the students, then this is only optional. If you need the students' cess of your ain lesson, then do it, but carefully. Not all the students are honest.

Every bit for you giving general feedback to your students at the end of the lesson, this needs to be washed. It is part of closing a lesson on a positive note, stressing the positive and telling the students what they need to exist more than careful next time. Appreciate their effort and dedication during the lesson. It helps build rapport.but only if they deserve praise. Never requite praise when information technology is not deserved, just give encouragement.

What is better … PPP or TTT?

There is no comparison between them. They have different purposes and they are used with students of unlike ages, levels, and linguistic communication needs. Likewise, there are other ways/approaches/methods of sequencing lessons. What almost the Task-based approach? What about didactics listening or reading skills? These do not autumn nether PPP or TTT. We utilise more eclectic approaches and it all depends on who, why, what we teach. As teachers, we need to know dissimilar ways of staging the lessons, apply them equally prescribed or combine them. Practise non feel conscripted by one model or another or by fashions. Let'southward use our critical thinking skills, the knowledge about our students in front of us, the knowledge of the subject we are teaching, and keep an open listen to everything that is 'sold' to usa. Discover the students, react to their needs, be human, plan your lessons advisedly with your students in mind, visualize yourself teaching them, and exist yourself, real, 18-carat. Do not think that you have to be someone you lot are not.

What should I programme to make sure to increase STT if there is a group of students?

This is a question for a workshop on classroom management or how to teach speaking.

Programme for pair piece of work, and group piece of work, just the main principle is to practise anything yous can equally a teacher to increase students' confidence when speaking English, mainly the shy ones: teach vocabulary and do lots of vocabulary activities and games, strengthen their grammar, encourage them, and then on. This topic is quite large and it needs a workshop dedicated to it.

If you lot have whatsoever further questions regarding lesson planning, feel free to ask on our forum.