APPLIED LINGUISTICS for BA Students in English
PLANNING
Short-term planning – Lesson plans
The plan
The lesson plan should contain the name of the teacher and that of the mentor teacher (in case of teaching practice), the date and duration of the lesson, some information about the school and the profile of the target group. By group profile we mean the number of students, their language proficiency and ability, their learning experience in English. The most important part of planning is defining the various types of aims in the lesson. Content aim defines the topic of the lesson to be taught about in English, language aims contain all the language competences (vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, spelling) and language skills (listening, reading, speaking and writing) to be developed in the lesson. The last but equally important type of aims will contain thinking skills of the students to be developed, namely metacognitive (e.g. centering learning), cognitive (e.g. predicting, eliciting, matching) and social mediation strategies (e.g. cooperating, peer correcting, etc.). The course material (course book, handouts, supplementary books and other material) must also be defined before describing the various activities of the lesson.
A lesson is to start with a warm-up activity the function of which is to lead in a topic and to create a special English atmosphere. It should be short, interesting, motivating during which the students meet the basic topic of the lesson. The warm-up can be a kind of revision as well. All work forms can be planned for warmers. The next stage of the lesson is the so-called presentation stage in which new structures or words are presented. At this stage teachers must take all learner types and different learning styles into consideration. As a consequence of the variety of types and styles teachers are supposed to present the new material in as many ways as they can. The presentation stage which is usually organized frontally is followed by the practice or consolidation stage which can be subdivided into three phases: the controlled, semi-controlled and free practice stages. Controlled practice is sometimes called accurate reproduction stage. This is the time when new structures or words are drilled under the strict control of the teacher. During this period each mistake or error must be corrected lest students should get incorrect pattern. At the semi-controlled stage some elements of free choice appear. Students can choose from different options sometimes halves of sentences are given and they are supposed to finish them, etc. At free practice or production stage (sometimes called as communicative output) students are given plenty of chances of using the language items in free speech or writing. Usually role play activities or essay writing can be set at this stage. Students’ mistakes and errors are corrected only in the forms of delayed or gentle correction here. All the activities belonging to the practice stage are to be organized either in group work or pair work. Students’ talking time can be increased if teachers do not plan frontal activities for practicing. Each lesson must be closed with a feedback part, feedback has got double function: at this stage teachers assess their students’ production in the forms of content feedback and form feedback.
In a lesson teachers have to keep various types of balance. These types are the following:
- the balance of work forms (frontal, group, pair)
- the balance of skills (receptive/productive – oral/written)
- the balance of activities (warm-up, 3 Ps, feedback)
- the balance of stirring and settling activities (after a competition a writing activity must be planned)
