Why Do Teachers Plan Their Lessons Why is Planning Important - Coursework Example

?WORKSHEET – UNIT 9 Task Why do teachers plan their lessons? Why is planning important? There are various reasons that can make us discover the importance of lesson planning. According to Richards &Renandya (2002), lesson plans are systematic records of a teacher’s thoughts about what is to be covered during a particular lesson. For a teacher to make a good lesson plan, it is necessary that he reflect on what the need of the students in that particular lesson will be so that he can be able to accommodate them in his plan. Although educationalist regards lesson planning as very important in ensuring an effective teaching a learning process during a lesson, some theorists suggests that it is not a good idea since it creates a more fixed teacher centered lessons thus reducing the chance of the students understanding (ITTT 2011). The reasons why lesson planning is an important task can be revealed by looking at the way in which the lesson plan helps the three categories of people involved in a learning process. These three categories of people include the students, the teachers and the principals and supervisors. These three categories of people derive different benefits when a lesson plan is used during a lesson. The reasons for the importance of the lesson plan contributed by its benefits to other people rather than the teacher himself who is making it can be regarded as external reason while those that result from the benefits that the teacher himself would gain can be regarded as internal reasons. The internal reasons are to feel more confident, to learn the subject matter better, to enable lesson to learn smoothly and to anticipate problems before they happen. Previous research has shown that lesson planning makes a teacher to be more confident during his lesson. This is because it can enable him to have in mind what he need to do during that lesson, what he need to achieve as a teacher and what he need to help his students to achieve in the course of the lesson. Moreover, it helps him to ensure that he is well equipped and well prepare for the teaching task during the lesson. As the teacher becomes more confident his ability to deliver the knowledge to his students increases thus enhancing the learning process during a lesson. Another internal reason is that the lesson plan enables the teacher to learn the subject matter that he is to cover during a lesson better. As indicated by previous researches the teachers who prepare the lesson plans always go to class with a better understanding of what they are going to teach compared to those who do not. It also indicates that the teachers who use lesson plan are able to obtain a wide range of knowledge about the subject matter in which to teach about before undertaking the lesson. This enables this kind of teachers to be able to run the teaching process effectively and thus enhancing the learning process among their students. The lesson plan also enables the lesson to run smoothly. Since in a lesson plan each activity is allocated its time a teacher can easily be able to ensure that the lesson is ran smoothly without major interruptions. Moreover, since the activities in a lesson plan are sequentially arranged a lesson plan can help a teacher to avoid running his lesson in a confused manner thus increasing the effectiveness of his teaching process. When the teaching process is run in an orderly and smooth manner, the learning process among the students is enhanced and thus resulting to a greater understanding among the students about the subject matter being taught. Another internal reason why a lesson plan is important is that it can enable a teacher to anticipate problems before they happen.If a lesson plan is well prepared, it is believed that it can enable the teacher to reflect about what problems he anticipates to encounter during a lesson. This is because it reflects on the past such lesson that the teacher held with those particular student, what was achieved in those lesson and the problems that were encountered. When the teacher is able to anticipate problem his ability to design a framework to use in handling them is enhanced making him to be able to solve most of those problem when they happen during his teaching process. This increases the effectiveness of the teaching process thus enhancing learning among the students. Moreover, lesson planning can make the teacher to feel more in control of the lesson before the lesson begins. Because of the way, the teacher has to schedule the activities to be undertaken during a lesson he can have a feeling that he is in control of the learning process. This feeling can act as a motivation to the teacher and thus enabling him to deliver to his level best during the lesson. This enhances the teaching process and thus ensuring that his students learn effectively the concepts or the subject that he is teaching. The external reasons can be classified further into the benefits to the principal and supervisors and the benefits to students. The lesson plan if well designed can assist the principal or supervisor in measuring the performance of a particular teacher during a certain learning period or during a lesson. Moreover, it can assist a supervisor or a principal to be able to equip a substitute teacher selected to take place of the current teacher with information that can help him in undertaking his task. This enhances the teaching process and thus enabling the students to learning more effectively. According to Richards &Renandya (2002), lesson planning can also benefit students since it takes into account the different backgrounds, interests, learning styles and abilities of students in a particular class. When planning for his lesson the teacher has to take into account the number of students he anticipates to have during the lesson as well as their background, specific interests, learning styles and their abilities. This can actually help him to design a teaching process that will be effective for that particular group of students and that particular moment. This can substantially improve the learning process among those students and thus enhancing their understanding on what he is teaching. A well-prepared lesson plan can serve several important functions in a learning process. One of the major important functions that it can serve is that it can be used as an aid to planning. When a teacher writes down what he expects his students to achieve by the end of his lesson and how he intends to make that possible can help him to think logically through the stages in relation to the available time. This helps him to plan a teaching process that can enhance learning among his students. Moreover, a lesson plan can function as a working document as it helps the teacher to keep on target and gives him somewhere to refer to ensure that he is always moving towards what he has aimed to achieve during the lesson. Furthermore, a lesson plan can function as a record of what a class has done and which materials have been used. In addition, it can function as a record of what a particular teacher has done during a particular period. This can actually help to keep track on what has been covered and thus avoiding unnecessary repetition and can assist the administrators to keep track the performance of a particular teacher(ITTT, 2011). Task 2 –Using the blank lesson plan that you should have received, plan a straight arrow ESA lesson from the materials towards the end of unit 9 (Unit 9, task 2 materials). The materials are entitled Where have you been. Please include your aims, context, expected number of students, and all the other boxes at the top of the blank lesson plan form, as well as the procedure. Lesson Plan Note: By using the [Tab] key or the mouse, the cursor will automatically move to the next box. On the procedure section, use one box for each phase (engage, study or activate) of your plan. Teacher: Mercy Jones Room: 9 Observer: N/A Expected numbers: 15 Date & Time: 12 May 2012 8-9 am Class Level: Beginner Context: reviewing places where the students have ever visited and things they have ever done to bring out new grammatical concepts of present perfect simple. Teaching Aids: questionnaires with questions of places they might have ever visited and other questions of activities they might have ever done, board, pen and exercise sheets. Learner Objectives: To ensure that students are able to accurately use present perfect simple tense when talking about places, they have ever visited or when asking other people the places they have ever visited. Also to ensure that this students are able to use present simple tense in explaining what they have ever done and also in asking other people what they have ever done. Personal Aims: To improve the way I give my instruction by using more demonstration and less verbal instructions. Anticipated problems for students: Difficulty among students to differentiate between present perfect simple and past simple. Solution: Giving an exercise requiring students to use either present perfect, simple or past simple in sentenses. Anticipated problems for teacher: Having the students full concentration throughout the lesson. Solution: Encouraging active participations of student in the learning process by having them ask each other questions about where they have ever visited or what they have ever done. Procedure Phase Timing Interaction Quick review of the places the students might have ever visited using the questionnaire. Engage 5 Mins T-S Quick Review of the activities the students might have ever done using the questionnaires Engage 5 Mins T-S An evaluation peocess to categorize students into three categories depending on the much they score on the questionnaire. Engage 5 mins T-S Explaining to students how present perfect simple is used to talk about actions which happened in the past at an indefinite time and how they are used to describe experiences using ever and never Study 15 Mins T-S Explaining to the student on the use of past simple when asking or giving more information about the experiences given by the questionnaires using words such as how, when, why and how long. Study 15 Mins T-S Giving an exercise to students on writing the past participle of verbs and another one on using the past simple tense or the past perfect simple in writing sentenses. Study 10 Mins S-S Marking the answer they have given to assess their understanding. Study 5 Mins T-S Revising the exercise done by students and having them do revisions. Study 5 Mins T-S Students forming groups in which group uses present perfect simple in asking another group whether they have ever visited certain places or whether they have ever done certain activities while the other group uses present perfect simple to answer those questions. Activate 10 Mins S-S Task 3 –Using the second blank lesson plan that you should have received, plan a patchwork style ESA lesson using the materials at the end of unit 9 (Unit 9, task 3 materials). The materials are entitled Possibilities. Again,please include your aims, context, expected number of students, and all the other boxes at the top of the blank lesson plan form, as well as the procedure. Lesson Plan Note: By using the [Tab] key or the mouse, the cursor will automatically move to the next box. On the procedure section, use one box for each phase (engage, study or activate) of your plan. Teacher: Mercy Jones Room: 9 Observer: N/A Expected numbers: 15 Date & Time: 13 May 2012 Class Level: Beginner Context: Use the weather elements, events intended to happen and country names to explain how might and may can be used as expressions of possibilities. Teaching Aids: Board, pen and exercise papers. Learner Objectives: To ensure that students are able to use modal auxiliary verbs may and might in expressing possibility of occurrence of future events. Also to ensure that the students are able to distinguish between the use of will and won't and the use of may and might. Personal Aims: To enhance my teaching by using anything in my sight to illustrate these grammatical concepts. Anticipated problems for students: A problem in pronouncing the word won't and their ability to distinguish between when to use may and when to use might. Solution: Using a drilling and mouth diagram and using the events which the students are certain that they will happen and those which they are not certain whether they will happen or not. Anticipated problems for teacher: Having full concentration of the students from the beginning of the lesson up to the end of the lesson. Solution: Using participatory learning in which students use what they observe to describe a grammatical concept. Procedure Phase Timing Interaction A quick review on the event which are expected to happen in an indefinite time in future. A quick review on events that we can predict that they will happen in future whether a definite or an indefinite future. Engage 5 mins T-S Explaining how the auxiliary verbs, may and might, are used as expressions of possibility of occurrence of future events for all persons. Study 10Mins T-S Explaining how will and will not be used to predict both a definite and an indefinite future. Study 10 Mins T-S Requiring some of the students to look out of the window and explore the weather and then describe to other students what they think the weather would look like in some times to come using may or may not or might or might not. Activate 5 mins S-S Giving the students an assessment in form of exercises. one of them about using the correct form of a verb and the other one on using because and might in writing sentences. Study 5 Mins T-S Marking the assessment given to students to check their understanding of the concept taught. Study 5 Mins T-S Revising the exercises and revisiting the ideas which the students might have failed to grasp. Study 5 Mins T-S Students requested to form groups of three each of which is to act as a report team and report an event which might take place in an indefinite time in future using may and might and also predict future events using will and won’t activate 10 Mins S-S References ITTT. 2011. Unit 9: Lesson Planning. International TEFL and TESOL Training, London. Richards, J., C. &Renandya, W., A. 2002.Methodology in Language teaching: An Anthropology of Current Practice. Cambridge University Press, New York. Read More