A lesson plan
Basic Concepts
A lesson plan is simply a step-by-step guide to what an
EFL teacher plans to do in the classroom on a given day. The more detailed the
steps are, the better. Ideally, you could not go to work on a given day and
another teacher could read your lesson plan and know exactly how to teach your
class on that day. A good lesson plan might even include specific gestures and
cues used for various parts of the lesson. That’s how detailed your plan should
be.
There are literally hundreds of types of lesson plans but
there is not one format accepted by all schools. Many schools have their own
set format; others will let you use whatever format you like. There is,
however, some general agreement about what should be included in a good lesson
plan.
Components
of a lesson plan :
Day/Date:
Lesson Name : What
will you call the lesson?
Class/Level :
Age, topic, skill level, class name
Materials :
List everything you need to teach this lesson. List every possible thing you will need to take to the classroom, and/or
obtain from the school to complete the lesson. This list can help you make sure
you don’t forget any handouts or special materials that you need to take to the
class.
Textbook/Course
book name: From what book are you
working or drawing the lesson?
Unit—title—page
number : Specifically where in that book?
Goal/Aim : What are we working toward today? Describe the final
result
of the lesson in this format:
Activity of While teaching
Warm-up: This includes a review (revision) of the previous lesson
linked to this new lesson. It should also include the questions and answers you
have written above as well as questions used to elicit conversation using the
new structures and functions you intend to teach. This section can also show
examples of what your students will learn in this lesson. In some countries and
with some age groups, this may come in the form of a specifically designed
game.
Presentation (or ESA format): Note the target language to be taught
and how you will teach it. Include how you will stimulate the students’
interest in the language and how you might elicit from the students the
language you are planning to teach. Include details as specific as when you might
model structures and dialog and when you will require a repeated response
(choral response) from the students. Include a structure chart for the grammar
or the dialog you intend to teach.
Practice: Include the specific activities you have planned and
attach any handouts related to them to the lesson plan. Include up to three
practice activities, sequencing them from most to least structured, slowly
giving the students more freedom.
Production: This is where students really learn and generalize a new
language skill. Allow/encourage the students to talk about themselves, their
lives or specific situations using their own information but focusing on the
target language that was taught in the presentation and practiced in the
previous activities. Include exactly what you will ask the students to do and
that you intend to monitor students and encourage and correct them as needed in
their use of the target language.
Conclusion: Discuss/recap what you have studied and learned during
the lesson. In some countries and for some ages, this will be followed by a
game that uses the target language.
Examples
of lesson plan
Lesson overview Name of lesson plan activity : Introducing yourself Skill focus:
Speaking Teacher name : Shruti Fernandez
Organisation/school name : Cambridge University Press, India
Pvt Ltd
Target students :
Young learners (primary level)
Materials used in class : Writing board and
pen Lesson plan
1. Objective
of the lesson:
The
lesson aims to help learners introduce themselves in English.
2.
Instructions for teaching the lesson:
Step 1 Introduce
yourself to the class, pausing after each phrase. For example: I am Shruti
Fernandez. I am a teacher. I am 26 years old. I am from Kerala. I love making
paper boats.
Step 2 Introduce
yourself again, once again pausing after each phrase. Write down each sentence
on the board.
Step 3 Encourage the
students to introduce themselves. They can use the phrases on the board as a
model.
Step 4 Once they have
all introduced themselves, they can change details like name, age, nationality
etc. and introduce themselves as fictional characters. They may make up these
details as they wish. Encourage them to be funny. For example: I am Cinderella.
I am 16 years old. I love fairy godmothers.
3. Stages and timings:
Stage 1 (5 mins)
Teacher introduces himself/herself.
Stage 2 (5 mins) Teacher writes the
expressions used on the board and introduces himself/herself again.
Stage 3 (20 minutes) Learners
introduce themselves. Stage 4 (30 mins) Learners create fake identities for
themselves and then introduce themselves.
Contextual Teaching and Learning
Definition
CTL is an approach/perspective to teaching and learning that recognizes
and adresses the situated nature of knowledge. Through connections both in and
out of classroom, a CTL approach aims at making experience relevant and
meaningful to students by building knowledge that will have applications to
lifelong learning. In general, CTL aims to build collaboration between the
university/school and community in ways which are mutually beneficial.
Strategy
Instruction based on contextual learning
strategies should be structured to encourage five essential forms of learning: Relating, Experiencing, Applying,
Cooperating, and Transferring.
RELATING: Learning in the context of life experience, or
relating, is the kind of contextual learning that typically occurs with very
young children. With adult learners, however, providing this meaningful context
for learning becomes more difficult. The curriculum that attempts to place
learning in the context of life experiences must, first, call the student’s
attention to everyday sights, events, and conditions. It must then relate those
everyday situations to new information to be absorbed or a problem to be
solved.
EXPERIENCING: Experiencing—learning in the context of exploration,
discovery, and invention—is the heart of contextual learning. However motivated
or tuned-in students may become as a result of other instructional strategies
such as video, narrative, or text-based activities, these remain relatively
passive forms of learning. And learning appears to "take" far more
quickly when students are able to manipulate equipment and materials and to do
other forms of active research.
APPLYING: Applying concepts and information in a useful context
often projects students into an imagined future (a possible career) or into an
unfamiliar location (a workplace). This happens most commonly through text,
video, labs, and activities, and these contextual learning experiences are
often followed up with firsthand experiences such as plant tours, mentoring
arrangements, and internships.
COOPERATING: Cooperating—learning in the context of sharing,
responding, and communicating with other learners—is a primary instructional
strategy in contextual teaching. The experience of cooperating not only helps
the majority of students learn the material, it also is consistent with the
real-world focus of contextual teaching. Employers espouse that employees who
can communicate effectively, who share information freely, and who can work
comfortably in a team setting are highly valued in the workplace. We have ample
reason, therefore, to encourage students to develop these cooperative skills
while they are still in the classroom.
The laboratory, one of the
primary instructional methods in contextual courses, is essentially
cooperative. Typically, students work with partners to do the laboratory
exercises; in some cases, they work in groups of three or four. Completing the lab
successfully requires delegation, observation, suggestion, and discussion. In
many labs, the quality of the data collected by the team as a whole is
dependent on the individual performance of each member of the team.
TRANSFERRING: Learning in the context of existing knowledge, or
transferring, uses and builds upon what the student has already learned. Such
an approach is similar to relating, in that it calls upon the familiar.
Students develop confidence in their problem-solving abilities if we make a
point of building new learning experiences on what they already know.
