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.