Summary of the Chapter 1 of the book “teaching practice for English language teachers”

Summarized by: Amirhossein Asefi

Chapter 1: Planning Lessons for English Language Teaching

Lessons have been described in terms of different metaphors, but regardless of whether the lesson is
like a movie or a football game, we need to plan it carefully. This is because every time we enter the
classroom, we want to teach an effective lesson that not only provides students with useful language
practice but also motivates them by giving them confidence in using English. Lesson planning, therefore,
is one of the most important issues in teacher education books.

Many teacher training programs evaluate student teachers' performance by considering a number of
points in their lessons such as a) general shape and balance of activities, b) patterns of learner-teacher
interaction, c) suitability of materials and methods for teaching what is to be taught, and d) anticipation
of learners' difficulties (Richards, 1998, p. 103).

But what is lesson planning and how does it serve teachers? Purgason (2014) defines lesson planning as
"the process of taking everything we know about teaching and learning, along with everything we know
about the students in front of us, and putting it together to create a road map for what a class period
will look like" (p. 362).

Thus, both novice and experienced teachers need to have lesson plans; however, they have different
approaches to lesson planning. Novice teachers often make use of detailed written plans, including a lot
of information.

In contrast, experienced teachers often prefer to make use of mental lesson plans and keep their
written plans as brief as possible. As Senior (2006) argues, "many experienced language teachers find
rigid adherence to lesson plans artificially restricting and, ultimately, self-defeating" (p, 144).

A number of teachers, particularly those who teach commercial textbooks, see no point in lesson
planning because they think that they should closely follow the content of the textbook they teach.
However, these teachers should remember that most commercial textbooks suffer from a number of
shortcomings and therefore no textbook can meet the needs and expectations of all their learners.

These potential shortcomings with most textbooks suggest that teachers should adapt the available
materials and use them selectively to meet their learners' needs. The following options from Maley
(2011) are the most important ways through which teachers can adapt materials.

Omission. The teacher leaves out things which are culturally inappropriate or offensive for a particular
group of students.
Addition. Whenever the teacher feels there is an inadequate coverage of a particular skill, s/he may add
extra tasks or texts.

Reduction. When the teacher feels that an activity is too long, s/he may give it less weight or emphasis.

Extension. The teacher may give an additional dimension to an activity by lengthening it. For example, a
vocabulary activity may be extended to draw the attention of students to some collocational patterns.

Rewriting/Modification. The teacher may wish to rewrite or modify certain activities to make them
more communicative, more challenging, or more culturally accessible to students.

Replacement. The teacher may replace an inadequate text or task with a more suitable one.

Reordering. The teacher may feel that the order in which the materials are presented is not suitable and
s/he may decide to change this.

The Planning Stages

Lesson planning is often defined as a three-stage process: pre-class, during-class, and post-class
planning.

A. Pre-Class Planning

This is the most sophisticated stage which involves a lot of work. At this stage, the teacher has to make
decisions about a number of important aspects of a lesson including the objectives, materials/activities,
sequencing, and timing (Richards and Farrell, 2011).

The first step at this stage is to decide on the objectives of the lesson. This means that the teacher
should determine what the students will be able to do at the end of the lesson. The next step after
determining the objectives of the lesson is to find the suitable materials and activities to achieve them. If
the teacher is using ready textbooks, s/he should decide whether to use the activities as they are or to
adapt them based on the techniques introduced earlier.

After choosing and adapting the activities needed to achieve the objective(s) of the lesson, the next
decision to make is sequencing the activities. This means that the teacher should think about suitable
ways of opening the lesson, logical progression of the activities, and closing the lesson.

The aim of the opening phase is to draw the students' attention to the goal of the lesson, arouse their
interest, and activate their background knowledge, particularly by making links to what they have
learned in the previous lessons. A lesson normally consists of various activities and the most difficult
part of a teacher's job in planning is how to logically arrange them so that s/he will be able to keep the
class lively while managing it successfully.

Finally, it is time for the closing phase of the lesson. The lesson should leave students with a sense of
achievement and satisfaction or, it should end on a positive end. This means that students should feel
they have done something worthwhile and meaningful.
Timing is the last issue teachers should consider in the pre-class stage of planning. Obviously, not all the
available time of the class could be used for teaching and learning. This is because spending some time
on procedural issues such as collecting or returning assignments is inevitable. However, teachers should
be able to make the best use of time through effective planning. Richards and Lockhart (1994, p. 171)
argue that we can think of class time as consisting of three different categories.

Allocated time. This is the time of the class allotted for teaching, for example the usual 90-minute class
period.

Time-on-task. This is the time students are engaged in the activity during the class time, for example the
time spent on a reading task.

Academic learning time. This is the time students are successfully engaged and actively participate in an
activity by learning from it. If, for example, the activity is too difficult, students may be on task for a long
time but the time spent on it is not worth it because it is spent on ineffective learning.

Obviously, academic learning time is the proportion of time students are engaged in effective learning
and it is this time that teachers should strive to maximize.

B. During-Class Planning

Due to the dynamic nature of classes which naturally arises from the nature of human learning, it is
likely that a teacher's prior careful planning might go awry some time during the lesson, so the teacher
will have to make on the- spot decisions and modify his or her earlier planning. This is the most
challenging issue regarding lesson planning.

There are various reasons why teachers have to abandon or adjust their earlier plans. One main reason
is the occurrence of unanticipated common problems that almost all teachers have experienced. Apart
from these unfavorable conditions, sometimes teachers have to modify their plans because of the
learning opportunity triggered by an unexpected, yet thought-provoking, question that one of the
students might raise.

In addition to the above reasons, teachers depart from their plans for a variety of other reasons. In an
often-cited study, Bailey (1996, pp. 25-36) found the following justifications for some of these
departures:

Serving the common good. This is similar to the point discussed above. Some teachers depart from
their lesson plans because an issue raised by one of the students is worth attending to.

Teach to the moment. This usually happens when the teacher abandons the lesson plan and pursues a
point that is of interest to the majority of students.

Accommodate students' learning styles. Sometimes teachers depart from their plans because they feel
their students learn something in another way better.

Promote students' involvement. This refers to changing the planned time for certain activities.
Distribute the wealth. In this case, the teacher may keep the more verbal learners from dominating the
class interaction and instead push the less outgoing students to be more involved.

C. Post-Class Planning

This is the last stage that happens after the lesson. At this stage, the teacher should critically reflect on
what happened in the class and adjust the future lesson(s) accordingly.

Types of Lessons

Scrivener (1994) introduces four types of lessons which represent different degrees of planning and
preparation in advance.

A. Logical Line Lessons

In this type of lesson the teacher attempts to follow a logical path from one activity to the next. Logical
line lessons can be used for teaching both language skills and elements of language system.

B. Topic Umbrella Lessons

This kind of lesson is guided by a topic that provides the main focus of student work. The teacher usually
prepares a number of activities all linked and unified by a specific topic. There is no fixed order of doing
the activities — they could be done in a variety of orders depending on the teacher's prior planning. Like
logical line lessons, topic umbrella lessons also require the teacher to enter the class with meticulous
planning and preparation in advance.

C. Jungle Path Lessons

This kind of lesson is done without much — perhaps no — preparation in advance. The lesson is created
moment by moment in class in response to "questions, problems and options as they come up, and
finding new activities, materials and tasks in response to particular situations" (Scrivener, 2005, p. 131).
The starting point might be an activity or piece of material but what results from it will be unknown until
it happens. In this exploration, both the teacher and the learners make their contributions to enhance
learning.

D. Rag-Bag Lessons

This type of lesson is made up of a number of unrelated activities. For example, the lesson may begin
with a friendly chat about what the students did on the weekend, followed by a vocabulary game, then a
role play, etc. This kind of lesson does not require planning in a real sense because it follows no overall
language objective. The only planning that the teacher does is preparation of the various activities. Due
to the elements of surprise and unpredictability, some students may find this kind of lesson appealing.