Lesson Plan: Learn to plan, planning to learn

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Lesson Plan: Learn to plan, planning to learn

The purpose of writing this paper is to investigate the

importance of a lesson plan, its formation and application in the

classroom. The idea of this topic reflected me when I was at my

practicum place where one of the teachers strictly remained in

the boundaries of designed lesson plan and followed it with form

and spirit. While another senior and having many years of

teaching experience at many reputable institutions in Canada paid

a little attention to formal chart of class activities. She

claimed that every idea was in her mind and she knew what, when

and how to do in her class. My interest doubled when I found her

teaching learner-oriented, though her delivery was lacking

sequence of activities but the tone of teaching was delightful

and understandable. When I looked back to my university classes,

Prof (D) balanced the content and form and the lesson plan and

performance. He always achieved his target of designed

activities within time with sequence. Further he successfully

maintained learners’ motivation for class activities. Prof (R)

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neither followed a lesson plan nor any kind of format to engage

learners into learning process. Prof (Jan) however strictly

followed lesson plan- sequence of activities. She used to start

class by writing agenda of her class activities on the board.

The diversity among teachers’ class planning and chart of

activities motivated me to investigate the importance of lesson

plan. The efforts were made to explore the effective types of

lesson plan and its formation which makes a teacher successful in

his profession.

Being a traditional teacher I believe in formal, well

prepared and organized chart of class activities, so it was not

only a surprise for me but suspense to find teacher not adhering

lesson plan. So I thought to invest my efforts to explore the new

approaches towards lesson plan, its formation and utility in

classroom. In this paper I will discuss the literature review and

present analytical evaluation with the support of my class

learning and teaching practicum practices’ experience. There will

be some model lesson plans in the end of the paper. (Appendix-1)

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The study shows that a lesson plan is considered to be a

vital component of the teaching- learning process. The magic of

the proper classroom lesson planning keeps a teacher organized

and on track. It is also recognized that the better prepared the

teacher is, the more likely he/she will be able to handle

whatever unexpected happens during the lesson in the classroom.

Lesson planning provides a coherent framework for smooth

efficient teaching; it helps teachers to be more confident,

straight and clear in their teaching task. However some of the

teachers believe in the use of lesson plan and they strictly

follow it in spirit and form while others partially favour its

use because they find it hindrance in the flow of their teaching.

Thornbury (1999) says that “first of all, a planned lesson is

just better, not all planned lessons are fabulous and not all

unplanned lessons are a disaster, but even a bad lesson will be

less bad planned, and even a great lesson can be greater with a

plan. If you are good at teaching unplanned lessons, you will be

even better at teaching with a plan”.

Generally lesson plan has been considered a basic tool for

successful teaching. It is believed that lesson plan provides a

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coherent framework for smooth efficient teaching. It helps a

teacher to be more organized and it gives a sense of direction in

relation to the syllabus. It makes a teacher clearer and more

confident during teaching in the classroom. Further having a

lesson plan helps a teacher to maintain focus. A lesson plan is

to be considered the best weapon in the battle – classroom.

Learners respond extraordinarily well to structure and

regularity, and planned lessons give them that structure. Lesson

plan helps teacher to track what he has taught. Lesson plan is a

key of success for teacher’s teaching portfolio, and it makes a

great blog posts.  Lesson plans give a teacher not just a sense

of accomplishment, but something tangible that reflects that

accomplishment. A lesson plan from a lesson that went really

well is like a personal award certificate. And since lesson

planning helps to keep track of what works and what doesn’t work,

lesson plans will get better and better feeding into and renewing

that sense of success and accomplishment.

But the most challenging part is how to design a detailed

lesson plan. Peter (2006) discusses that for some of the

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teachers writing lesson plan holds creative possibilities; for

others, it is a brick wall of bewilderment and anxiety. He

mentions that nothing comes without learning, so teachers need to

learn the skill of constructing lesson plan. He indicates that

the professional standards for a qualified teacher’s status

requires teachers to demonstrate that they can set challenging

teaching and learning objectives, and use these to plan lessons

and sequences of lessons, showing how they will assess learners’

learning. Additionally, they must show the ability to select and

prepare resources, and plan for their safe and effective

organization, taking account of learner’s interests and their

language and cultural backgrounds’. The writer warns that these

admonitions are part of broader emphasis on outcomes-based

Education (OBE) and this idea is part of back over a century or

more but the essences are the same. Further he has discussed the

sequential steps of lesson plan as below: Step one involves the

selection of topic or component of the subject to be taught. The

aims and objectives will be focused along with the consideration

of level of the learners.

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Step two focuses on the exemplification of aims and objectives,

the precise learning objectives or goals will be specified

according to the level and expectations of learners. Step three

involves the preparation of the content to be covered and a

consideration of the teaching methods and learning experiences

that will best bring about the accomplishment of the set aims and

objectives. Step four, an assessment process is planned (as is

an evaluation sequence) so that the efficacy of the teaching

methods and activities can be gauged against the set objectives.

This may be noted that all these steps emerge from the aims

and objectives in linear, rational ends-means sequence. Despite

the attraction of such process, much depends on its use in

classroom. These kinds of plans may look fine on paper, but

classroom situation is different; there are a lot many elements

involved in teaching process: time-pressures, organizational

issues, attitudes, moods, emotions, and level of learners. I

think it is a road map or some kind of sequence of ideas which is

important though but it depends on teacher how he carries on the

activities in the class.

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Thornbury in his article “lesson art and design” romanticise

the idea of lesson plan. He adopts modern approach to deal with

the formalities of lesson plan, presents novel terms and

characteristics in order to motivate teachers as well as

learners. Instead of using traditional terms like aims and

objectives, method, assessment and evaluation, feedback or

outcome, he uses words like plot, theme, rhythm, flow and sense

of the ending. Westerman (1991) as cited by Thornbury (p.219)

says that “mental scripts are often conceived in visual terms as

lesson plan images”. The author discusses the idea of a teacher

whom he asked to describe his planning decisions and received

answer that he has a vision and clear picture of her chart of

activities in his mind. He has imagined what will happen.

According to Thornbury, lesson plan should not be so strict,

formal and unattainable written document. In this regard lack off

and Johnson (1980 as cited by the Thornbury (p.22) say that

“aesthetic experience is not limited to the official art world.

It can occur in any aspect of our everyday lives. This is

certainly true of teaching, which should be considered less a

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science than an art, because teachers are not scientists seeking

to eliminate variety in the interest of establishing

generalities.” Thornbury characterizes lesson as an aesthetic

experience and he focuses on its characteristics as below:

Plot:

According to the writer a good lesson is like a film because

it has a plot like in the movies and he advises to stick with it

to maintain the rhythm. Further he says that it is like a Jigsaw

or a film which adds up to a whole which has its own sense. There

is a beginning –middle and end in the plot, it is not only

cohesive but coherent as well: there is an internal consistency.

Rhythm:

The author says that lesson is like film, because in good

class there have to be changes of rhythm; it has to be agreeable

amusing and it has to take place without realizing learners. I

think writer favours to delight first and teach afterwards. The

author claims that there is rhythmic movement towards

accomplishment of academic and socio-international end. He

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surcharges an idea that rhythmic movement can be achieved through

basic to-and-fro sequences, such as questions-and answers

routines and prompt-response drills. Further it can be attained

by teacher-fronted activities, pair or group work, between form-

focused activities and meaning focused ones.

Flow:

Lesson is like a play because one moment teacher is

enjoying his delivery, then another moment he has to pay

attention to how play is developing. The writer says that flow is

less planning strategy than the procedure by which planned

elements such as plot, theme and rhythm are maintained. The

write advises to be conscious to maintain the flow of the

activity.

The sense of an ending:

The writer has very artistically dealt the topic, he says

that a lesson is like a film, same as in a good film one feels

more and more interested along the time it lasts and at the end

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he feels convinced about the story and happy about the hours he

has spent. If we analyse the idea of lesson plan, though it is

more romantic and aesthetic in its approach but sprit is the

same.

I think, technically this approach is more challenging as

compared to traditional format of lesson plan. This kind of

lesson plan needs intelligence, natural humorous tendencies and

huge amount of general knowledge to maintain the tone of the

class activities up to the end as claimed. However in

communicative method of teaching, it seems effective approach to

build plan of class activities based on interactive approach. But

for new teachers who might be surrounded many issues like:

confidence, interactive skills, and ideas into order, to complete

the task/course within assigned period. As compared to

traditional approach this is a very novel approach towards

lesson planning, it will take time to establish its importance

and frequent use because still in the Eastern part of the world

like India, Pakistan , Bangladesh and Middle Eastern countries

like Saudi Arab, Qatar, Oman , Bahrain Audio-lingual method is in

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practice. The traditional lesson plan is still very common road

map to keep track the activities and it makes teacher clear and

confident to carry on the class activities as all the steps of

activities are visible. So it depends on the situations, nature

of a teacher, and nature of topic and attitude of institutional

management. Further Mutton, Hagger, and Burn (2011) have

discussed in their research article titled learning to plan,

planning to learn : the developing expertise of beginning

teachers that it is “through planning that teachers are able to

learn about teaching and through teaching that they are able to

learn about planning”.(p.399) Generally it is believed that

teaching is a complex and cognitively demanding activity and it

needs balance between content and form- reason and emotion,

particularly in regard to the planning of lessons. Planning,

defined by Brown as cited by Mutton Hagger and Burn. (2011,

p.399) is as “the instructional decisions made prior to the

execution of plans during teaching”. Planning is treated one of a

number of the teaching competences required for qualification as

a teacher. The writers give example of England where professional

standards for qualified teacher status (2007) expects of a

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teacher to plan for progression across the age and ability range

for which they are trained, designing effective learning

sequences within lessons and across series of lessons and

demanding secure subject/curriculum knowledge. This research

article has discussed six key characteristics of lesson planning

like: informal, creative, knowledge based, must allow

flexibility, and may occur within a practical and ideological

context. It has been indicated that planning occurs at different

levels. For example, long-term, mid-term, monthly, weekly or

daily and lesson by lesson basis. I think it depends on the

nature of topic, level of class and expertise of the teacher.

Some expert teachers design a lesson in such a way that they only

modify it for different topics and levels with the investment of

little efforts. Practically it has been observed that the expert

teachers develop lesson plans to satisfy the administrative

requirement but they don’t follow it strictly. Further writers

discuss that planning is a creative process and it works as a

tool that is used to influence the way teachers do certain things

in the classroom. The new teachers follow a certain format in

order to provide them some guarantee that a range of issues have

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been considered in the planning which result them to accomplish

the class activities fluently smoothly and skillfully. On the

other hand, experienced teachers rarely follow a rational model

but tend to look for good ideas and then for ways of translating

those ideas into workable classroom activities. I can relate this

idea of practice to the host teacher during my practicum practice

who claimed to carry ideas in her mind rather than on paper in

lesson plan format.

The crux of the discussion concludes that planning is

knowledge –based and learning about planning is essentially

learning about teaching. The effective chart of class activities

demands subject-content knowledge and some skill to carry on the

activities in classroom. The writers have explored the nature and

role of the plan in their research article; they have discussed

that the plan-script of class activities represent the knowledge

and content to be covered in the lesson. The writers have

indicated that teachers should consider the level of learners,

nature of topic and limited amount of time during designing a

lesson plan. Planning a lesson seems twofold: art and skill,

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harmony in content and form. The required skill to design class

activities is to maintain the learners’ motivation, coherence of

activities and implementation of a planned activity within time

without fail. The study indicates that planning needs

anticipation of what might happen; therefore teachers needed

flexibility in order to be able to cope effectively when things

did not follow the script. I think sometimes teacher spends a

whole class (period) discussing things, responding the questions

of learners. Mostly in higher classes ideas, concepts and

strategies are discussed, learners want to discuss and make their

confusions clear, so it becomes harder for teacher to adhere the

designed plan against the will of serious learners and their

queries. The discussion held in this article concludes with

reference of Professional Standards for qualified Teachers Status

(TDA, 2007, p.413) which expected of teachers to be “flexible,

creative and adept at designing learning sequences within lessons

and across lessons that are effective and consistently well-

matched to learning objectives and the needs of learners”

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The writers Shen, Poppink, Cui, & Fan. (2007) have discussed

the scope and importance of lesson planning in their article

titled “Lesson Planning: A Practice of Professional

Responsibility and Development”.  This is very interesting

discussion because writers have ended up with comparative study

of the professional work of American and Chinese teachers. In

broader sense, basic idea of lesson plan, its importance and

format seems universal, however approach and style of

implementation of teaching practice may vary. It has been

discussed in the article that teachers in the United States are

focusing on learning ,for them not only the knowledge of the

content, subject-matter or discipline but also how students

learn and make sense of the task is important. In terms of

teaching trainings, the researchers have identified various tasks

that teachers undertake in the professional communities. In

particular, examining students work and teaching with videos. It

is indicated that in the United States, planning and preparation

are considered important but lesson plans are not more than a

list of activities. Developing lesson plans is not often

considered a professional-development experience. While in China

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teacher and organizational structures focus on lesson plan as a

professional development activity. Qin and Huang (2005) as cited

by Shen, Poppink, Cui, & Fan, (2007, p.249) mentions that for

teachers in china lesson plan is like a set of activities

students and teachers under take during the day. The Chinese

environment focuses on improving teaching practices within school

time. It seems very balanced approach to train new teachers on

one hand and facilitate teachers to finish their preparation work

during school time on other hand. American teachers are required

to lead the class for 6-7 hours a day with little time to reflect

or to conduct other activities that could improve their practice.

In contrast, Chinese teachers, teach only one or two hours a day,

in one core subject area. Conversely, they spend a lot of time on

lesson planning: two hours a week of formal collaboration with

colleagues on one core subject and informally another two hours a

day with colleagues on that subject. I think American teachers

follow communicative or task-based method of teaching; there are

a lot of interaction and creative activities in the classroom.

The system of education in America seems more liberal, learners-

oriented and focusing on end result as compared to China which

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seems more teacher-centered, formal, focusing on audio-visual

method like in Pakistan.

The article discusses the lesson planning process of Chinese

teachers. Chinese teachers consider textbooks, students, and

teaching methods as main areas to be focused during lesson

planning Teachers are expected to study the text books thoroughly

and make their idea clear about the contents of lesson, select

the most appropriate and engaging teaching method. Generally a

teacher begins by mapping out the content for whole semester.

Afterwards teacher moves on to planning, for the unit, and

finally to each lesson in the unit. A plan dominantly includes:

(a) objects, (b) key points of contents (c) anticipating

difficult points for students (d) designing the lesson flow –

introducing the topic, presenting the new knowledge,

strengthening the understanding of new knowledge, summarising the

learning and assigning the homework. The very important point in

Chinese education system as mentioned in the article is that

institutions/ educational organizations provide trainings to

teachers to learn the art of design lesson plan. Teachers take

interest to learn it because, lesson planning and class

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activities held according to the lesson plan comes under the

evaluations of their performance. I think such kind of formal and

stressful process diminishes the creativity of a teacher, it

cripples him to perform as a robot and may it be less productive

in the end-learning for end-users.

Farrell (2002) has indicated that teachers need to decide their

action plan before entering into the class. They can develop

daily plan, unit, weekly, monthly or term plan. However, some

teachers write very detailed lesson plans and others do the

planning inside their heads. Richards (1998) as cited by Farrell

(2002, p.31) says that “ lesson plans are systematic records of

a teacher’s thoughts about what will be covered during a

lesson”. Further he adds “lesson plans help the teacher think

about the lesson in advance to resolve problems and difficulties,

to provide a structure for a lesson, to provide a map for the

teacher to follow, and to provide a record of what has been

taught” There are some other reasons (internal and external) for

planning a lessons (McCutcheon, 1980) as cited by Farrell ( 2002,

p-31) discusses that sometimes teachers plan to make themselves

clear, confident and to anticipate the possible problem may

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occur, and sometimes they need to satisfy the higher

authorities/administration. Farrell discusses that daily lesson

planning helps teachers to think about content, material,

sequencing and timing of activities. There are various approaches

to lesson planning. According to Tyler’s rational –linear

framework (1954) as cited by Farrell (p-31) there are four steps

of lesson plan: (1) specific objectives (2) select learning

activities (3) organize learning activities (4) specific methods

of evaluation. In contrast to this plan (Yinger (1980) as cited

by Farrell (p.32) developed alternative plan which takes place

in stages first stage- problem conception which integrate

teacher’s goals ,knowledge and experience. The second stage is

the formulation of problem and its solution. The third stage

focuses on application of the plan along with its evaluation. The

writer argues that during this process teacher links teaching

done in the past and to be done in future. The study focuses on

making objectives clear and ensures the learning outcomes which

teacher wants learners to reach .After writing the lesson

objectives, teachers must decide the activities and procedures to

achieve the objectives. According to shrum &Glisan (1994) as

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cited by Farrel (p.33) the generic lesson plan has mainly five

phases

(1) Perspective (opening): Ask students about previous work and

make some connection. It seems to me as the objectives of lesson.

(2) Stimulation: (warm up) Teacher prepares students for coming

activity. It seems process of motivation (3)

Instruction/participation: Teacher involves students into

activity and ensures they understand. (4) Closure: Teachers ask

students about learning of the class. (5) Follow-up: Teacher

uses some new activities to reinforce the concepts. Teacher may

assign individual work or some tasks taken from the lesson.

The study indicates that implementation of lesson plan is

challenging task for teachers in sprit and form. The experienced

teachers find it very hard to follow the chart of activities

because some unplanned activities come in their ways to discuss

in the class. Further it is suggested in the discussion that

teachers need to make some adjustment of their lesson plans,

better to design the activities in the way they like to carry on

in the class. The final phase of lesson is its evaluation;

teacher needs to assess the success of his lesson and

effectiveness of planning.

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Outcome:

The experience of practicum practices is wonderful

opportunity for learners. It is very effective training which

reforms the teaching skills, sharpens the observational lens and

help to understand the nature of different students. As for as my

focused area of this paper is concerned, I would say teachers may

amalgamate the traditional and modern approaches towards the

lesson plan its formation and application. Since communicative

method of teaching has been replacing the audio visual method of

teaching, and huge shifting from teacher-centered to learner-

centered has taken place, there is no way to avoid changing the

lesson planning, from formation to application. Though I still

find immense attraction in traditional format of lesson plan, but

modern approach is also intriguing. But I think, it all depends

upon the class level, administrative policies, teachers’ skill

and style of teaching. But nobody can deny the utility of lesson

plan though with some modification, mixed approach or

reformation.

References:

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Farrell.C. (2002) Lesson Planning .In A Richards,J.C, & Renandya .W.A. (Ed.)

Methodology in language teaching. An anthology of current practice.( PP. 30-38)

Cambridge University Press.

John, P. D. ( 2006). Lesson Planning and the Student Teacher: Re-Thinking the

Dominant Model. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 38(4) 483-498. Thornbury, S. (1999). Lesson art and design. Elt Journal ,53(1) 4-11.

Mutton, T., Hagger, H., & Burn, K. ( 2011). Learning to plan, planning to

learn: the developing expertise of beginning teachers. Teachers and

Teaching, 17(4) 399-416.

Shen, J., Poppink, S., Cui, Y., & Fan, G. (2007). Lesson Planning: A Practice of

Professional Responsibility and Development. Educational Horizons, 85(4), 248-

257.