Effective Lesson Planning for Language Teaching

Posted on Feb 2, 2025 in Other civil servant exams

Elements of a Lesson Plan

Key elements of a lesson plan include: start, class, date, level, number of students, age of students, class time, topic, aim/goal, language behavior, assumptions, potential problems and possible solutions, type of activity/stages, activity, interaction, objective, procedure, material or equipment required, time, assessment, and extra-class work.

Steps to Begin Planning a Lesson

  1. Look over the textbook chapter.
  2. Determine the topic and purpose of the lesson.
  3. Determine the overall goal and the terminal objectives.
  4. For each exercise, decide if you will use it, adapt it, or skip it.
  5. Draft a skeletal outline.
  6. Plan step-by-step procedures for carrying out all techniques.
  7. The script of a class should consider:
    • Introductions to activities
    • Directions for a task
    • Statements of rules or generalizations
    • Anticipated interchanges that could be problematic
    • Oral testing techniques
    • Conclusions to activities

Guidelines for Lesson Planning

  • Variety in techniques to keep the lesson lively and interesting.
  • Logical sequencing of techniques or activities.
  • Adequate pacing: Activities should not be too long or too short. Anticipate how well your various techniques flow together and how well you provide a transition from one activity to the next.
  • Appropriate timing, considering the number of minutes in the class hour.

Obligatory Sections

Level, Date, Topic, Skills, Time (general and specific), Age of students, General objective, Procedure.

Presenting Structures

  • Visual/Oral Context: Pictures can illustrate meaning and establish a context. The teacher builds up the context orally.
  • Texts: Newspapers, magazines, biographies, radio or TV programs, songs.
  • Short Dialogues: They are models for speaking practice of structures.
  • Giving or Working Out the Rule: The teacher explains the rules or patterns of form and use.

Vocabulary

  • Visual/Oral Context: The teacher elicits words using visual aids.
  • Texts: The teacher uses listening or reading texts to introduce and practice lexical items of a particular topic.
  • Test-Teach-Test: Useful for revising vocabulary items that students have encountered before.
  • Recycling Vocabulary: Start the lesson with a short activity that revises the vocabulary presented the day before (e.g., a game).

Strategies List

  • Listening:
    1. Be ready and have a plan to achieve a given task.
    2. Pick only salient points.
    3. Listen selectively and ignore irrelevant details.
  • Speaking:
    1. Ask for someone to repeat something.
    2. Use formulaic expressions.
    3. Use conversation maintenance cues.
  • Writing:
    1. Read a passage extensively.
    2. Brainstorm.
    3. Freewrite.
  • Reading:
    1. Identify the purpose of the reading.
    2. Skim the text for the main idea.
    3. Analyze vocabulary.
  • Vocabulary:
    1. Use translation.
    2. Illustrate a meaning.
    3. Teach phrasal verbs.
  • Grammar:
    1. Deductive approach.
    2. Inductive approach.
    3. Teach grammar through a text.

The Structure of a Language Lesson

  • Openings: How a lesson begins.
  • Sequencing: How a lesson is divided into segments and how the segments relate to each other.
  • Pacing: How a sense of movement is achieved within a lesson.
  • Closure: How a lesson is brought to an end.

Language Skills

  • Receptive: Reading and listening.
  • Productive: Speaking and writing.

Integrating Skill and Language Work

The ideal learning sequence will offer both skill integration and language study based around a topic.

Example Stages:

  1. Complete a questionnaire (reading and speaking).
  2. Students read a text from a novel.
  3. Students answer comprehension questions about the text.
  4. Students look for any language in the text that describes physical appearance.
  5. Students rewrite the text, changing some ideas.
  6. Students write physical descriptions of a famous person.
  7. Students listen to a dialogue before role-playing it.

Syllabus

A syllabus is a specification of the content of a course of instruction and lists what will be taught and tested.

Curriculum

A curriculum is a more comprehensive process. It includes the processes to determine:

  1. The needs of a group of learners.
  2. Objectives.
  3. An appropriate syllabus.
  4. Course structure.
  5. Teaching methods and materials.
  6. An evaluation.

Models of Syllabus

  • Functional: Based on functions (purposes).
  • Negotiated: The linguist and the learner are the prime actors. The teacher is part of the instructional resources.
  • Natural: Acquisition activities are provided in class as “experiences”.
  • Subject-Matter: Immersion teaching. The subject matter teacher teaches the subject in the usual way, simplifying the language.
  • Task-based: The focus is on the performance of the tasks rather than the language.

Needs Assessment/Needs Analysis

It is a systematic and ongoing process of gathering information about students’ needs and preferences, interpreting the information, and then making course decisions based on the interpretation to meet those needs.

The New Mexican School

Objective

To promote excellent, inclusive, multicultural, collaborative, and equitable learning.

Principles

  • A. Promotion of identity with Mexico (culture/history).
  • B. Civic responsibility (civic values).
  • C. Honesty for the fulfillment of social responsibility.