EFL METHODOLOGY

CHAPTER REPORT ON PLANNING LESSONS

Andrian Permadi
1006928

Master Program on English Education

School of Postgraduate
Indonesia University of Education
2010
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 PLANNING LESSONS

By:
Andrian Permadi
1006928/ Class A

Master Program on English Education

School of Postgraduate
Indonesia University of Education
2010

A. Introduction
A lesson is an interactive event in which people react with each other and with a
language. What actually happens in a lesson is the result of interactive system that is extremely
complex. When the lesson progresses (as students interact with their teacher and with the
language they are studying) things evolve and develop, depending on what has happened and
what is happening minute by minute. However, as the development is too far from reaching the
objectives of the lesson, this development may sometimes result to the confusion of final
objectives that have been determined to reach in advance. There is something that can function
as a guide to reach these objectives and this guide can be developed and written down into a
plan. Therefore, as a complex interactive system, a lesson needs to be planned to make sure that
the process in delivering the lesson will be advantageous for students. This plan can be in a form
of lesson plan.
Many teachers believe that planning a lesson will be a determinant factor in the process
of teaching and learning. For them, lesson plans are a map that helps them reach the objectives of
the lesson. When it comes to lesson plans, according to Kizlik (2009), knowing "how to" is far
more important than knowing "about", and is one of the important markers along the way to
becoming a professional teacher. It is quite obvious that there are fundamental components of all
lesson plans that teachers should learn to write, revise, and improve their own lesson plans. To
accomplish effective teaching process, teachers need to learn how to write the lesson plan well.
After writing the plan, there will be a possibility of revising process whether the activities that
have been carried out have been effective of not. Doing this, teachers will be always improving
their skills that will be beneficial in their professional life.

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 Developing their professionalism in teaching is in line with Shen’s (2007) notion which
suggests that the development of planning lessons can be a source of professional growth. He
notes that in developing lesson plans, teachers have opportunities to think deeply about the
subject matter, including the way the subject matter is represented in particular textbooks or in
such aspects of the curriculum as standards and benchmarks. Teachers also have time to develop
pedagogical activities or methods that enable students to grasp the subject matter. For new
inexperienced teachers, as Kizlik (2009) mentions, lesson plans help them organize content,
materials, and methods so that this materials and methods will enhance students’ understanding
and knowledge. To conclude, lesson planners can ponder what students know and how they may
best understand the content.

B. Planning Lessons
As directors and composers in the class, teachers have many different plan or strategies in
accomplishing their lesson in the class. Some teachers may apply ‘jungle path’ lesson – a lesson
which is created moment by moment with the teacher and the learners working with whatever is
happening in the room. This lesson is triggered by spontaneous situations that often come up in
the interaction between students and teacher. Some teachers allow the course books to do the
planning for them. They take in a lesson or unit and teach it exactly as it is offered in the book.
Some teachers write down a few notes in folders of notebooks which may be written based on
the name of the activity or language activity. Some teachers are applying vague ‘corridor
planning’, in which they only rely on the ideas they have in their head without making any notes
or plans. Some others apply a lesson which is based on the idea of what they hope their students
will achieve in the class
Teaching is so dynamic that there is a possibility for a teacher to modify the lesson plan
which the teacher has organized in the classroom. Harmer (2002) suggests that there are several
reasons why a lesson plan can be modified in a normal teaching. A lesson plan can be modified
if there are unexpected moments that occur in language lessons. When a topic is presented, for
example, there will be some situations which are not predicted to happen and the situations lead
to a broader discussion that triggers students to talk more about the topic. The situations may be
because the topic is unexpectedly interesting and produces level of interest in the students and
finally makes the students involve actively in the session. When this condition – which is so

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called as magic moments – occurs in language lessons, the teacher could carry on with the
planned lesson as if the moment had never occurred.
The second reason is the existence of sensible diversion in language lessons. Sensible
diversion is a condition where a teacher takes a change and teaches something which the teacher
had not intended to teach. This condition is possible to happen because the teacher sometimes
finds opportunities to present particular lesson even though the teacher has not planned when and
how to present it. This opportunistic teaching may happen because a student wants to know how
some element of language is constructed or why it is constructed as it is.
The third reason is the existence of unforeseen problems. These unforeseen problems, in
teaching and learning process, may be due to misinterpretation and common sense on something.
For example, it is possible that something which we thought would be fairly simple for our
students turns out to be difficult (or vice versa) or some students may find an activity that we
thought interesting boring.
The modification of a lesson plan is important since we cannot leave the students in
stressful situation because of difficult task. If they have finished an activity, we cannot just let
them to get bored. Therefore, it is possible to anticipate problems in the class by planning
strategies to deal with them though surprising moments always occur during the class.

C. Stages in Planning Lesson

Before making a plan of what going to happen in our lesson, teachers need to follow a
stage, either consciously or unconsciously. The first stage will be pre-planning stage in which
teachers gather ideas, material, and some points that will be delivered to the students. Some
teachers who are engaged in corridor planning, this pre-planning stage may be as far as planning
goes, and jungle path teachers have a vague of how to start a lesson. For teachers who are going
to produce a more formal plan, the pre-planning stage is the start of all process.
Ideas for pre-planning may come from a wide variety of sources. We sometimes come
across a good activity in a book or at a teacher’s seminar, in which the activity may be suitable
and meaningful in delivering a lesson. Perhaps, we might have seen something on the internet or
on the television which we think might be fun for a lesson.
Our pre-planning ideas are usually based on our knowledge of who we are teaching. We
have their personalities as individuals or as a group in our minds. We are conscious of their level

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and what we think they might be capable of. We have studied the syllabus we are following and
what the students are expected to have achieved by the end of the course. Harmer (2002)
proposes that there are four main planning elements – activities, skills, language, and content.
When planning, it is vital to consider what students will be doing in the classroom. As teachers,
we have to consider the way they will be organized, whether they have to move around the class,
whether they have to work quietly side-by-side or whether they have to be in group activity. In
addition, teachers should also make a decision about which language skills to develop for
students. Doing this, we will exactly know how the students are going to work with the skill and
what sub skills we wish to practice. We need to decide also what language to introduce and have
the students learn, practice, research, or use, and to select content which has a good chance of
provoking interest and involvement.
Having done some pre-planning and made decisions about the kind of lesson we want to
teach, we can make a lesson which may take a number of different forms, depending upon the
circumstances of the lesson and depending on our attitude to planning in general. After that, we
will still have to use that plan in the classroom and use the plan as a record of learning for
reference. Doing this, teachers will always improve their capacity in creating effective lesson
plan and this record can be an alternative use for another session.

D. Synthesis/Comments—criticism & position

In this part, the writer covers some issues on lesson planning by putting forward some
guiding questions to the topic being discussed. The questions are what the value of lesson
planning is, how knowing about students’ language needs and background helps teachers plan
effective lessons, and what the five components found in most lesson plans are.
From my perspective, lesson plans have some important and significant roles in the
teaching and learning process. As a part of teaching and learning process, lesson plans help
teachers provide an effective learning experience for their students. These plans ensure that
students’ time in class results in learning that will help them achieve their goals. For some
teachers who take the step to the “jungle path”, as Harmer mentions earlier, these plans can be “a
map” that will guide them walking in “the middle of the jungle”. This map will show the way to
the goals which are probably made in advance. In this case, the plans will be meaningful sources

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for teachers to see whether they are in the right track of giving the lesson and whether their steps
are in compliance with the students’ needs and lesson goals.
Lesson planning also enhances the teaching experience by helping teachers save time,
avoid frustration, and analyze and improve their lessons. As the plans provide steps and timing
for each activity conducted in the class, teachers can be easily managing the shifting pace from
one activity to another. This condition will, of course, help teachers in managing the time
efficiently without being afraid of not accomplishing the objective of the lesson. By lesson
planning, teachers can also avoid frustration when teaching students in the classroom. When
making a lesson plan, teachers can choose the sequence of activities that will create the
classroom interaction livelier. If there is only one activity which is used in teaching grammar, for
example by lecturing, the atmosphere in the class will be boring and this will make the teachers
frustrated. Therefore, various activities which will be used in creating teaching and learning
process more dynamic and interesting, teachers need to write them down in the lesson plan in
sequence. Whenever they forget about the steps of activities being used, it will be easy for them
to consult it to the plan so that they will not be frustrated due to their lack of activity resources.
For students, this smooth sequence of activities will lead to better understanding in the material
they learn. Lesson plan also helps teachers in improving their teaching skill. As one of important
components in teaching English, lesson plan can be a medium to improve their lesson delivery to
students. Therefore, an evaluation phase after the lesson plan is tried out in the classroom will be
essential for teachers to see whether their plan has been well accomplished or whether the plan
still need improvement for future teaching activities.
There are many ways to plan an effective lesson—the important thing is to make a plan.
Writing out a script, completing a chart of lesson stages, matching lesson steps with textbook
pages, or visualizing lesson activities are all examples of lesson planning strategies that
successful teachers use. Effective lessons emerge from effective learning objectives and contain
a unified set of learning activities. Learning objectives for adult English language learners are
based on the needs of the students as well as existing state standards and program curricula.
Needs assessments help teachers determine the communication needs of their students, i.e., the
situations in which students need to understand, speak, read, and write English. For beginning-
level students, for example, a simple needs assessment can be accomplished by showing learners
pictures of various situations, like the doctor’s office or a job site, and asking them to number the

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pictures in order of their need to be able to understand, speak, read, or write English.
Intermediate and advanced students can be given a questionnaire asking them to identify the
situations in which they need to use English. In addition to students’ needs, teachers have to
consider other information about the students, such as English language proficiency level,
educational background, and language of origin. This information can be gained from students’
registration materials or from informal discussion.
Once teachers know students’ language needs and something about their backgrounds,
teachers can begin to plan lessons. There are many teaching styles and many ways to plan
lessons. However, the following five components can be found in most effective lesson plans:
1) Topic. Communicative or real-life contexts or topics can be gleaned from student needs
assessments. If in a needs assessment, beginning-level students select a visual that depicts a
doctor talking to a patient, the teacher could choose Communicating with health personnel
as the topic for a group of lessons.
2) Lesson objective. An objective is the goal for a lesson or group of lessons. A well written
objective tells what students will be able to do, rather than what students will know, by the
end of the lesson. Learning objectives should relate to the topics chosen by the students
during the needs assessment. If the topic of the lesson is communicating with health
personnel, one appropriate beginning-level lesson objective might be, By the end of this
lesson, students will be able to describe symptoms to medical personnel.
3) Enabling skills. These are the skills, such as vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation that
support the students’ ability to accomplish the lesson objective. For the topic
Communicating with health personnel, the vocabulary might be headache, fever, cough, etc.
The grammar could be the simple present tense of the verb to have, and the pronunciation
work might focus on the ch sound in ache.
4) Sequence of stages. Research has shown that including a series of stages in lessons will help
students achieve the lesson objective. Most lessons include warm-up/review, introduction,
presentation, practice, evaluation, and application stages. A comprehension check is always
included in the presentation stage of the lesson and may occur at other stages as well. (See
the chart below for a description of terms.) As teachers plan lessons, they can select
activities for each stage that will move the students toward accomplishing the lesson
objective. For example, with the health objective Describe medical symptoms, a teacher

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 might demonstrate a dialogue between a patient and a nurse for the presentation stage, have
students work with the dialogue (substituting various symptoms) as part of the practice
stage, and then do a role play activity (working without the dialogue in front of them) for the
evaluation and application stages of the lesson.
5) Materials, equipment, and technology. Anything needed to execute the lesson should be
identified and secured well before class time to ensure that activities can be carried out as
planned. This may include realia (real-life materials, such as an appointment card and a
medical history form), visual aids, teacher-made handouts, textbooks, flipchart and markers,
overhead projector, CD players, and computers.
While planning a lesson utilizing these five components, a teacher should also consider
other things such as the length of the lesson, the sequencing of the activities, and the amount of
time that should be spent on each stage or activity.

E. Conclusion
As discussed above, many teachers believe that planning a lesson will be a determinant
factor in the process of teaching and learning. For them, lesson plans are a map that helps them
reach the objectives of the lesson. When it comes to lesson plans, according to Kizlik (2009),
knowing "how to" is far more important than knowing "about", and is one of the important
markers along the way to becoming a professional teacher. It is quite obvious that there are
fundamental components of all lesson plans that teachers should learn to write, revise, and
improve their own lesson plans. To accomplish effective teaching process, teachers need to learn
how to write the lesson plan well. After writing the plan, there will be a possibility of revising
process whether the activities that have been carried out have been effective of not. Doing this,
teachers will be always improving their skills that will be beneficial in their professional life.
Lesson plans help teachers provide an effective learning experience for their students.
These plans ensure students that their time in class will result in learning that will help them
achieve their goals. Lesson planning also enhances the teaching experience by helping teachers
save time, avoid frustration, and analyze and improve their lessons.

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F. Bibliography
Harmer, Jeremy. 2002. The Practice of English Language Teaching. Malaysia: Pearson
Education Limited.

Johnston, Keith. 2001. An Introduction to Foreign Language Learning and Teaching.

Edinburgh: Pearson Education Limited

Kizlik, Bob. 2009. Lesson Planning, Lesson Plan Formats and Lesson Plan Ideas. Available at:
http://www.adprima.com/lesson.htm

Shen, Jianping,et.al. 2007. Lesson Planning: A Practice of Professional Responsibility and

Development. Educational horizons, Vol.85.