How to plan a lesson based on tasks

As a teacher in training my design of a lesson plan will

establish the curriculum goal of increasing the students’ familiarity
with the English language. It is true that delivering a quality
education necessities an acquisition of semantic knowledge not only of the linguistic basics but also
having the ability to add my own philosophy to the lesson.

Focusing on learning more than teaching, TBLT uses tasks as a fundamental element to plan an
English language-teaching course for secondary students. To insure the success of the lesson plan, four
elements must be consideration. The first element is timing, which is one of the most difficult aspects of
lesson planning to control for a new teacher, but after a little experience, it is more common to complete
the lesson within the planned time. The second element is the lesson’s pace has to be adequate meaning
the activities used are neither too long nor too short. A good pacing is also how well the teacher provide a
transition from one activity to the next. The third element is the use of sufficient variety in techniques to
keep the lesson lively and interesting also to keep the students’ minds alert and the enthusiasm high
within the classroom. The fourth element is that the activities used are logically sequenced. This means
that easier tasks are to be placed at the beginning of the lesson building progressively towards
accomplishing the ultimate goal. Taking under consideration these individual differences and
concentrating on the average level of students in order to achieve the balance within the classroom,
teachers create a variety of principles to meet all of the learners needs.

Initiating from the curriculum goal of English language learning, the most common use of
teaching procedures are tasks. Not only that tasks is the base of the TBLT method but they also lead to
classroom interactions by achieving the learning-by-doing principle. The students are expected to learn by
doing a task, discovering knowledge by themselves, using cognition rather than memorizing which leads
to effective communication. The reflective technique stimulates students to evaluate what they have done,
to review their positive and negative points, and to identify what should be improved to correct any
mistakes. Tasks through which learners have to interact with one another usually in small groups or pairs
in solving a problem or exchange ideas for example; ?, Describe how to get from A to B so that your
partner can draw a map. As means to adapt to the language, learners develop a communicative strategy
that enables them to express themselves using vocabulary they already have acquired during their first
language acquisition process.

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 This is well-referred to as the Joseph Conrad phenomenon where a second language learner has
the ability to master aspects of the written language, but to speak with a distinct first language accent. It is
important for teachers to remember during their lesson to employ their cognitive empathy while trying to
respond to their students’ language needs and anticipating their problem areas. The best way to do so is to
resolve to scripting out a lesson plan that has an introduction to the activities, statements of rules, oral
testing techniques, and a conclusion to the activities. Not only do these activities create a strong
community between the students and the teacher, but also lead to the development of the three types of
competence resulting to efficiency in communication.

The first component is grammatical competence which refers to the unconscious knowledge of
grammar. It is not an evaluative term but rather the innate linguistic knowledge as described by Noman
Chomsky. It is the ability to recognize lexical, morphological, syntactical, and phonological features of a
language and to use these features effectively to interpret, encode, and decode words and sentences. For
example, in different discourse situations, we apply different sentence patterns, vocabulary layers, and
structures. Consequently, the due level of grammar competence helps teachers realize the rule of 5Cs,
which makes their speech clear, correct, concise, coherent, and cohesive, leading to productive output.
This clear output of words not only facilitates the understanding of the language but also leads to a
successful input. By performing the tasks, learners are reflecting on themselves in an attempt to establish
comprehension of meaning.

This feature is noticed in the second component which is strategic competence. This type of
competence is highly dependent on the use of one's language to communicate the intended meaning. For
example, the ability to paraphrase what the teacher has said and to ask checking questions which are very
common among competent speakers. One of the ways to draw learners to this feature of authentic
communication is to show them recordings of TV interviews and talk shows and ask them direct simple
questions to answer individually or collaboratively through pair or group work. The topics raised in these
tasks can include real-life events such as anthropology.

The social context of second language learning is further highlighted in sociolinguistic

competence. It is the ability to communicate appropriately by using the right words, expressions, and
attitudes toward a specific topic, setting, and relationship. Teachers resolve to use of numerous strategies
to enliven these competence within the classroom. The first strategy is by making pragmatic features
explicit. Examples of Implicit Pragmatic Competence Raising Activities: There are two main ones; Input
Enhancement Tasks: These are strategies used by educators to make a target form or speech act more
noticeable but in an implicit, reflective way.

Teachers can be selective in their speaking speed, stress on pronunciation, or monitor the
difficulty of the language in which they speak to their students. They can also use non-verbal practices or

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gestures such as Textual Enhancement and Input Flood. Examples of Explicit pragmatics Competence
Raising Activities; discussion and comparisons: You can conduct class discussions centered around the
topic that provide a comparison between the students’ native language (L1) and culture with the target
language and culture (L2). Additionally, asking students to fill out a table or worksheet is a good idea.
Reading and Listening also.

Students can read text, listen to audio, or watch videos that give explicit information about the
speech act in another language/country. Students can then answer discussion questions centered around
the material, fill out worksheets, and play games. Providing Examples and Strategies: as a teacher in
training, you can provide students with examples of the speech act in the target language, and ask them to
compare and contrast them with their native language. Additionally, teaching students how to develop
strategies for picking up on pragmatic and semantic clues in the target language can help as well. Not to
forget also the DCTs; Discourse Completion Tasks. These are very famous in the realm of pragmatic
instruction. A Discourse Completion Task is an activity or tool that has students engage in a one-sided
role-play. Roleplay activities that encourage students to engage with one another in speaking practice
revolving around a situational prompt are a good choice for explicit instruction, especially when paired
with a discussion in which students analyze their peers' and own performance.

By the end of the lesson, the learning objectives should have been accomplished including the enabling
objectives which are well collocated with the learners’ needs progressing towards the establishment of the
terminal objective therefore the acquisition of the adequate linguistic knowledge leading to L2 learning
meaning proficiency and adaptability in the use of L2 on both personal and social levels.