Richards, Jack C.

Reflective Teaching in
Second Language
Classrooms

Chapter 4: Teacher
Decision Making
Chapter 6: The
Structure of a Language
Lesson
 Richard J
Shavelson

“Any teaching act is the result of a decision, either

conscious or unconscious . . .
What distinguishes the exceptional teacher is not
the ability to ask, say, a higher-order question, but
the ability to decide when to ask such a question.”
 Teaching is
essentially a
THINKING
process

DECISION
3 Types of individual
decisions
1) Planning decisions
2) Interactive decisions
3) Evaluative decisions
PLANNING DECISIONS
Macro-plans: Some Micro-plans: Other
teachers develop overall teachers work more at the
goals for a course or a “micro-level”, planning
class, and use these to more on a day-to-day
help them develop the basis without making
lesson plans they use on a regular reference to their
day-to-day basis. In a course goals or objectives.
study of an ESL reading In initial teacher training,
teacher, Richards(1990:95) teachers are generally
found that the teacher encouraged to develop
used instructional lesson plans for every
objectives to guide and lesson that they teach.
organize lessons.
 o n p la n
Th e le ss - A description of the aims
or objectives of the lesson,
- The activities students
will carry out,
- The time needed for each
activity,
- Teaching aids to be used,
- Teaching strategies to be
used,
- Grouping arrangements
employed for each activity,
- Possible problems that
might be encountered,
- Alternative possibilities
 David Nunan
Learners come to have a more realistic
idea of what can be achieved in a given
course.
 Learning comes to be seen as the
gradual accretion of achievable goals.
 Students develop greater sensitivity
to their role as language learners and
their rather vague notions of what it is
to be a learner become much sharper.
 Self-evaluation becomes more
feasible.
 Classroom activities can be seen to
relate to learners' real-life needs.
 The development of skills can be
seen as a gradual rather than an all-or-
nothing process.
 Teachers' use of
Objectives
1) Instructional
2)Description
3)Quantity
4)Learning of ofgoals
course
materials
learning and also
Teachers
content Some
Many teachers
language
teachers
expressed contentexpressed
described Teachers
objectives
their objectives
in terms
objectives in in
of the
terms
terms ofbook
expressed
courseof the
how teacher's
course
or
much roleto
objectives
materials
material. in terms
be
they
used
of topicstotocover
wanted be covered and activities
which would be carried out
Planning decisions are
made after a process
of reflection
• What do I want my students to learn
from this lesson?
• How will I deal with different student
ability levels in the class?
• How will I check on student
understanding?
• What role will I take on during this
lesson?
• What discipline and management
techniques will I incorporate?
Interactive decisions
- Monitoring one's teaching and
evaluating what is happening at a
particular point in the lesson.
- Recognizing that a number of
different courses of action are
possible.
- Selecting a particular course of
action.
- Evaluating the consequences of
the choice.
• Do the students understand this? Are my instructions
clear and understood?
• Do I need to increase student involvement in this
activity?
• Is this too difficult for the students?
• Should I try teaching this a different way?
• Is this taking too much time?
• Is this activity going as planned?
• How can I get the students' attention?
• Do students need more information?
• Do I need to improve accuracy on this task?
• Is this relevant to the aims of the lesson?
• Do students have the vocabulary they need in order to
do this task?
• Is this teaching students something that they really
need to know?
• Am I teaching too much rather than letting the learners
work it out for themselves?
In monitoring and evaluating his
or her own teaching, the teacher
may decide
1) that the lesson is proceeding
satisfactorily and let the lesson
continue, or
2) that some sort of intervention
is necessary in order to respond to
a problem that has been
identified.
Evaluative Decisions
Are those which a
teacher makes after a
lesson has been taught.
They arise from asking
the following kinds of
questions about a lesson
• Was this lesson successful?
Why or why not?
• What were the main
strengths and weaknesses of
the lesson?
• Did the students learn what
they were intended to learn?
• What did the students get
out of the lesson?
 Planning,
interactive,
and evaluative decisions
are interconnected
 Chapter 6:
The Structure of a
Language Lesson
 Consist of recognizable kinds
of activities

Lessons Involve two kinds

of participants

Take place in a particular

setting
 Lessons
Begin in a particular way
Pattern
of
Proceed through a
structure
series of teaching and
learning activities

Reach a conclusion
When teachers structure their
lessons effectively
- Begin a lesson with a short review of previous, prerequisite learning.
- Begin a lesson with a short statement of goals.
- Present new material in small steps, with student practice after each
step.
- Give clear and detailed instructions and explanations.
- Provide a high level of active practice for all students.
- Ask a large number of questions, check for student understanding, and
obtain
responses from all students.
- Guide students during initial practice.
- Provide systematic feedback and corrections.
- Provide explicit instruction and practice for seatwork exercises and,
where necessary, monitor students during seatwork.
 How lessons
are organized
into
sequences
and how the
momentum
of a lesson is
achieved. This
is referred to
as
 Four dimensions of
structuring:

Opening: How a lesson

begins.
Sequencing: How a lesson
is divided into segments and
how the
segments relate to each
other.
 Openings
Consists of the procedures
the teacher uses to focus the
students' attention on the
learning aims of the lesson
Purposes
Assess relevant knowledge (cognitive contribution).
Establish an appropriate "set" in learners: i.e., prepare them for
what is to
follow (cognitive or affective contribution).
Allow "tuning-in" time - which may be especially important in
situations
where learners have come directly from a radically different
environment
(pragmatic contribution).
Reduce the disruption caused by late-arriving students
(pragmatic contribution).
A teacher • Describe the goals of a lesson.
• State the information or skills the students will learn.
could • Describe the relationship between the
lesson/activities and a real world
choose to:need.
• Describe what students are expected to do in the
lesson.
• Describe the relationship between the
lesson/activities and a forth coming
test or exam.
• Begin an activity without any explanation.
• Point out links between this lesson and previous
lessons.
• State that the activity the students will do is
something they will enjoy.
• Do something in order to capture the students'
interest and motivation.
• Review learning from a previous lesson.
• Preview the lesson.

The purpose of a lesson beginning will determine the

kind of activity or
strategy the teacher uses to begin the lesson.
 Allows the teacher
to provide correction
or reteach areas
• Asking questions about concepts or skills taught
in the previous lesson.
• Giving a short quiz at the beginning of class on
material from previous lessons or homework
assignments.
• Having students meet in small groups (two to
four students per group) to review homework.
• Having students prepare questions about
previous lessons or homework.
They can ask questions to each other, or the
teacher can ask them to the class.
• Having students prepare a written summary of
the previous lesson.
• Having students ask the teacher about problems
on homework and having the teacher review, re-
teach, or provide additional practice.
 Sequencing
In second and foreign language
• Simple activities should come before
complex teaching,
ones. a number of
principles
• Activities have
involving emerged
receptive skills for
should
determining
precede the internal
those that involve
productive skills.
structure of lessons
• Students should study a grammar rule
before trying to use it.
• Students should practice using a tense or
grammar structure before
studying the rule that underlies it.
• Accuracy-focused activities should precede
fluency-focused ones.
• There should be a progression within a
lesson from mechanical or
form-based activities to meaningful-based
activities.
Situational Language Teaching
1. Presentation. The new structure is
introduced and presented.
2. Controlled practice. Learners
are given intensive practice in the structure, under the
teacher's guidance and control.
3. Free practice. The students practice
using the structure without any control by the teacher.
4. Checking. The teacher elicits use of the
new structure to check that it has been learned.
5. Further practice. The structure is
now practiced in new situations, or in combination with
other structures.
Communicative Language Teachin

1. Pre-communicative
activities. Accuracy-based activities
which
focus on presentation of structures, functions,
and vocabulary.
2. Communicative
activities. Fluency-based activities
which focus on
information sharing and information exchange.
the Process Approach
1. Pre-writing activities.
Activities designed to generate ideas for writing or
focus the writers' attention on a particular topic.
2. Drafting activities.
Activities in which students produce a draft of their
composition, considering audience and purpose.
3. Revising activities.
Activities in which students focus on rereading,
analyzing, editing, and revising their own writing.
The teaching of reading in ESL
1. Pre-reading activities. Activities which
prepare the students for reading the text. Such activities
could include providing a reason for reading, introducing
the text, breaking up the text, dealing with new language,
and asking signpost questions.
2. While-reading activities. Activities which
students complete as they read and which may be either
individual, group, or whole-class.
3. Post-reading activities. Activities which
are designed to provide a global understanding of the text
in terms of evaluation and personal response. Such
activities could include eliciting a personal response from
the students, linking the content with the student's own
experience,
establishing relationships between this text and others,
and
evaluating characters, incidents, ideas, and arguments.
 In dividing a
lesson into sub-
activities, the
teacher also
needs to
consider
the transitions
between one
sub-activity
 Teachers have to consider a
number of decisions which affect
how transitions will be handled:

• How will the momentum of the

lesson be maintained while grouping
arrangements are changed?
• What will students be doing in
between activities?
• When should students be told what
the goals of an activity are?
Pacing is the extent to which a lesson
maintains its momentum
and communicates a sense of development
Strategies recommended
to help achieve suitable
pacing within
lessons
• Avoiding often
needless or over-lengthy include:
explanations and instructions, and
letting students get on with the job of learning.
• Using a variety of activities within a lesson, rather than spending
the whole lesson on one activity.
• Avoiding predictable and repetitive activities, where possible.
• Selecting activities of an appropriate level of difficulty.
• Setting a goal and time limit for activities: activities that have no
obvious conclusion or in which no time frame is set tend to have
little momentum.
• Monitoring students' performance on activities to ensure that students
have had sufficient but not too much time.
In a study of an effective ESL reading teacher, Richards (1990) identified
pacing as one of the significant features of the teacher's lessons. This
was achieved through including a variety of activities within each lesson.
 Closure
Bringing a lesson to a close effectively.
Closure refers to those concluding parts of a lesson
which serve to
(a) reinforce what has been learned in a lesson,
(b) integrate and review the content of a lesson, and
(c) prepare the students for further learning.
Strategies which teachers
use to achieve closure
include
• Summarizing what has been :covered in the
lesson.
• Reviewing key points of the lesson.
• Relating the lesson to the course or lesson goals.
• Pointing out links between the lesson and
previous lessons.
• Showing how the lesson relates to students' real-
world needs.
• Making links to a forthcoming lesson.
• Praising students for what they have
accomplished during the
lesson.