Unit Lesson Planning: Objectives
Unit Lesson Planning: Objectives
Objectives: Get the students to know about what lesson planning is. Make sure that the students can construct both micro and macro lesson planning.
4.1 Why is lesson planning so important? Lesson planning means making decisions in
advance about what to teach, how to teach and the time assignment of every teaching procedure
Teaching
plan is necessary for both novice and experienced teachers. Although preparation does not guarantee successful lessons, walking into a classroom unprepared is often the beginning of a disastrous lesson. Although the main teaching contents may be the same, the students, the time and the mood are all different.
5) The teacher also becomes aware of the teaching aids that are needed for the lesson. 6) Lesson planning helps teachers to think about the relative value of different activities and how much time should be spent on them. The teacher soon learns to judge lesson stages and phases with greater accuracy. 7) The plan, with the teachers comments and corrections, provides a useful, time-saving reference when the teacher next plans the same lesson. 8) Lesson planning is a good practice and a sign of professionalism.
4.2 Principles for Good Lesson Planning Aim: the realistic goals for the lesson
Variety: various activities and materials to ensure high motivation and interest Flexibility: more teaching methods and techniques and do not just read your teaching plan Learnability: the planned contents and tasks should be within the learning capability of the students. doing things that are beyond or below the students coping ability will diminish their motivation (Schumann, 1999) slightly higher than the present proficiency of the students Linkage: the teaching steps should be linked with each other. That is, there should be coherence.
planning is planning over a longer period of time, for instance, planning for a whole program or a whole-year course. In a sense, macro planning is not writing lesson plans for specific lessons but rather helping teachers get an overall felling or idea about the course and also get familiarized with the context in which language teaching takes place.
3) Knowing about the learners: The teacher should acquire information about the students age range, sex ratio, social background, motivation, attitudes, interests, learning needs and other individual factors. 4) Knowing about the curriculum/syllabus: The teacher should be clear about the purposes, requirements and targets specified in the syllabus.
5) Knowing about the textbook: The teacher should know the textbook well in terms of its philosophy of teaching, organization of learning contents, major topics, recommend teaching methodology, unit components and ways of assessment. 6) Knowing about the objectives: The teacher should get to know what learners are expected to achieve and able to do after one semester or a years learning.
Macro planning provides a general guidance for language teachers, but it is not enough for good teaching. Teachers still need to plan each unit or lesson in detail in order to teach effectively and confidently in the classroom.
Micro planning
Micro planning is planning for a specific unit or a lesson, which usually lasts from one to two weeks or forty to fifty minutes respectively. Micro planning should be based on macro planning, and macro planning is apt to be modified as lessons go on.
A language lesson plan usually has the following components: background information, teaching aims (what language components to present, what communicative skills to practice, what activities to conduct and what materials and teaching aids to be used), language contents (grammar, vocabulary, functions, topics and so on) and skills (listening; speaking; reading and writing), stages (the major steps that language teachers go through in the classroom) and procedures (detailed steps in each teaching stage), teaching aids,
end of lesson summary, optional activities and assignments, layout of the Bb and teachers afterclass reflection.
At the presentation stage, the teacher introduces new vocabulary and grammatical structures in whatever ways appropriate. At the practice stage, the lesson moves from controlled practice to guided practice and further to the exploitation of the text when necessary. At the production stage, the students are encouraged to use what they have learned and practised to perform communicative tasks. The focus is on meaning rather than accurate use of language forms.
Homework
1.Choose a lesson from the current middle school English textbooks and write a lesson plan for it. 2. Answer the following questions:
1) What are the principles for good lesson planning? 2) What are macro planning and micro planning? 3) What are the components of a lesson plan? 4) What are the 3Ps model and 3-stage model?