Lecture 1

The Organization of Teaching.Unit planning

1.Planning in Foreign Language Teaching
2.The necessity for planning and the approach to the problem
An efficient working level of teaching is ensured by systematic and careful
planning. The foreign language teacher plans all the kind of work he is to do: he
plans the essential course, the optional course (if any), and the extra-curricular
work.
The first step in planning is to determine where each of his classes is in
respect to achievements. It is easy for the teacher to start planning when he
receives beginners.
Though the teacher does not know his pupils yet, his success will fully
depend on his preparation for the lessons since pupils are usually eager to learn a
foreign language in the 5th form 9 or the 2nd form in a specialized school). Planning
is also relatively easy for the teacher who worked in these classes the previous year
(or years) because he knows the achievement of his pupils in each class. He is
aware of what language skills they have acquired. Planning is more difficult when
the teacher receives a class (classes) from another teacher and he does not know
the pupils, their proficiency in hearing, speaking, reading, and writing.
The teacher begins his planning before school opens and during the first
week. He should establish the achievement level of his classes. There is a variety
of ways in which this may be done. The teacher asks the previous teacher to tell
him about each of the pupils. He may also look through the pupils’ text books and
the register to find out what mark each of his pupils had the previous year. The
teacher may administer pre-tests, either formally or informally, to see how pupils
do with them. He may also conduct an informal quizzing, asking pupils’ questions
in the foreign language to know if they can understand them and respond properly,
or he has a conversation within the topics of the previous year. After the teacher
has determined the achievement level of his classes, he sketches out an outline of
the year’s work in making up his yearly outline the teacher consults the syllabus,
Teacher’s Book, Pupil’s Book teaching aids and teaching materials available for
this particular form. Taking into consideration the achievements of his class, he
compiles a calendar plan in accordance with the time-table of a given form.
Unit planning
The teacher needs two kinds of plans to work successfully: the plan of series
of class – periods for a lesson or unit of the text-book or a unit –plan, and the daily
plan or the lesson plan for a particular class period.
In compiling a unit plan, i. e. in planning the lesson of the textbook, the
teacher determines the difficulties of the lesson, namely, phonetic difficulties
(sounds, stress, intonation); grammar difficulties (grammar items, their character
and amount), and vocabulary difficulties (the amount of new words, their
character).
He then distributes these difficulties evenly over the number of class-periods
allotted to the lesson in the calendar plan.
1. The teacher starts by stating the objective or objectives of each class-
period, that is, what can be achieved in a classroom lesson. Of course the long-
term aims of the course help the teacher to ensure that every particular lesson is
pulling in the right direction and is another step towards gaining the ultimate goals
of the course. “To help the class to speak English better”, “To teach pupils to aud”
or “to develop pupils’ proficiency in reading” cannot be the objectives of the
lesson because they are too abstract to be clear to the learners. The lesson
objectives should be stated as precisely as possible.
Pupils’ coming to the lesson should know what they are to do during the
lesson, what performance level is required of them and how it can be achieved. Her
are a few examples;
- teach pupils to understand the following words… when hearing and to use
them in sentences orally.
- teach pupils to form new words with the help of the following suffixes…
and to use them in situations given.
 - teach pupils to use the words and grammar covered in speaking about the
places of interest in our town.
- teach pupils to get the main information while reading the text “…”
silently.
- Teach pupils to write an annotation on text “…”
- Check pupils’ ability in using the words covered in the following
situations….
The teacher can state no more than three concrete objectives for a particular
class-period depending on the stage of instruction, the material of the lesson, and
some other factors.
2. The teacher distributes the linguistic material (sounds, words, grammar,
etc.) throughout the class-periods according to the objectives of each period, trying
to teach new vocabulary on the grammatical material familiar to pupils and to
teach a new grammar item within the vocabulary assimilated by pupils; or he first
teaches pupils use this in reading and writing.
3. The teacher selects and distributes exercises for class and homework
using various teaching aids and teaching materials depending on the objectives of
each class-period. For example, for developing his pupils’ skill in dialogic speech
within the material covered the teacher needs a record with a pattern dialogue,
word cards for changing the semantic meaning of the pattern dialogue to make the
structure of the dialogue fit new situations.
In distributing exercises throughout the class-periods the teacher should
involve his pupils in oral practice and speech, in oral and practice speech, are
difficult for pupils should be done under the teacher’s supervision , i.e., in class.
Those exercises which pupils can easily perform independently are left for
homework. In other words, new techniques, exercises, and skills should be
practiced in class before the pupil attempts them at home. The homework done, the
pupils return the class for perfecting, polishing, expanding, and varying what they
have practiced at home, they learn to use the new words, the new structures in
varied situations.
 When the teacher determines the pupils’ homework he should take into
account that the subject he is teaching though important and difficult is not the
only one the pupil learns at school. The realities of schools militate against more
than 20-30 minutes of everyday homework in a foreign language. This requires
teacher to teach in class rather than test. Practice proves that pupils do their
homework provided they know exactly what to do, how it should be done, and that
their work will be evaluated. Besides, pupils should know that six twenty- minutes’
work at their English on consecutive days is more effective than two hours at a
stretch.
The unit plan, therefore, involves everything the teacher needs for the
detailed planning of a lesson (class-period), namely: the objective of each lesson,
the material to work at, and the exercises which should be done both during the
class-period and at home to develop pupils’ habits and skills in the target language.
All this should be done by the teacher if there is not teacher’s book to the
textbooks, for example, if he works in a specialized or an evening school. If there
are such books , the teacher’s planning should deal with (1) the study of the
author’s recommendations and tabling the material so that he can see how hearing,
speaking, reading, and writing should be developed, and (2) the development of
these recommendations according to his pupils’ abilities.
The teacher starts by studying the author’s recommendations. He takes the
textbook and the teacher’s guide and table the material. Let us take Lesson 22, fifth
form English by S. K. Folomkina and E. I. Kaar for illustration.
The unit plan includes nine columns:
1. The number of class-periods. The authors plan four periods for the lesson.
2. The objectives of each period.
3. Language material. By language material we mean words, word combinations,
phrases, and sentence patterns.
4-7. Language skills. In developing each language skill the authors observe the
main didactic principles.
8. Accessories. While working at Lesson 22 the authors propose to use records
twice (2nd and 3rd periods) for developing listening comprehension.
9. Homework. The authors plan pupils’ independent work at home after every
class-period. It is connected mainly with copying and writing. Besides, pupils read
what they have read in class.
If we fill in all the columns of the table, we can see that Lesson 22 was well
compiled. This allows the teacher to enrich pupils” knowledge and develop habits
and skills in the target language. It also shows that recommendations given in the
teacher” s guide can ensure the gradual development of pupils” skills in speaking
and reading and, therefore, their progress in language learning.
The teacher tries to adapt the unit plan to his pupils. He may either take it as
it is and strictly follow the author” recommendations or he may change it a bit. For
instance, if he has a group of bright pupils who can easily assimilate the material,
the teacher may include some additional material or stimuli (pictures or objects)
for the pupils” use in speaking within the same for class-periods. This can be
shown in column “Accessories”. If the teacher has a group of slow pupils, he needs
at least one more period to cover the material, since special question with do, does
are difficult for his pupils, he may use writing during the lesson and make pupils
write down the questions in their exercise-books. Writing may help them in
keeping the words and sentence patterns in memory. He may also increase the
number of oral drill exercise and give pupils special cards to work on individually
and in pairs. Thus the teacher includes work and sentence cards in column
“Accessories”.
The importance of units plan cannot be overestimated since unit planning
permits the teacher to direct the development of all language skills on the basis of
the new linguistic material the lesson involves. He can lead his pupils from
reception through pattern practice to creative exercises, and in this way perfect
their proficiency in hearing, speaking, reading, and writing. He can vary teaching
aids and teaching materials within the class-periods allotted to the lesson. Unit
planning allows the teacher to concentrate pupils” attention on one or two language
skills during the lesson; in this case the class hour in divided into two main parts: a
period of 20 – 25 minutes, during which he takes his pupils through a series of
structural drills or other exercises supplied by the textbook, and a period of 20 – 25
minutes during which the teacher engages the class in creative exercises when they
use the target language as a means of communication. The teacher should bear in
mind that pupils lose all interest in a language that is presented to them by means
of endless repetitions, pattern practices, substitutions, and so on, and which they
cannot use in its main function of exchange of information through hearing or
reading. That is why, whenever possible, the teacher should make his pupils aware
of the immediate values of his lessons if he hopes to keep and stimulate their
interest in language learning which is very important in itself. When a pupil is
convinced that learning is vital, he is usually willing to work hard to acquire a
good knowledge of the target language. It is well known that some pupils see little
value in much of their school work in a foreign language and feel no enthusiasm
for their work at the language. Careful unit planning help the teacher to keep
pupils” progress in language learning under constant control and use teaching aids
and teaching materials more effectively and, in this way, make his classes
worthwhile to all of his pupils.