Lesson Plan Critique: Points and Features Report (Assessment)

Introduction

Teaching is not a simple task as many may think. It is even hard when it comes to teaching English as a second language to elementary school students. According to Brown, (2007), the main aim of teaching is to equip the students with necessary skills to enable them achieve the goals of the subject. To enable a student develop important skills to help him or her develop cognitive ability, a careful planning of the lessons should be done.

Lesson planning therefore, according to Celce-Murcia, (2001), is one of the essential conditions to organize successful learning. It is the duty of the teacher, which should be performed religiously. Lesson planning leads to a situation in which the teacher is able to present the knowledge to the students, systematically and in a comprehensive manner. It enables a teacher to achieve his aims easily.

Lesson Plan Critique

A woman’s place lesson plan first introduces students to the world of numbers. By understanding the use of fractions, students are able to relate the measures introduced to them later in the lesson. The use of the teaching aids such as charts also make learning easy for those taking English as a second language. The plan also introduces vocabulary to the students. These vocabularies consider the socioeconomic context of the student in relation to the topic of the day.

is also the reading activities which in this case should involve students. However this section has limited activities which make exclude some students from participation. To improve this section, the teacher should add more activities such as role plays and group discussions. This lesson plan also includes a comprehension section after reading activity. Given the nature of the students taking English as a second language, there should be another section before this to guide them on pronunciation. This lesson plan concentrates more on reading which may not be effective considering the nature of students. It also gives little attention to the language section which should be emphasized in the case of students taking English as the second language.

The lesson plan on a woman’s place gives a clear guide to the teacher on what steps to take at each stage of the lesson. However, the plan is more centered to the teacher instead of the students which makes it not fully effective. To improve on this, the teacher should include more activities that aim to get more student participation.

The lesson plan also fails to recap students with what they had covered. It also fails to introduce the next lesson briefly to prepare them in advance. The teacher should include this to enable students to prepare in advance. This is also a way to increase participation and interest of the students in the next lesson.

To achieve the objectives of the reason the teacher needs to develop a lesson plan for a number of reasons. A lesson plan is a tool that helps a teacher to overcome difficulties posed by different situations in education therefore giving the teacher self-confidence of a very high degree (Brown, 2007). In order to avoid awkward behavior by the teacher, the lesson plan is important to guide her actions in the class. English as a language should be taught in the socio-cultural context. The culture and the society in which the language is taught should be linked together with the language in order to give the language a meaning that learners can relate with (Cameron, 2001).

For a classroom to be effective, it needs to be student centered. Therefore, in designing a lesson plan, it should focus mainly on student activities rather than on the activities of the teacher. According to Cameron, (2001), it should concentrate on what students should do from one minute to the next rather than the flow of the teachers’ work from one minute to the other. Lesson plans that are designed to include student activities are highly effective since they are able to draw participation of students in the form of listening, writing, reading, and discussions (Celce-Murcia, 2001).

The advantage of this design is its ability to reduce boredom by incorporating various activities within a single lesson. According to Brown, (2007), effective TESOL teachers mainly involve students in activities that force students to think especially about concepts and to extend the thinking to situations new to them, by practicing their thought and cognitive processes which help them to interact continually with the new environment.

Therefore, according to Celce-Murcia, (2001), the main goal of teaching is to enable students to think, analyze and to relate this to their socio- cultural environment. The ability to think is an important skill that should be developed in school for efficient and effective learning (Cameron, 2001). Therefore, in teaching English as a second official language, should focus on the development of this ability together with the ability to analyze information.

An effective lesson plan should also help students to develop skills to a level of automatism (Hedge, 2000). This helps students to be efficient in learning and when using English language. This lesson plan should have three main parts. The first part involves the launch of the lesson by the teacher followed by the interaction of students as the lesson progresses and finally a review of what has been learnt is done at the end of the lesson (Brown, 2007). The teaching of important vocabularies and any other supporting information should be done within the lesson using the same design. The lesson design should not be linear and instead should provide multiple avenues for students to interact and to reflect on what had previously been learnt.

According to Celce-Murcia, (2001), in developing a lesson plan for English for speakers of other language, a teacher should seek to include student activities in every part of the lesson. These activities may include discussions, writing, conduct experiments or even research. All the activities stated are quite effective if they are not used excessively. To develop automatism, students should engage in seat-work (Cameron, 2001).

However, to enable them develop important cognitive skills, many activities should be involved in the lesson. These activities help students to think and to reflect on what they have learned. The teacher should design a lesson that contents support acquisition of high cognitive skills. The lesson plan should be in a position to allow students in the creation of particular thoughts or ideas during the process of teaching (Cummins & Davison, 2007). The students should know their roles in the development of this important skill.

According to Hedge, (2000), the cognitive purposes that can be used in the lesson design includes exploration of ideas or important questions, testing the understanding of students, construction of the understanding, evaluation of work against the set criteria, revision of work, creation of work based on a set criteria or rehearsing on something. According to Cummins and Davison, (2007), to be effective as an English teacher for speakers of other languages, the teacher should ensure that the students remain focused on a number of these cognitive purposes most of the time during the lesson.

Though some of these activities do not require thinking, it is important to emphasize the importance of thinking. The design should also take into consideration the way students will be grouped during the lesson for various activities. Students may be grouped as a whole class, as small groups or each student should be given an opportunity to undertake activities as an individual (Horwitz, 2008). The teacher should have a belief that the class as a whole has the ability to learn ideas taught in the class. This optimism has the ability to create a positive atmosphere in class which can be translated to success.

During the launch of the lesson, students should be made aware of the big idea. This, according to Horwitz, (2008), should take at most 30% of the lesson time. In this part the teacher should introduce relevant vocabularies that he intends to cover. The student should participate in a manner that leads to the goals of the lesson especially in relation to the ideas to be explored. In this part, the teacher is expected to lead the students (Larsen-Freeman, 2011).

However, he should let the students articulate the ideas to be learnt and the importance of those ideas. Every instruction in this part should have a cognitive purpose which students should be aware of. Models and demonstrations can be used in this part to enable learners to understand what the teacher is trying to pass across (Dang & Ruiter, 2005). The teacher should also develop specific activities which he should use to make the students understand the lesson effectively (Nunan, 2004).

Already the teacher should be aware that the student body may consist of students from diverse backgrounds. Some of them may already have knowledge of the topic under discussion. Therefore, the teacher should gauge the level of their familiarity by asking questions before the lesson takes full cause. The introduction should be as creative as possible. This will help the teacher to win over the students and to get them interested in the subject under discussion. Therefore, when preparing an introduction, the teacher should think of the most appropriate way to know the level of understanding of the topic under discussion (Larsen-Freeman, 2011).

He should also seek to understand the common beliefs or misconception of the students about the topic to be discussed. For example, in the lesson plan about the role of the woman, he should be interested to know how the socio-cultural environment of the students has influenced their knowledge and belief about the roles of a woman in the society.

After the introduction part, the teacher plays the leading role; the next part should involve designing activities that will require students’ participation (Horwitz, 2008). These activities should be designed in a way that will help a student to develop cognitive skills in the subject. Also, the type of activities designed should be easily related to the socio-cultural environment of the student. According to Wajnryb, (1992), the teacher should engage students in as many activities as possible, but he should be aware of the time limitation and the relevance of the activities towards the realization of objectives set for the lesson.

According to Larsen-Freeman, (2011), this approach will enable participation of all students unlike the teacher centered approach which gets participation mainly from bright students. In this part the teacher should understand his role in the introduction of the topic. He should also know the best way to illustrate the topic to the students to help them relate the topic to their socio-cultural environment. (Nunan, 2004). The teacher again needs to know the needs of the students and their characteristics.

Therefore, the kind of activities chosen should help to make sure students acquire the necessary skills by overcoming any barriers erected by the socio-culture environment in which the students come from (Richards & Lockhart, 1994). The use of real life examples relevant to the topic should be encouraged. For example, in the lesson plan on the roles of a woman in the society, the teacher should first use examples of the roles the woman play at home and in her professional life. In this way, the students can easily relate the topic under discussion with their experiences at home, in school and in other social activities. In this way the students can quickly grasp the topic under discussion (Ur, 1996).

Once the main part of the lesson has been presented, the teacher should seek to know the level of understanding of the topic by the students (O’Neill & Gish, 2008). The lesson plan should help the teacher to come up with specific questions that will help him know whether the main objectives of the lesson have been achieved. The teacher should always remember that the main objective is to develop important cognitive skills and automatism.

According to Horwitz, (2008), he should also gauge their ability to relate the skills learnt with the social and cultural environment in which the students operate. Given that the lesson should more student centered than teacher centered, the design of the plan should allow students to engage the teacher with questions on the topic and its application in real life. Therefore, the teacher should anticipate possible questions that students may come up with.

It is important for the teacher to go through main points of the lesson towards the end of the lesson. This is aimed at helping the students to recap with what had been taught in a summary form (Richards & Lockhart, 1994). The design of the lesson plan should allow the teacher to know the most important points to summarize. These points should be based on the preset objectives at the beginning of the lesson.

Conclusion

The lesson plan should also prepare students for the next lesson by previewing the topic the teacher intends to cover (Broughton et al, 2002). This preview is intended to keep students interested and to give them time to get acquitted with the socio-cultural activities surrounding the topic, before its discussion. According to Watkins, (2005), important to note is that, the lesson plan should not be exhaustive by way of describing activities to be undertaken in the class. Room should be allowed for students to maneuver around the topic. It should not also expect all students to participate; rather, it should aim at realizing the main goals of the lesson.

References

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Brown, H., D. (2007). Teaching by principles: An interactive approach to language pedagogy. White Plains, New York: Longman.

Cameron, L. (2001). Teaching Languages to Young Learners, Cambridge: CUP.

Celce-Murcia, M. (2001). Teaching English as a second or foreign language. Boston: Heinle & Heinle.

Cummins, J. & Davison, C. (2007), International handbook of English language teaching. New York: Springer.

Dang, T. & Ruiter, D., R. (2005). Highway to E.s.l.: A User-friendly Guide to Teaching English As a Second Language. New York: iUniverse Publishers.

Hedge, T. (2000). Teaching and Learning in the Language Classroom. Oxford: OUP.

Horwitz, E. (2008). Becoming a language teacher. A practical guide to second language learning and teaching, Boston: Pearson.

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Nunan, D. (2004). Task-based language teaching. Cambridge: CUP.

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Ur, P. (1996). A course in language teaching: Practice and theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Watkins, P. (2005). Learning to teach English Addlestone, London: DELTA.