This document discusses effective lesson planning. It begins by asking metaphors that express the essence of a lesson and questions about lesson preparation, such as how teachers plan and what they include. It then provides considerations for planning like activities, timing, and difficulties. A template is offered for a lesson plan that includes aims, class profile, assumptions, skills, timeline, problems, success indicators, and activities. Guidelines are discussed around managing lessons. It concludes by noting that lesson plans are proposals rather than strict instructions and that unforeseen events can occur.

1. The effective lesson plan:
a proposal for action
Bruna Caltabiano
Martins Fontes, São Paulo - Brazil
January 24, 2014.

2. Which of the metaphors expresses best, in
your opinion, the essence of a lesson?

3. Watch part of the movie ‘Bad Teacher’ and
discuss:
∗ The teacher’s planning of the class
∗ The activity she proposed
∗ Her attitude in general

4. “ If you don’t know where you’re going, any
road will get you there”
LEWIS CARROLL
(rephrased from Alice in Wonderland – chapter 6)

5. What is the use of planning lessons?
“The success with which a teacher conducts a lesson is often
thought to depend on the effectiveness with which the lesson
was planned”
– Richards, 1998.

6. Questions on lesson preparation
Discuss
∗ How long before a specific lesson do you prepare it?
∗ Do you write down notes to guide you? Or do you rely on a lesson
format?
∗ If so, are these notes brief (a single page or less) or long (more than
one page)?
∗ What do they consist of?
∗ Do you note down your objectives?
∗ Do you actually look at your notes during the class? If so, rarely?
Occasionally? Frequently?
∗ What do you do with your lessons notes after the class?
(Ur, 2002)

7. Considerations when planning a lesson
∗
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How many separate activities will there be?
Where will I stand or sit?
What do learners need?
What skills will learners be working on?
How will I control timing?
What are some of the things that could cause difficulties or go
wrong?
∗ How am I going to deal with mistakes?
∗ Is there going to be variety of activities in the lesson?
∗ How do the lesson aims fit with longer-term goals?
∗ What do they know already?
(Scrivener, 2005)

8. Writing a lesson plan:a template
(Harmer, 2007)
1.Aims/objectives
The outcomes I am trying to achieve.
Example:
By the end of the lesson students will be better able to listen and understand
consultations with difficult patients as well as to use spoken strategies in
order to deal with challenging patients by means of encouraging a
withdrawn patient to speak and calming an aggressive or angry patient.
Personal aim:
To get students to interact better with each other. The class is subdivided into
two groups because (…)

9. 2. Class profile
A class description which tells us who the students are, and what can
be expected of them.
Example:
The group is composed of 6 students. They are all sophomores at
medical school and their age ranges from 20-22 years old. They have
studied English at different schools and for different periods of time.
They are taking this course (Medical English for Advanced Students) in
order to learn medical vocabulary as well as how to deal with patients
in English in case they need to see a foreigner which sometimes
happens(…)

10. 3. Assumptions
It is saying what we assume students can do.
Example:
Students have worked with the third conditional (would have
done), then they will have little trouble with the grammar of
should have done. They will be able to think of things (...)

11. 4. Skill and language focus
The language and skills students are going to be focusing on.
Example:
Skills: Listening and Speaking
Language: Vocabulary concerning body language, emotions, and
states of mind

12. 5. Timetable Fit
It is where the lesson fits in a sequence of lessons.
Example:
In the lesson from the coursebook called “Special Examinations”,
students have learned how to conduct a consultation when the
patient is a child and when the patient is elderly. In this class,
they will learn another kind of special examination: when the
patient, from any age, is challenging.

13. 6. Anticipated problems and possible solutions
A good plan tries to predict potential pitfalls and suggest ways of
dealing with them.
Example:
As my students are in the second year of college, they still do not have
much contact with patients. Therefore, it might be difficult for them to
imagine that a patient might not speak. They expect to find patients
who are straightforward, which is not always the reality. In order to
establish the context, I will use cards in which the role of the difficult
patient is very well described so that the student will not need too much
imagination to act it out. (…)

14. 7. Success Indicators
Both teacher and students can evaluate if the lesson
aims/objectives have been achieved.
Example:
I will have evidence the objective of this lesson has been
achieved if, by the end of the lesson, students show, in the
last activity, they are ready to use the suitable questions
and comments in order to encourage a challenging patient
to cooperate with the examination.

15. Activity/aids
1.
Interaction
Warm-up
S-S
Power point
presentation
T-C
Procedure
Teacher shows a Power
Point presentation with
the question:
“What kind of patients
might a doctor have
difficulty dealing with?”
Students discuss in pairs
for two minutes.(…)
Time
5 minutes

16. How successful a lesson was?
Put the criteria in order of priority.
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The learners were active all the time
The learners were attentive all the time
The learners enjoyed the lesson, were motivated
The class seemed to be learning the material well
The lesson went according to plan
The language was used communicatively throughout
The learners were engaging with the foreign language
throughout
(Ur, 2002)

17. General Guidelines – Discuss
1. How far do you agree with these guidelines?
2. Are they appropriate for your own teaching context as they stand,
or would you with to omit, add to or change any of them?
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Put the harder tasks earlier
Have quieter activities before lively ones
Think about transitions
Pull the class together at the beginning and at the end
End on a positive note.
(Ur, 2002)

18. Hints for lesson management
∗ Prepare more than you need
∗ Note in advance which components of the lesson you will
sacrifice if you find yourself with too little time
∗ Keep a watch or clock easily visible
∗ Do not leave the giving of homework to the last minute
∗ If you are doing group work, give instructions and make sure
these are understood before dividing into groups
(Ur, 2002)

19. Do I have to write a detailed plan
for every class I teach?

20. The lesson plan as a proposal for action
∗ Never think of it as a set of instructions to be slavishly followed
∗ Consider the paradox of lesson planning
- Magic Moments
- Sensible Diversion
- Unforeseen problems
(Harmer, 2007)

21. BIBLIOGRAPHY
∗ Harmer, Jeremy. How To Teach English. Essex: Pearson Education
Limited, 2007.
∗ Harmer, Jeremy. The Practice of English Language Teaching.
Essex: Pearson Education Limited, 2007.
∗ Richards, Jack.; Farrel, Thomas. Practice Teaching – A Reflective
Approach. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
∗ Scrivener, Jim. Learning Teaching. Oxford: Macmillan Education,
2005.
∗ Ur, Penny. A Course in Language Teaching. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1991.

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