B - The lesson plan

Summary

Teaching a language lesson, even for experienced teachers, involves a degree of forethought, and this is typically realized in the form of a lesson plan, even if it is nothing more than a few notes on the back of an envelope.

• 11 Why plan?

• 12 Planning v spontaneity

• 13 Design thinking

• 14 Lesson shapes

• 15 The lesson plan format

• 16 The context (1): The learners

• 17 The context (2): Beyond the classroom

• 18 Aims, objectives, goals and outcomes

• 19 Formulating lesson aims

• 20 Backward design

• 21 Researching and analyzing language

• 22 Anticipating problems

• 23 Routines and rituals

• 24 Activity types

• 25 Staging and sequencing

• 26 Using coursebooks

• 27 Using authentic materials

• 28 Integrating technology

• 29 Using online resources

• 30 Using artificial intelligence (AI)

• 31 Collaborative planning

Why plan?

What is the point of planning if we cannot fully predict what will happen in a lesson? And isn't it a fact that expert teachers plan less, if at all?

Why plan lessons? The question may seem redundant. We plan for the same reasons that we plan so many other social events such as meals, vacations, parties, or business meetings: however many times we might have experienced them, we can never be sure they won't spin out of control. Lessons are like that. According to Doyle (1986), classroom teaching takes place in conditions of multidimensionality (i.e., there are a number of events and processes going on); simultaneity (i.e., they are happening at the same time); immediacy (i.e., they happen quickly); and unpredictability (i.e., we can never be sure what is going to happen next). Given this complexity, it makes sense to have strategies to deal with it, one of which is planning ahead. Planning doesn't necessarily preempt the need to think on our feet, but it provides a degree of structure with which to mitigate potential chaos. Like a route map to a hiker or a compass to a sailor, it helps orient our journey.

And every lesson is different: we can't keep repeating the same lesson day after day, week after week. Even if the format is essentially the same, the content must vary – whether it is derived from a syllabus, a coursebook, or the expressed needs of the learners (or a combination of all three).