Lesson Planning As Process
– Cecilia Lemos
My lesson plans – and the concrete results of my lesson planning – have changed greatly over the many years I have been teaching and they continue to change every semester. They change because me, my students, my students’ needs, my needs, and the tools I work with have changed. It would be foolish if my planning didn’t change as well. It’s an evolutionary process that I explore in some depth HERE.
When we are new to teaching, a detailed lesson plan is essential because it gives us confidence. By thinking of all the steps, all the procedures, all the materials needed, all the types of interactions that might take place along with predicting the time each activity will last, we get the feeling of being ready for the lesson. By thoroughly planning a lesson, we reduce the chances of being caught off-guard — something that can be very frustrating to any teacher, but that can be especially difficult to those new to the job. No matter how long we’ve been teaching, though, it’s always important to ask ourselves questions like these as we plan and reflect and work to plan a lesson:
What will my students have learned after this lesson is over?
What will they be able to do by the end of it that they weren’t able to do before?
How will this lesson help them progress in their learning?
(and most importantly)
How will I help them get there?
When planning lessons, besides considering what I will talk about, how I will talk about it and what materials I will use as I talk about it, I try to predict possible difficulties and questions the students might have so I can be ready to address those. This helps me fit the lesson within the bigger picture of the term and the content I am supposed to cover. I reflect on the balance between types of activities and types of learners. That always makes me calmer before teaching. More than planned, I am prepared.
That brings me to what I truly believe is the heart of lesson planning: not the printed – or in my case, the handwritten – plan itself, but all the thinking behind it as I consider the groups I’ll be teaching and their individual and collective needs.
Nowadays, my physical lesson plan consists only of bullet points – key words, book pages, links or worksheets. That is the result of nearly 20 years of teaching. The fact that my lesson plan can fit on one side of an index card does not mean it is somehow been reduced to that. There is a lot behind those words on my index cards, but all that’s in my head. I don’t have to write the procedures for each activity because I have done them so many times I know them by heart. On the other hand, when it is a new activity or tool, I do write the procedures out, just to have something to rely on if my memory fails me.
I have also used lesson planning to work on my own specific problem areas that either I have noticed myself or that have been pointed out to me after an observation. For instance, once I got feedback that my instructions were long and confusing. What did I do?
For a while after that, when planning I would think of the words I would use to give instructions for the activities I had planned and write them down. Seeing the instructions I wanted to give written down helped because I could reflect on their effectiveness and edit them as needed so that they became more clear and concise. Having the instructions written out before actually giving them and that process I went through as I worked on them made me a better teacher — I hope!
That is what lesson planning is really all about. It’s not about having planned, but rather about being prepared, staying on top of things, and getting better in the process.
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This is amazing Ceci!
I like how you have also used lesson planning to work on your own specific problem and areas .That way we can grow along with our students. I’d like to try this on my own too!
Thanks a lot Ceci dear
Icha
You really should try it, Icha! I think we should always try to use the tools we have in our everyday practice to help us overcome difficulties. I have done this with my lesson plans more than once, for different purposes (last time I did it to improve my time management during the lesson). Let me know how it goes!
My plans today consist of bullet points, too. Most important for me is to organize them in the correct order. That’s what I think over preparing for the lesson.
Some people think experiences teachers don’t need to plan their lessons; you’re a perfect example to refute this assumption. It is, in fact, more difficult to plan a lesson like yours than a “detailed” lesson plan, don’t you think so?
Not sure I agree that planning lessons the way I do now is more difficult, Chiew. It certainly takes less time 🙂 I guess it’s just different. Many of the details we usually have in our lesson plans when we take out first teacher training courses become so natural, we don’t have to include after a while. It saves time. Or maybe it’s a combination of factors: having “internalized” these routine details; having a large pool of activities (for every possible ability, topic, objective, function, etc) to draw from; knowing the students and predicting their interests and reactions…
But it’s always good to do a full lesson plan again once in a while, just to make sure we still know / think of all we should 😉 Thanks for the feedback!
Oh, I’m sure it is…
Like I mentioned in my comment on Barb’s post, planning happens continually; while you’re teaching one lesson, you’re planning the next. Planning entwines with reflection; you think about what happened or didn’t happen and you mould your next lessons accordingly. The process doesn’t stop. That’s the way you work, I’m sure. Because you care for your students. You care for your lessons. Sum up all the hours and they’ll exceed those of a “detailed” lesson plan…
You’re right, Chiew. Taking those hours in consideration sure exceed any detailed planning 🙂 We’re planning and thinking about teaching all the time, aren’t we?
Cheers!
Thank you, Cecilia, for your very inspirational and thought-provoking post! 🙂
In fact, you reminded me of a very important thing that must stand behind every lesson plan and every lesson preparation – the thoughts about your students and what you want them to learn and be able to do by the end of the lesson. Amidst the fuss of a busy semester this idea somehow gets pushed into background or completely forgotten which might easly lead to a mess and frustration into the classroom.
Thanks for bringing this idea into the foreground and for reviving the exciting spirit of learning and mastering our profession.
Thinking about the desired outcome and keeping not only the small / short-term objectives but also the bigger picture (be it a semester or year course) in mind is really important. Lesson planning is a great moment for that.
I once gave up a class at the university because I could never see the point or the connection between the lessons of this particular class. It made me frustrated and with a feeling of wasting my time. I always had the impression that one teacher did not plan her lessons.
Thank you for the feedback!
I really enjoy reading your post because I’m a believer in lesson planning, and I really admire your allegiance to the lesson plan, even after all these years of experience and the fact that your lesson plans are reduced to mere bullet points on a index card. I can perceive the weight and importance of each one of them as they carry loads of accumulated information through experience.
The most dangerous thought and fallacy an experienced teacher may fall into is the assumption of not needing a lesson plan anymore.
Having a lesson plan for me is like driving on Florida’s Turnpike on a sunny Saturday morning.
Hi Heber!
I don’t know if I agree with you when you say it is a dangerous fallacy for an experienced teacher to think he doesn’t need a lesson plan anymore. I have deliberately done that – gone “dogme” – a couple of times. I went in without any idea of what I was going to teach and I built the lesson on the spot, student emergent teaching. And they may have been the greatest lessons I have ever taught.
On the other hand, I don’t think I could teach without a lesson plan all the time. I like having my safety net, having thought and reflected on what to teach and the possible changes, detours and ways it can go. I do think that lesson planning is a especially valuable tool (and process) for novice teachers.
Thanks for your comment and reflection!
I am a novice teacher and I really appreciate it when experienced educators share their insights and experiences. It really means a lot to me because, sure, the list of ELT books these days is endless, however the gap between the theory and the practice is huge! So reading about colleagues and the way they put all that theory into practice is really helpful and reassuring. I couldn’t agree more with you, Cecilia, lesson planning is about being prepared so as not to be caught off-guard and it gives you confidence! Which is something I still kind of lack but I guess it’s a matter of getting more experience.
Hi Daniela!
I’m happy you found the post useful 🙂 Like you, I enjoy sharing with experienced and inexperienced teachers (who sometimes have such a different perspective or way of doing things – it can be a good reminder for those of us who have been at this for a long time and may have fallen into a routine). Hearing (or reading) from people like us, who are in the classrooms and going through the same difficulties and processes we are can be a relief (“I’m not the only one!”) and sometimes give us insight in how we can try approaching things, how we can put the theory from the books into practice. However, we need that theory first and then find our ways of adapting it to our different realities. I believe it would be hard for a book to be able to cover all possible classroom realities from all over the world.
That’s what is great about technology and social media. It enables us to get in touch, interact, share with and learn from other teachers all over the world.
And you caught the spirit of iTDi: a community by teachers, for teachers. 🙂
Thanks for such a positive feedback!
Nice one to share with my CELTA’s, dear Ceci; they do need to know that detailed planning is vital while training or while new to the profession – this will end up looking minimal and lacking detail, but the thinking, reflection and attention to needs, goals and achieving them, are still there!!!!
Marisa
Thank you so much for your comment, Marisa mou. It means a lot to me you find my thoughts about lesson planning and how it can be such an important development tool for teachers – novice or experienced – worthy of sharing with your CELTA’s 🙂 I hope they enjoy it! Thank you for your lovely comment.
Ceci
Hi Ceci,
there’s a lot of interesting points here and if you allow me, I’d like to give my two cents on that.
I really don’t plan lessons anymore. I have frameworks that I use when teaching (mostly skills). That is to say that I plan the skills but not the language. I don’t anticipate problems, but deal with them as they come up (sometimes they are useful and appropriate). I tend to put all my energy into planning how the skills will be developed throughout the lesson. The activities are developed as I go along with the lesson.
I enjoy it and students do too! 🙂
Leo, you’re more than welcome to share your two cents, always! I know exactly what you mean about using frameworks. But I guess the teaching context has a big role here: your goal is to teach students skills. That’s also part of my goal, but in my context the content (i.e. coursebook) is the essence. Lesson planning helps in my context – a lot.
But, if I may say, putting your energy into planning how the skills will be developed IS lesson planning as well. You have your aim (develop this or that skill) and you’re planning, reflecting on how to get there. that’s lesson planning, Leo, even if you don’t write it down 😉
Hello everyone,
My name is Tarun and I am from New delhi (india).Cecilia Lemos i am very impressed seeing your progress as a teacher using the tecnique of planning lessons. I have learnt spanish and recently i got an opportunity in a high school as a spanish teacher,as i dont have any teaching experience i was having hard time teaching students and responding to their questions,now reading your experiences i know the right way , I know what was keeping me behind.I am going to start planning my lessons ,and i believe that it will take out the best in me .
Thanks cecii,,
Dear Cecilia,
It’s such a pleasure reading you and all the discussion that your posts trigger.
I read all the teachers’posts about your lesson planning challenge, all of them were so interesting and I would like to thank all of them here for sharing their work.
I loved to listen to the interchange between Ceri and Tyson, which I found so interesting in terms of reflecting together. After their interchange I would love to be able to have the opportunity to reflect on my lesson planning with other teachers, it might be so interesting to be able to launch this challenge. This might have to do with the fact I am a freelance teacher, I wonder …
Well, Jason also includes reflecting in his lesson plans. And somehow I believe we all do some reflection after the lesson, but do we systematically include it in our plans?
I think that 20 years ago my planning was textbook based so it was jotting down the date and the book pages we were going to do in class, and that almost all I did, though it took me time trying to see how to supplement the activities. (Usually some grammar exercises, or some role playing). There were lots photocopies and handwritten cards.
Now, I keep files in my PC “lesson plans”, “ppts”, “Listening” , “FCE” and I keep a word doc for each student (I teach one2one, face2face or online), so every day I choose what I am going to do, adapting material I collect from different website, to my students.
The day of the class I write OK if the activity was completed successfully, make notes on what needs revising for ex. and usually note down which activity we can do next.
What is a challenge for me, is planning in the long term, as every class brings new and semi-unpredictable needs.
Lastly, I would like to point out that though I have been teaching for over 20 years, with the explosion of technology and PLN’s, I feel like a newbie, but I enjoy it, it’s given me so much energy!
Thanks again Ceci and thank you teachers for your comments.
Debbie
I really find necessary help with your document i need more information on lesson planing.
very tachable!
Dear Cecilia,
I’ve really enjoyed your post. It reflects my thoughts and feelings about teaching. Teachers must change themselves in order to be effective for their students.
Hi Cecilia
I read your entire article carefully and i really love the way you handled this topic of lesson plans.I met a lot of teachers who call themselves “experienced” and i noticed that they go to the classroom with a little planning or no plan at all.This will lead me to the next question: Is it possible to teach effectively without having an idea on what to do? It is like going on a picnic or visiting a certain place without having a map or at least something to help in your way.
I like the idea that you mentioned concerning our needs and students needs.I totally agree with you.They are changing every single moment and we- as teachers and educators -need to be aware of that, because change means we got to find, other ways,procedures to cope with the new situations!
I have only have very few years of experience in teaching and i firmly believe that detailed lesson plans- like you said earlier-are a clear token that teachers care about their learners, an indication that they are passionate and in love with their profession and that what matters most to be a successful language teacher!!
Thank you for your great ideas!!
I totally agree with you, Cecilia. I do think that now matter how long you’ve been teaching you still need to plan your lesson. Thank you for the sharing. It shows that I am doing the right thing on the right track.
I love the idea of permanent change in lesson planning. As years went by I learnt to be more flexible and not to be afraid of moving away from what I was taught I had to do when I studied.
Happy that Cecilia Lemos confirms my opinion that experience can serve by helping you gain time and save energy as she shows when planning, better, when preparing a lesson : enough to write procedures and not steps and other elements that have been written over and over again through many years of teaching.
Cecilia, I totally agree with you! This is the best Lesson Planning issue I have read in this blog!
I have been teaching for 30 years and I have come to the conclusion that ‘bullet points’ are the best way of setting up a class or a course.
I still gave up writing the procedures for each activity (as I did in my first teaching years) not only because I have done the same activities many times, but especially because ‘bullet points’ can help me quickly adapt a language activity to the kind of learners I teach.
The most important thing, in my experience, is to recognise my students’ learning styles and shape contents or activities in the best and easiest way for them to acquire language skills.
Cecilia- You have great insight!
Yes detailed lesson plans are very important for newbies. It definitely gives them a safe feeling and will reduce the nervous fears that come with new teaching. As time goes by, yes, your lesson plans become less and less detailed.
After thirty years, I tend to not have very detailed lesson plans because they are in my head. However, a detailed lesson plan can be important when it is a subject that you are less familiar with or something new. Also, if you are being observed, it will be helpful to the observer. Finally, it is very useful if you are co-teaching, group teaching or tag teaching. Mostly because it makes your fellow teacher more comfortable and safe and this will make the lessons go much smoother for the student as well as the teacher. When you are in this kind of situation, without a sharing of detailed lesson plans, the journey for the student can become chaotic and disjointed.
Dear Cecília,
T really enjoyed reading your post, for it reflects my thoughts and feelings about teaching. Having taught EFL for over 30 ys., I believe that planning x teaching remain a faithful partnership, especially after the explosion of technological resources and apps in education, which fits my case, and regarding novice teachers x becoming prepared to teach a lesson in a specific context. However, with experience, my lesson plans consist mostly of bullets points, as you’ve put it. Actually, I’ve learned to become better prepared to examine a lesson before I teach it, rely on my short notes, follow a more fluid path, and enjoy my classes as they gain different color shades as they become more S-centered with my SS’ contributions. Yes. TEACHING and LEARNING are an indissoluble bond!
Hi Cecilia,
I agree that lesson planning is about being prepared.
Being prepared is about feeling confident.
My ability to search the internet for resources gives me confidence.
Thanks,
Miguel
Hi Cecilia,
Thanks for this amazing post on the importance of lesson planning. I have noted down many good and practical tips about lesson planning. I am happy to attend iTdi sessions at wiziq.
I agree completely on how you kind of evolve as a teacher after you’ve been lesson planning for so long. It is a great practice, not only for creating the actual daily plan, but also for a fine tuning your teaching ability.