Inside Out and Back Again Lesson Activities

March 19, 2022 Post a Comment

More almost the perfect lesson planning

Lesson planning is a meaning element of the educational activity-learning system. It helps teachers to create a logical sequence of stages and activities to reach the learning objectives, recall over better timing for activities, reverberate on the lesson and so on. A lot of teachers wonder how to create an constructive lesson plan, what stages it should include, how to set clear lesson goals, the list goes on.

Skyteach invited Mihaela Dascalu to carry a webinar «The Perfect Lesson Plan «. Mihaela shared her knowledge on the all-time strategies of lesson planning and master components of a lesson program, talked about the difference between lesson aims and learning outcomes, writing clear and measurable learning outcomes. Beneath you'll observe the answers to the questions the speaker didn't accept time to respond during the webinar.

Practice you think a 25min lesson can be productive? We spend five min for administrative issues, 5 min for warm upwards, results of the lesson — five min. So only10 min for main activity.

I presume that a 25-minute lesson is for very young learners, whose attending bridge is very limited. I confess I have never taught such a short lesson. Mayhap I have wrongly assumed that the well-nigh common classroom time is 50 minutes minimum.

For the main activity, 10 minutes can be enough, depending on what you desire to do, but a lesson cannot exist made of one activeness. There should exist a number of ii or three activities that build up into the main/productive activeness, which, if not finished in class, tin be taken dwelling house equally homework. Merely again, it depends.

For a 25-minute lesson, the admin stuff should exist kept to a minimum or ignored if possible (just notice and practise it right before class or afterward class). The warm upward could be just questions 'How are you today?' and get into a lead in activity to introduce the students to the new topic. For very immature learners a vocabulary edifice action and a game with that vocabulary as the master 'product' action seems plenty.

When is the best time to create a lesson plan: while creating a term programme or simply before the lesson?

Although I do know that the policies of some schools crave that the teachers present their lesson plans for a calendar month in advance at least, this seems a non-sense to me. You can prepare your lessons a week in advance or the twenty-four hour period before the lesson. If you are an experienced teacher and saved some lessons that worked well before, you only demand to modify the programme to fit your new group of students (the class profile will help you lot brand these adjustments).

In a term, you practise know how many classes you have. After you take studied the curriculum objectives and the syllabus for that grade, you need to create a framework of piece of work. So at present that yous take the whole course objectives and the number of form hours, y'all need to allocate i class for 'getting to know your students', for diagnostic testing to find out the linguistic communication needs of your students (this will become in the course profile), mid-form testing/assessment if necessary, and final class or classes for exams, and the residue goes to class pedagogy the textile.

You programme only the topics and the aims. Y'all can even sketch a plan for each, but not detailed lesson plans, because you do not know what is going to happen in the reality of the course. Leave the writing of full lesson plans till you lot are closer to the lessons themselves but at to the lowest degree you have a framework to work from.

How tin can I understand that the plan was a success from student'due south feedback?

Information technology is Not the programme that is successful merely the lesson you taught guided by that programme. Good indicators might include the smiles the students requite you at the finish of the course, the fact that some may want to conversation with you lot about the lesson at the end, that they may go out the classroom chatting in English language, or by formally giving them a bank check-out card ii minutes before the bong rings where they have to write i activity they enjoyed, and i activity that was not useful. Naturally, these volition be anonymous and you will collect them from each student leaving the classroom.

Is it better to have a lesson program every lesson printed or in my heed?

It can be printed, handwritten as a full plan or in the form of notes with each action and its timing but most importantly, write the learning objectives of that lesson not to lose sight of what you want your students to learn in that lesson. Yes, the students might achieve them all or not, but these are the reddish flags that drive your lesson and will aid you lot reflect on your lesson after information technology is done.

Should I fix a lesson plan (like yous introduced in the webinar) every lesson?

If you are a beginner teacher, I would strongly recommend that you write total lesson plans even though they accept time. This full lesson program is a deep-thinking process, only it is well worth information technology. After yous get used to it, you do non need to write as much because you lot volition get accustomed to this period of thinking about your lessons. The teacher's aim and the learning objectives will still have to be written down…and even on the board for your students so that they too tin can see where you are going and the reasons backside the activities you are doing with them.

Should nosotros check homework before warm-upward?

If you gave them homework, yes.

How much time do we have to check the previous homework?

It all depends on the type of homework that you lot take given them. The time for checking homework is upward to you. Practice not spend a lot of time doing it. If it is a written piece, just collect and correct them after class or and during form if your students are engaged in independent activities that do non crave your immediate control (naturally, notwithstanding keep an eye on them).

Is it possible (and wise) to prepare homework at the beginning of a lesson?

I have never tried myself and I cannot imagine information technology done this way. I think if you lot do this, some students might retrieve only of it and will try to start doing information technology during your course to avoid working at home, and this can be very disruptive.

What do you do if the time allotted for the speaking activity (e.g. word) has run out, but the students haven't finished the activity and experience similar speaking on?

This is a classroom direction result. That is why we need to limit the students' time for doing an activity. This fourth dimension limit has to be set when you give them the instructions. Only allow a reasonable and realistic amount of time for a speaking action (in groups or pairs). The students need to know how long they have, and you can fifty-fifty ask them again when you check instructions: 'How much time do you have?' Tell them that they will not exist granted extra fourth dimension. This will keep them focused and on runway. You but need to exist quite strict. Well, if something actually interesting comes up, and so permit them a little more time to finish if y'all have that time.

How to measure your fourth dimension on activities, especially with large groups?

This comes with experience and knowledge of your group of students. Attempt setting one fourth dimension limit for a type of activity and if information technology works well yous can allow the same amount of time once more when you have the aforementioned type of activeness. Information technology is just trial-and-mistake based on your knowledge of the grouping. Later on a few attempts, you will fourth dimension your activities better.

Which part of the lesson planning tin can be the most time-consuming?

Good question. For me, it is the writing of the SMART learning objectives because it takes a lot of thinking based on knowledge of the group, the aims of the lesson taken from the official curriculum, the teaching aids I accept bachelor, and the amount of time I take.

I forgot to mention this during the webinar: the learning objectives should be S.1000.A.R.T., i.eastward. Specific, Measurable, Achievable (in the time-frame we have at our disposal), Relevant, and Time-bound.

Choosing the right activities leading to the final productive/creative activity could be time-consuming for a novice teacher. The coursebooks are normally helpful because you lot take everything there unless you decide that some coursebook activities are boring, non that useful to achieve one learning objective or some other, or not quite relevant for your students, in which case you need to look for something else and this may have some time.

How long does it accept you to write a lesson programme like this (like presented in the webinar)?

It takes me betwixt an hr or two if I build a lesson from scratch, i.e. when I do not follow a coursebook. I repeat, it takes some fourth dimension in the starting time when y'all are not used to it but when you lot get familiar with the thinking processes behind it, it does not take more than half an hour. I am not counting here the time to practise photocopies or write your own task-sheets or handouts.

If a student has some questions not connected with this particular aim of the lesson ( possibly he doesn't understand something and it can make problems in the futurity) is it possible to respond them to brand it articulate and and so go back to the programme?

It depends on the question. If you can reply quickly but to that educatee, yes, of course, go dorsum to your plan. In case in that location are more students who have the aforementioned question and they need extended explanations that are really important because, otherwise, yous will not exist able to continue your lesson, then stop everything, explain/clarify/elicit from other students and try to move on. Sometimes, these situations tin get LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES, and these you cannot plan. They just happen and then practice not ignore them. Leave the plan aside and deal with what the students demand at that moment. (You need to apply your knowledge of the group and your intuition to meet if that is a 18-carat learning demand and non a 'trap' set by your students to throw y'all off track.)

May the teacher employ communicative games for reflection?

The reflections that I was talking nigh in the webinar is the teacher's post-lesson cocky-reflection to run into what went well, what did non and why, and how they tin can amend his/her didactics by choosing new personal aims.

If you want, you can have your students reflect on their own learning at the end of the lesson and this reflection tin be done as a communicative pair or group activity. The instructor could utilise the results of this kind of activity for his/her own mail service-lesson reflections in combination with self-reflection on the lesson.

To exercise this, the students have to exist trained and to be quite responsible and serious, even though it tin be quite fun. Preparation the students to be reflective learners tin be a topic for some other webinar. This topic is quite helpful, given the fact that nosotros live in such a fast-paced earth that instruction the students to exist independent and responsible learners with developed disquisitional thinking skills has become a necessity.

How to check if y'all accept succeeded with your plan?

We check if the lesson was successful or to what extent it was successful. Yes, it was based on a plan. Accept the students achieved the learning objectives? If you wrote them on the board at the offset of your lesson and, with your students, ticked them ane by i every bit done, yous can say…and the students can say that the lesson was successful.

At present, allow's say you have achieved them all. Wait back to your lesson program and ask yourself: take I used all the activities planned? Have I used the time effectively for each action? What has deterred me from doing one of the activities that I planned? I did not get to do information technology, but was it of import? Did it finish the flow of learning? …..and the like. If you managed to practice all the carefully planned activities, achieved the learning objectives, you experience skilful inside and the students left your class satisfied, then your lesson was corking and the programme worked.

Is it possible for a lesson to be effective without getting feedback from your students?

At the end of each activity, we need to organize feedback. The purpose is for the students to check if what they did was right, to correct themselves, to know if they did well or partly well, to have a feeling that that activity is washed and another one is following. Without this feedback at the end of each activeness, I do not think the lesson would be and so effective as a whole.

If you lot refer to getting feedback from the students at the stop of the lesson so that you tin can have some idea of how this lesson was perceived by the students, then this is only optional. If you need the students' assessment of your own lesson, then do it, but advisedly. Non all the students are honest.

Every bit for yous giving full general feedback to your students at the end of the lesson, this needs to be done. It is part of closing a lesson on a positive note, stressing the positive and telling the students what they need to be more careful next time. Appreciate their effort and dedication during the lesson. It helps build rapport.but just if they deserve praise. Never give praise when it is not deserved, just give encouragement.

What is meliorate … PPP or TTT?

There is no comparison between them. They have different purposes and they are used with students of dissimilar ages, levels, and language needs. As well, in that location are other ways/approaches/methods of sequencing lessons. What most the Chore-based arroyo? What about teaching listening or reading skills? These do non autumn under PPP or TTT. Nosotros use more eclectic approaches and it all depends on who, why, what we teach. As teachers, we need to know different means of staging the lessons, employ them equally prescribed or combine them. Practise non feel conscripted by one model or another or by fashions. Allow'due south use our disquisitional thinking skills, the knowledge almost our students in front of united states, the noesis of the discipline we are pedagogy, and keep an open mind to everything that is 'sold' to us. Notice the students, react to their needs, be human being, program your lessons carefully with your students in listen, visualize yourself education them, and be yourself, real, genuine. Do not remember that you have to be someone you are non.

What should I plan to make sure to increase STT if there is a group of students?

This is a question for a workshop on classroom management or how to teach speaking.

Plan for pair piece of work, and grouping work, just the main principle is to practise annihilation you can as a teacher to increase students' conviction when speaking English, mainly the shy ones: teach vocabulary and do lots of vocabulary activities and games, strengthen their grammar, encourage them, and then on. This topic is quite large and it needs a workshop dedicated to it.

If you accept any further questions regarding lesson planning, experience free to ask on our forum.