Nina Rud, Yulia Zharoid,

National Aviation University, Kyiv, Ukraine.

Basic Steps in Making a Lesson Plan.

We think planning the lesson is surely necessary. There are three basic steps in making a lesson plan. First, you decide the aim of the lesson. Second, you choose what language you will highlight (if any). Third, you decide your strategies. Let us look at the three planning steps separately

So it is necessary to decide the aim of the lesson. If there is a teacher manual with the textbook, an aim may be stated there. Commonly, the aim will be to practise one particular language point or to introduce a few new words. You are under no obligation to adopt the same aims. The writer was not writing specifically for your class or for your context. Proper lesson plans are essential. You will be more relaxed and confident if you follow a clear plan. As you finish one phase, a glance reminds you of the next. The plan will enable you to improve your timing, too. By comparing the estimated time with the actual time taken for different types of activity, you soon learn to judge lesson stages and phases with great accuracy - both in planning the lesson and in executing it.

As stated earlier, the majority of lessons can be planned as a 3-stage process. Each stage has several steps or phases. If you look back, three stages will be evident in the model lessons already seen in this book. The reading and listening lessons have a pre-reading or pre-listening stage, in which vocabulary is presented and interest is aroused. Then comes task reading (or listening) limited exploitation of the text. Finally, there is a follow-up stage, during which the students could use English spontaneously. For the dialogue-based lesson, there is the presentation of new structures, paired practice and then a final performance stage, with acting out.

You may wish to modify both the aim and the approach. You might choose to use the passage for reading, perhaps running two or more passages together to get the needed length. You may choose to use the passage as a starting base for free oral expression. You could even decide to use a dialogue for reading comprehension and a reading passage as a stepping stone to guided role play. The aim of each lesson will depend on the nature of the text and your philosophy of language teaching.

You should select the key language. Do not feel restricted by traditional guidelines. Introduce as much or as little as you need, in order to treat the passage in the way you want to treat it. If you are conducting a reading or listening lesson, there is no need for formal presentation of a grammar point or structure. It will be understood in its textual context. You can leave out the presentation of vocabulary in a reading lesson, to allow students to develop their guesswork strategies.

Even in a listening lesson, there is no need to start with the presentation of new vocabulary every time. Why not just explain the meaning of the new words as you reach them in the text you are reading aloud? Where there is to be acting out in a lesson, you will probably want to introduce two or three useful structures, emphasising the communicative value of each one.

You must choose your approach. Your pedagogy should be in harmony with your aim. Consequently, there is no single method (a method is a fixed sequence of activities, rather like a recipe) that will suit each lesson. If the aim is to offer fluency practice, clearly the teaching strategies will be quite unlike those of a lesson which has a grammar practice focus. The approach to a lesson culminating in a role play activity will be radically different again.

We propose 3 stage framework:

· The Presentation Stage.

· The practice stage.

· The performance stage.

The presentation stage

You introduce needed new vocabulary and grammar and task assignments are carried out for reading and listening lessons.

The practice stage

You move from controlled practice to guided practice and exploitation of the text.

The performance stage

You encourage linguistic innovation, shifting attention to what is being said, rather than concerning yourself with total accuracy.

The lesson must be seen as a unit. Like even-thing in teaching, this 3-stage lesson structure is not absolutely fixed. Nevertheless, it is a helpful framework when you first begin planning lessons and ensures that you do not overlook anything. Rather, you should think in terms of lesson units. There will be days when you want to cover two short lesson units in a single teaching period, or when the three stages of one lesson unit have to be spread over two periods.

You fill each stage with a selection of activities that are suited to the lesson aim. These comprise your stage phases. Supplementary activities (like setting and checking homework, conducting revision, giving a test, playing a game or singing a song) can be viewed as a fourth stage, even though such elements are scattered across the other three stages.

As to the shape of a lesson plan, your master plan should be written on one sheet of paper and carry an absolute minimum of detail. This does not mean that you have only that one page on your desk. There are supplementary pages, numbered on the sequence that they will be needed. These pages, too, should be self-contained, for ease of handling.