Farr, F. (2015). Practice in TESOL. Edinburgh University Press.

Read pages 72–83

5
THE LESSON PLAN

5.1 INTRODUCTION
Whilst not directly addressing the question of choice of language teaching method-
ology, which itself merits a much more detailed discussion than this volume allows
(see, for example, Spiro 2013, Thornbury 2011), this chapter on lesson planning will
be strongly informed by the broad theoretical school(s) of thought to which you affili-
ate. This, of course, will most probably change over periods of time and perhaps even
between lessons, depending on your specific aims and focus. In order for this chapter
to be practically useful for you, however, you should familiarise yourself with the
methodological options available, what they offer in terms of the whats, the whys and
the hows of teaching. This will give you a strong theoretical and practical toolkit to
bring with you to the job of planning a lesson, which is the focus of this chapter. There
are many good reasons for investing time in the preparation of a lesson plan. The very
act of writing the plan in most cases aids the logical thinking process, in the same way
that writing, as a means of articulation, generally helps clarity of thought and allows
for active reflection in advance of the event. You will find that seeing the draft plan
on paper sometimes prompts you to modify it and edit it in rational ways to help
improve the overall coherence. Crookes suggests that ‘detailed lesson planning pro-
vides a concretization of practice, or at least of intended practice, and as such is also a
tool for distancing oneself from practice so as to reflect upon it’ (Crookes 2003: 101).
In addition, having a plan in class provides an important reference point for the
detailed information that you will need in order to work your way successfully
through your lesson. When you begin teaching, the complexities and performance
demands of the teaching context can sometimes be distracting and it will be practi-
cally reassuring to know that you have a written document to check if or when you
require it. I remember when I began teaching I often drew a blank when giving
instructions for a particular activity. I would end up going around in circles and
sometimes cause great confusion when explaining the way in which a task was to
work, the student groupings and what was required of them. For that reason, I would
prepare in detail, write all of my instructions into my lesson plan, and follow them
very closely at those relevant stages of the lesson, sometimes to the point of almost
reading them verbatim. This helped me to develop good habits and eventually confi-
dence around this aspect of my teaching. Finally, there may be an official professional
requirement to have lesson plans and larger schemes of work available as formal

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 the lesson plan 73

accounts of what the group has done. This may be important if teachers move in and
out between lessons, if a teacher is absent, or as part of the evidence for individual
teachers’ ongoing professional integrity, and is often required by external bodies such
as teaching councils and ministries of education. To me, these are all convincing
reasons to prepare and write detailed lesson plans when you begin teaching, along
with the fact that I have seen some of my own student teachers’ lessons crumble
without the detail they obviously needed.
In this chapter, we will address the basic essentials of writing up a plan, having
taken all of the influencing variables into account, having selected the materials to
be used, and having observed enough (as discussed in Chapters 2–4) for you to feel
comfortable delivering your first joint or solo lesson. The elements to be included
in the written plan, such as aims, outcomes, learners’ prerequisite knowledge and a
detailed, timed procedure, will be explored. Following this, issues around the actual
delivery of the lesson plan will be considered (openings and closings, making transi-
tions, setting up and managing teaching aids etc.). The last input-­based section of
this chapter addresses the factors that could cause you to deviate from the lesson
plan, and aims to outline contexts when it is potentially useful and appropriate to
do this.

5.2 CONSIDERING THE CONTENT

5.2.1 CONCEPTS, FINDINGS AND TEXTS

When studying the habits of effective professionals, two types of thinking have
been identified: reflection-­on-­action and reflection-­in-­action (Argyris and Schön
1974). The former relates to the type of thinking, planning and critiquing that goes
on outside of the event itself, in this case the lesson. The latter refers to the way that
professionals think on their feet and react to a changing context in real time. This is
usually something that is learned effectively over time. We will discuss this aspect
in more detail in Section 5.4 below. The focus in this part of the discussion is on the
considered planning that happens in advance of a lesson, when you have time avail-
able to get everything in order. Here I am reminded of a Benjamin Franklin quota-
tion, commonly adopted by Irish soccer player and manager Roy Keane, which warns
‘By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.’ This could not be truer of the novice
teaching context. Good planning is absolutely essential. A good starting point is to
remind yourself of the fundamental principles on which all plans should be founded,
based on what we know about teaching and learning. Murray and Christison
(2011: 20) suggest that instruction should:

• Build on what learners already know.

• Present new information in chunks that learners can digest.
• Include teacher input that is comprehensible to learners.
• Challenge learners to move beyond their current level of language.
• Include opportunities for learners to practice new skills and knowledge.
• Provide feedback (from teachers and/or peers).
74 practice in tesol

• Provide a supportive environment.

• Be responsive to learning opportunities that occur in the classroom.

These authors also remind us of the importance of the classroom as a social as well
as pedagogic context. In other words, the choice of content, approach and materials
will be realised in a context where the participants come with backgrounds, habits,
expectations, opinions, emotions etc. This social context must also be considered,
especially if preparing a lesson that might challenge your students in any of these
ways. I remember a related recent experience in which I introduced a problem-­based
learning (PBL) task into one of the courses I teach on our MA in TESOL programme.
I had considered the students’ expectations and predisposition and decided that
because they were used to very inductive and learner-­centred approaches when I
taught them, this purer form of more formalised discovery learning would probably
work well. In most cases it did, but there was a lot of resistance from two particular
students, who did not embrace the task as I had hoped. They questioned what the task
was asking of them, how they could be expected to have the required information and
why I wasn’t providing more scaffolding, and a number of other issues arose from
my discussions with them. I quickly realised that the social aspects of the learning
context were impacting negatively on what we were trying to achieve pedagogically in
ways that I had not anticipated would be so apparent. I redesigned the task into three
so that there were different levels of student autonomy required. I continue to begin
with the ‘pure’ PBL task but can easily introduce more scaffolding if the same types of
socially related difficulties begin to emerge.
The social context also overlaps significantly with the other contexts of the learner.
Spiro (2013: 45) presents a useful visual representation of the learner’s context in
the form of a teaching onion. At the centre of the onion is the learner, surrounded
in widening layers by family, school, local community and finally national context. I
would suggest that international context is also worthy of inclusion in today’s world.
Spiro (2013: 44) proposes that ‘A classroom is more than simply a physical location;
surrounding it is a political, geographical, economic, cultural and social context that
impacts on what is happening inside the room. For some teachers what happens
outside this room is as important as, or even more important than, what happens
inside.’
Another aspect of the teaching context is the professional culture, which has
been explored in some detail by Holliday (1994). He categorises this in two ways:
BANA (British, Australasia and North America) and TESEP (tertiary, secondary and
primary). The BANA culture is typically found in the private and commercially run
entities which originally emanated from these countries (privately funded, independ-
ent in terms of curriculum choice and teaching approaches) whereas TESEP culture
is characteristic of state-­run institutions (state-­funded, policy-­governed, externally
determined curriculum etc.). The professional context will have significance for the
teacher in many ways, for example, class demographics, resources and materials,
teacher–student links, teacher qualifications, relationship with national and interna-
tional educational policies, and requirements around assessment and examinations.
Having taken account of the important pedagogic principles and the teaching
 the lesson plan 75

context, you are now in a good position to begin thinking about the content of what
you are going to teach. This is directly linked with the aims of your lesson, which will
be discussed in Section 5.3 below. Language teaching is unique in the sense that as well
as teaching about the language, you are also teaching through the language as a com-
plementary approach which has the overall goal of helping students to become more
proficient in their English language understanding and use. The implication of this is
that you need to consider the content in terms of the language and the topics that will
be used to get the students using the language (Murray and Christison 2011: 21).

The language
Three components of the language content of a lesson need to be considered. These
relate to the what (grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation; for example, how questions
are formed and their associated pronunciation patterns), the how (the mode, for
example, through written, spoken and online pieces of discourse, or through an inte-
grated skills approach) and the where (the linguistic setting in which you will present
the language, for example, informal language use from online chat rooms, or formal
academic essays). These are not discrete questions and need to be planned in a holis-
tic way. As part of the process of deciding the language focal point, you will need to
engage in a certain amount of research so that you are completely confident in your
own understanding of what you plan to teach and aware of any potential ambiguities
or irregularities which may cause problems for you or your students. This research
will involve looking up the grammatical item in a number of grammar reference
books or online materials to ensure you understand form, meaning and use (recent
grammar reference books such as Biber et al. 1999 or Carter and McCarthy 2006 not
only present these aspects but also give a corpus-­informed, evidence-­based account
of real language use in context and in terms of frequency across a range of modes).
For lexical items, a thorough investigation in some good, corpus-­informed diction-
aries is required. In addition, you may wish to consult some corpora yourself (see
Chapter 3 on materials) to get a strong sense of actual use and any deviations from
the grammar ‘rules’ that are likely to emerge when students encounter the specific
language in less controlled contexts than those often presented in teaching materials.
Examine a range of teaching materials focusing on the same language point, see how
they approach it and check in any accompanying teachers’ guidelines to see if they
anticipate any problems that learners are likely to have. It may also be useful to think
about the similarities and differences that exist in form or use between English and
any other languages your learners know.

The topics
If you are teaching in a TESEP context, the topics that you can use may be limited or
predefined by a relatively set curriculum. This may also be the case in some private
schools if they adhere to a specific syllabus or teaching methodology or approach.
You may, however, have complete autonomy over the topics you select, and in such
cases it is prudent to try to find a balance between your learners’ needs and their
wants/interests, particularly if they do not always seem fully compatible. To take an
example, a group of third-­level students preparing to study in an English-­speaking
76 practice in tesol

country as part of a student exchange programme will need to be able to do things

such as oral presentations and essay writing through English, but they may be more
interested in learning about appropriate small-­talk strategies or the vocabulary of a
particular sport that they are interested in. Both needs and wants are legitimate start-
ing points for selecting appropriate topics for your lesson plans, and how to balance
these may be the most challenging part of your job, particularly in the light of the
fact that materials are generally more motivating when they are personal, engaging
and sometimes controversial (Mishan and Timmis 2015). And this all needs to be
balanced against any cultural considerations that may cause prudent exclusion of
certain topics that are considered taboo in that part of the world. In this respect, if you
are new to the context, it would be worthwhile discussing your choice of topics with
some teachers from the local culture, or some who have worked there for some time.
They will be able to offer suitable guidance until you feel more comfortable about
your ability to discern which choices might be inappropriate.
Whatever you decide to teach in terms of content for a particular lesson, it will need
to be considered as part of a bigger picture, or what many will know as the scheme/
unit of work. This will be what you plan to/need to achieve with your students over
a specified period of time such as a term or a school year. Both the content and the
sequence will be key considerations here (see Task 5.2 below). I would like to finish
this section with a word of pragmatism. During your teacher education programme,
lesson planning will necessarily occupy pride of place as a mechanism through which
good practices and professional habits will embryonically begin to develop. This is
hugely important and not to be undermined. However, if this is also to be the site for
the development of sustainable practices you need to be realistic in the way in which
you approach your planning. It may not be prudent to invest inordinate amounts of
time in, for example, designing vast amounts of authentic materials, as this will prob-
ably not be sustainable in your busy teaching careers. Now is the time to find ways of
forming good practices which will carry through to the future.

TASK 5.1 STUDENT TEACHERS’ ATTITUDES TO PLANNING

The following comment comes from a student teacher cited in Crookes (2003:
109–10):

Many thoughts ran through my mind as I reflected upon my own experience

with the process while teaching last semester. Though I loved my work, lesson
planning was always difficult . . . There were two problems that I regularly
faced – weekly plans and daily plans. I would try to prepare basic lesson plans for
the whole week so that I could know the direction I wanted to take. . .But it was
often so difficult for me because while I wanted to maintain the basic ‘outline’
sometimes I couldn’t predict how the class would go . . . And similarly where
daily lesson plans were concerned, I had a hard time revising the night before
what I had planned for each day of the week. Again, sometimes I felt very
unassured about what or how much we would cover the following day. No matter
how much I prepared, there was always a feeling of uncertainty lurking in the
 the lesson plan 77

back of my mind. In fact, I was so worried and afraid about extra time that I
overprepared and overplanned.

A. Do you think these experiences and concerns are shared by many beginning
teachers? Are they a necessary part of the process? Can you think of any advice
you might offer this particular teacher?
B. What other concerns or issues do you experience with your own planning?
Share your experiences within a group and jointly try to develop some strategies
to overcome them as far as possible.

TASK 5.2 THE BIGGER PICTURE: SCHEMES OF WORK

In many ways, coursebooks are schemes of work designed for use over a period of
time, generally a language level of 80–100 hours.
A. Take a coursebook designed for either business English or EAP and examine the
scheme of work that is included at the beginning of the book (usually containing
information on language, topics, materials, activities and outcomes).
B. In groups, design a follow-­up scheme for a further 20 hours of instruction.
C. Use this scheme as the basis for deciding the aims and content of the first three
2-­hour lessons.

TASK 5.3 LESSON PLANNING AND EXPERIENCED TEACHERS

A. Research the attitudes of a small group of more experienced teachers. Interview
or survey them in relation to a number of factors relating to lesson planning,
such as how they felt about the rigours of lesson planning during their formal
teacher education, how they feel about it now in retrospect, how they now
approach lesson planning (what works and what doesn’t work for them) and any
other aspects that you consider relevant to your current stage of development in
the area of lesson planning.
B. Compare your findings with those of your peers who researched a different
group of teachers. How do your results compare? What can you deduce/­
conclude from your findings?

5.3 THE WRITTEN PLAN

5.3.1 CONCEPTS, FINDINGS AND TEXTS

Planning is a cognitive process, or more specifically a metacognitive process, which
‘is generally defined as the activity of monitoring and controlling one’s cognition’
(Young and Fry 2008: 1). According to Crookes (2003: 104):

Planning is a practice essential when we humans, with our limited cognitive

capacities, engage in new or difficult tasks. It is conceptually linked with
monitoring; the execution of a complex task is problematic if we do not have a
78 practice in tesol

sense of the desired outcome and appearance of the tasks against which to judge
performance and correct it as necessary; in addition, the execution of a complex
task new to the performer is improved by mental rehearsal.

The act of writing a lesson plan, then, is the way in which we physically represent
these psychological processes and is ultimately the product of our metacognitive
activities. It is therefore practically useful to have some guidance and a flexible frame-
work for the proposed contents of a lesson plan. This section outlines what should be
planned and included in the written plan. It is based on my own practices and expe-
riences with student teachers over a number of years and also on previous accounts
in pivotal publications on TESOL practice (Gower et al. 2005, Harmer 2007). The
various components are outlined briefly below, in the order in which they would
­typically appear in the written plan.

Preliminary information
Some specific pieces of identifying information should be included at the very begin-
ning of the lesson plan. These serve a number of practical purposes (such as differen-
tiating quickly between plans for different teachers, learners, lessons, days etc., or as
a quick reference to the materials to be used during the lesson) as well as conceptu-
ally framing the rest of the plan around a specific group of students at a particular
time and in a precise context. Information that could usefully be included here is:
name of the teacher(s); date, time and location of the lesson; anticipated numbers,
age and level of the learners; materials, resources and technologies to be used (and
the effect that may have on the learning process; see, for example, Crawford 2013:
ch. 8); the place of the lesson in the larger sequence outlined in the scheme of work;
and names of any cooperating or supervising teachers, with specific developmental
aspects of your practice you would like them to concentrate on during this specific
observation. Some regimes with which I am familiar also require a detailed account
of each learner, assumptions about their previous knowledge, how the contents of the
proposed lesson cater to their needs, and any anticipated difficulties they may have.

Aims and expected learning outcomes

Aims and ELOs are related but not the same: the former focus on what the teacher
plans to do and the latter on an articulation of the resultant outcomes in terms of
what students will be able to do by the end of the lesson. The relationship between
the two is not a simple one; in other words just because I teach does not mean that
my students will learn from that process alone, or at all. Rather the ELOs should be
considered as the outcome in terms of total student effort, which could consist of
engaging with the content of what the teacher teaches, what the activities contain and
what students learn from each other, and in all probability will be based partially on
previously acquired knowledge also. Aims can be articulated for language content
such as specific points of grammar (for example, ‘to teach spoken discourse strate-
gies relevant for polite social interactions using . . .’) or lexis (for example, ‘to teach
vocabulary relevant to informal social dining contexts . . .’), and may have sub-­aims
(for example, ‘to teach small talk’, ‘to teach social introductions and greetings’). They
 the lesson plan 79

may also be formulated around the development of skills such as reading, writing,
listening and speaking, or integrated skills. And the teacher may have personal devel-
opment aims for a lesson (for example, ‘to practise integrating the use of technol-
ogy into the classroom environment as a pedagogically appropriate aid to enhance
reading skills’). Aims should generally be specific enough to reflect the detail of the
particular lesson under construction rather than something so generic that it could
describe a number of lessons in broadly the same topic area (for example, ‘to teach
listening skills’). Lesson-­level student learning outcomes, as discussed in Chapter 4,
are generally designated in three spheres: cognitive (using such verbs as ‘understand’,
‘articulate’, ‘apply’ and ‘critique’, depending on which levels of Bloom’s taxonomy you
are pitching an activity at); affective (relating to values, as well as personal and social
appreciations); and kinaesthetic (related directly to aspects of physical movement or
co-­ordination to be learned specifically as part of the lesson). Learning outcomes are
generally phrased in the following terms: ‘by the end of the lesson, students will be
able to . . . ’. It is also important to specify an immediate and longer-­term assessment
strategy, which focuses on measuring the learning outcomes as articulated in the
written plan.

Prior learning and anticipated problems

This section will include an articulation of what the students need to have learned
already in order to navigate the contents of the present lesson successfully. An
example might be knowledge of the present simple tense of the verb to be in a lesson
that focuses on learning the present progressive. Anticipated problems will be based
on both prior learning and the specific contents of this lesson. It may relate to such
things as pronunciation difficulties for students from specific linguistic backgrounds,
or false cognates between languages, or even cultural content with which they may
not be familiar in their own frames of reference. These will be very specific and
should not be a re-­articulation of the aims, as I have seen in some of the lesson plans
I review. Familiarity with the student group as well as the research you do around
the language content for your lesson (as discussed above) will help you to identify
potential problems and therefore prepare for them should the need arise to address
them in the lesson.

Procedure
This is the longest part of the plan in terms of content and will require a detailed
account of what will happen at every stage of the lesson. It is often recorded on some
sort of predefined template, such as that in Figure 5.1, and will contain information
on the stage, the specific sub-­aims, the content, the time, what the students will be
doing and what the teacher will be doing. It may contain visual representations of
classroom organisation and student groups for the stages. This is where you can
also plan and write specific instructions you want to use, or lexical explanations and
examples, so that they are readily available if you need them. This part of the plan will
be very detailed when you begin as a novice teacher.
It is always a good idea to prepare the lesson plan far enough in advance to allow
you some mature reflection and final changes before the event, but not so far in
80 practice in tesol

Stage/time Activity and materials Sub-aims Teacher/student activity and

grouping

Figure 5.1 Template for the procedural component of a written lesson plan

advance that the cognitive processes and reasoning you employed have been forgot-
ten and the plan looks slightly alien to you on the day of teaching. Usually, two to
three days in advance works well, although this may not fit with the formal require-
ments of your programme, which might insist on the submission of all plans in
advance of the entire practice placement period.
As the time approaches there are a number of organisational steps you can follow
to ensure the smooth running of your lesson. Gower et al. (2005: 182–3) propose the
following:

• Check that you have your lesson plan

• Run through your lesson plan and make sure you have all the necessary aids
and equipment listed in the plan
• Check any equipment you are going to use
• Lay out any visual aids and handouts (pictures, worksheets, cue cards, etc.) in
the order you’ll need them; cue up any audio or video equipment you are
going to use
• Make sure the seating is arranged the way you want it
• Check that the board is clean
• If there is anything you can put on the board, do so in advance, so you don’t
waste time at the beginning of the lesson (electronic presentation software
packages are useful here also)
• At the same time, be ready to chat with the students as they come into the
class!

TASK 5.4 INFORMATION ON EFFECTIVE PLANNING

View two or three online clips/materials on effective planning. Review them critically
and consider aspects you agree/disagree with, things you learned and anything you
found impractical or just absurd.

TASK 5.5 CREATING A LESSON PLAN TEMPLATE

A. Find a number of lesson plan templates online or in books on teaching and prac-
tice. Use these and the information included in this section to create a lesson plan
that best suits you and your needs. Compare with others and refine before use.
 the lesson plan 81

B. 
Using your template, write a lesson plan for a lesson you will be teaching soon
(go through the stages suggested above). Share the plan with a tutor or colleague
and ask for their feedback.

TASK 5.6 THE REAL STARTING POINT

Some research findings suggest that despite the fact that educational theory and
teacher education programmes advocate the aims and outcomes as the optimal start-
ing point for planning a lesson, experienced teachers do not always follow this route.
Discuss the following quotation from Housner and Griffey (1985: 45) in groups and
draw conclusions for your own practice:

Research has shown that teachers plan for instruction using very different
strategies than those advocated during the last thirty years of educational
practice. Rather than emphasizing objectives, teacher planning is directed at the
selection of instructional tasks or activities . . . Tasks are apparently chosen on
the basis of their ability to engender student cooperation rather than on
educational relevance (Placek 1983). Usually teachers choose tasks that are low in
risk and ambiguity as these have less chance of causing disruptions in student
cooperation (Doyle 1984).

5.4 PRINCIPLED DEVIATION

5.4.1 CONCEPTS, FINDINGS AND TEXTS

At the beginning of this chapter we mentioned two types of planning: one outside of
the event (in this case in advance) and one that happens in action (in this case during
the lesson). So far we have been discussing the processes and considerations of plan-
ning in advance with the benefit of reflection time. I would now like to turn to think-
ing about those in situ events in the classroom which prompt a decision to consider a
deviation from the plan. We know from research that effective practitioners have an
ability to respond flexibly and appropriately to such events in ways that are beneficial
to the learning process (Abbitt 2011, Argyris and Schön 1974). Novice teachers need
to give this some thought so that they have some strategies to cope successfully when
the potential for deviation arises. This thought process will involve you drawing on
the developing types of knowledge that you have as a beginning teacher. Shulman
(1986) introduced the concept of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), and this has
since been expanded into a TPACK framework to address the growing importance
of digital technologies in education, as well as their transformative potential (Mishra
and Koehler 2006). Abbitt (2011: 282–3) summarises the seven knowledge domains
described by Mishra and Koehler (2006) as follows:

• Pedagogical knowledge (PK): Knowledge of nature of teaching and learning,

including teaching methods, classroom management, instructional planning,
assessment of student learning, etc.
82 practice in tesol

• Content
 knowledge (CK): Knowledge of the subject matter to be taught
(e.g., earth science, mathematics, language arts, etc.)
• Technology
 knowledge (TK): Continually changing and evolving knowledge
base that includes knowledge of technology for information processing,
communications, and problem solving, and focuses on the productive
applications of technology in both work and daily life.
• Pedagogical
 content knowledge (PCK): Knowledge of the pedagogies,
teaching practices, and planning processes that are applicable and appropriate
to teaching a given subject matter.
• Technological
 content knowledge (TCK): Knowledge of the relationship
between subject matter and technology, including knowledge of technology
that has influenced and is used in exploring a given content discipline.
• Technological
 pedagogical knowledge (TPK): Knowledge of the influence of
technology on teaching and learning as well as the affordances and constraints
of technology with regard to pedagogical designs and strategies.
• Technological
 pedagogical content knowledge (TPCK): Knowledge of the
complex interaction among the principle knowledge domains (content,
pedagogy, technology).

These different domains of teacher knowledge are constantly evolving for all teachers,
albeit at a faster rate for student and novice teachers. These, combined with your own
personal theories and beliefs (teacher cognition), are the basis for the decisions you
will make while teaching.
There are two general reasons why a deviation may be called for. The first relates
to a situation when the planned lesson is no longer working or is interrupted. This
might happen for a number of reasons: the students don’t understand the content or
materials because they are too difficult or they are alien to them in terms of their own
conceptual frameworks; the students have already covered the same topic or material
with another teacher or in another course; the timing of the plan was not accurate
and you run out of teaching activities; something has just happened in terms of world
events which renders parts of your lesson obsolete, irrelevant or no longer factual
(I have seen this happen on many occasions where teachers choose to use current
affairs topics as the basis for their materials and plan well in advance); a mishap takes
place involving one of the students or the teacher. The second prompt for deviation
can come from a learning opportunity that arises in the course of the lesson which
presents a good improvisation moment. Crookes (2003: 106) suggests that ‘within
teaching, improvisation falls within the general area of teacher decision making or
teacher thinking, and the term may cover a range of possibilities. A simple under-
standing of the term could be paraphrased as “thinking on one’s feet”.’ Think about a
class using technology in which one of the students presents the latest gadget from
one of the market leaders which she has just purchased. This is a real opportunity
for authentic discussion and exploration around the item and should be encouraged.
This teachable moment has been framed as an ‘interactive decision’ by Richards and
Lockhart (1996).
In the case of a lesson plan that no longer works, a teacher is forced into a devia-
 the lesson plan 83

tion. In the case of a teaching opportunity, the teacher has a choice. At these interac-
tive decision-­making moments, expert teachers succeed in making good decisions
because they have a number of previous experiences and understandings of a range
of possibilities for how a lesson can potentially proceed. Their well-­developed rep-
ertoires allow them to continue in prudent ways with a certain level of automation
even at such unplanned parts of a lesson. As a prospective teacher, this is something
that you can develop over time. Murray and Christison (2011: 20) propose that ‘for
the novice teacher, in situ decision-­making is quite difficult and often teachers fall
back on teaching the way they were taught. However, with constant reflection on
one’s practice, teachers can acquire the ability to reason among the dynamic, complex,
moment-­to-­moment events that occur in the classroom.’ I would add that this can be
aided by closely watching this aspect of experienced teachers’ practices as part of your
observation agenda as discussed in Chapter 4. In the meantime, it is useful to consider
in advance the approach that you will take if a deviation is needed or possible during
each of your lessons. This will allow you to make your decisions on the basis of some
predetermined principles, taking a range of factors into account for that specific lesson
and group. These might include building some flexibility into your plan, with some
choices available to you depending on how the lesson plays out; allocating a maximum
time limit around any learning opportunities that arise; having some ‘extra’ activities
ready in case your timing doesn’t work to plan; having more basic explanations, exam-
ples and activities for more difficult language points you plan to teach; and grading
activities for mixed ability classes. In circumstances where you have a cooperating
teacher or a practice tutor in the classroom with you, you might want to consult with
them discreetly and seek their advice if you have discerned that a deviation may be
necessary or advisable. All of this provides for a more professional approach than the
‘wait and see’ scenario, but no one can be ready for every eventuality; you may need to
be prepared to live with the prospect that sometimes things don’t go to plan and this in
itself will provide you with a rich opportunity for reflection after the event.

STOP HERE TASK 5.7 TPACK AND YOU

With reference to each of the seven types of teacher knowledge discussed in this
section, reflect on what you already know in each category, and what you feel you still
need to learn. Discuss your deliberations in a small group.

TASK 5.8 DEVIATION DECISIONS

A. Discuss the following deviation principles and think of two examples of class-
room contexts which would cause you to adhere to each of the principles:

• Never move away from the plan.

• Allow the students to determine the content and direction of the lesson
completely.
• Deviate only for certain students in a group.
• Always deviate for at least five minutes in a one-­hour lesson.
84 practice in tesol

B. Discuss the potential impacts that each case you discussed could have on social
and pedagogical contexts.

TASK 5.9 IMPROVISATION

Conduct some research online about improvisation in any one of the creative arts or
performances. What can you learn about successful and unsuccessful strategies in
this context? Is this transferrable to the teaching context? Why (not) and how?

5.5 FURTHER READING ONE

Schellekens, P. (2007) The Oxford ESOL Handbook, Oxford: Oxford University
Press (ch. 6, ‘Managing Learning’, pp. 145–52).
The specific section of chapter 6 of this book that I suggest reading relates to planning
and delivering lessons. It begins with a brief discussion of the place of the lesson plan
as ‘an essential lifeline’ (p. 145) for new teachers and also its importance (reducing
over time) for more experienced teachers. Schellekens then identifies some core com-
ponents of sound lesson plans:

• challenging tasks which are achievable over time

• tasks which create real interest and communication
• a good variety of well-­paced activities and materials
• a blend of activities which involve the four skills
• learning which gradually becomes more complex and which extends the
learners’ skills. (p. 145)

She uses these to evaluate two different lesson plans which she includes in the chapter,
looking at issues like coherency, skill spread and transferability across skills, focus,
challenge and relevance. There is then a discussion about the complex relationship
between lesson plans and learning styles. The danger of confusing instructional
preferences with learning styles is mentioned, as is the lack of evidence for the effec-
tiveness of learning style models and their impact on learning. The chapter then
moves to consider the purpose and intention of schemes of work, where the author
suggests:

It is undoubtedly useful for teachers to plan ahead, not least because, should they
be absent, the scheme of work allows substitute teachers to provide continuity of
learning. However, the status and intent of the scheme of work deserves
attention. The premise that underpins this book is that the planning of learning is
guided by the identification of the learners’ needs. If this premise is accepted, this
means that the scheme of work (including lesson plans) can only be a ‘declaration
of intent’, because aspects of learner needs may surface at any time. This may
influence the delivery of the rest of the lesson and even the course. Teachers and
managers should be aware that projecting a team’s work is fine, but that changes
to the document can be expected. (p. 149)
 the lesson plan 85

In a section on teaching and learning, the concept of ‘interlanguage’ is introduced

in relation to the order in which language is learnt. This term, originally introduced
by Selinker in 1972, describes the ever-­changing language that is produced by adults
when learning a new language. It consists of three components: features from the
first language, English language features, and features commonly produced by learn-
ers regardless of their language background. Although teachers tend to pay much
attention to the first feature, it should not become all-­defining, and students need to
receive positive reinforcement on the successful production of the target language
also. The movement between the stages is not linear and fluid, but will have an impact
on planning. It may seem that students regress at times but this is all part of the
‘unstable’ nature of interlanguage. As long as there is evidence of ‘instability’ then the
language has not become fossilised.

This leaves teachers with the challenging job of keeping an overview of the
various stages that any of the learners may be going through and using their
professional judgement and knowledge of language to assess how they are
progressing. In this respect, the learner’s interlanguage can provide valuable
insight both for the teacher and the learner. (p. 152)

The information provided by paying attention to the students’ language production

can play a pivotal role in deciding on appropriate aims, learning outcomes and activi-
ties to be included in lesson planning stages.

FURTHER READING ONE TASK

1. Evaluate the lesson plan that you developed in Task 5.5 above against Schellekens’
core components for good lesson plans. Where are its strengths and weaknesses
in relation to these criteria?
2. Read Coffield et al. (2004) on learning style models. What conclusions can you
reach about incorporating specific models into your lesson plans? What are the
advantages and disadvantages of considering learning styles during your lesson
preparations?

5.6 FURTHER READING TWO

Bishop, J. L. and Verleger, M. A. (2013) ‘The flipped classroom: A survey of
the research’, paper presented at the 120th ASSE Annual Conference and
Exposition, Atlanta, 23–6 June. Available at: http://www.studiesuccesho.nl/wp-­
content/uploads/2014/04/flipped-­classroom-­artikel.pdf.
This research review focuses on a relatively recent phenomenon which has gained a
lot of traction and has a huge impact on the way the classroom operates. The idea of
the flipped classroom is that what was traditionally done in the classroom in terms
of content acquisition now happens at home or elsewhere in advance of the lesson,
which instead functions as a focus for active learning and problem solving. Bishop
and Verleger (2013: 1) explain:
86 practice in tesol

The flipped classroom is a new pedagogical method, which employs

asynchronous video lectures and practice problems as homework, and active,
group-­based problem solving activities in the classroom. It represents a unique
combination of learning theories once thought to be incompatible – active,
problem-­based learning activities founded upon a constructivist ideology and
instructional lectures derived from direct instruction methods founded upon
behaviorist principles.

The authors trace the development of the flipped classroom to two related move-
ments that are strongly impacting the world of education. The first is the technologi-
cal evolution, which has made information available at a low cost for many years and
now makes its distribution instantaneous in many cases. This means that almost
any information an individual wants is available at the touch of a button, or at least
perceived to be. The second movement, also related to technology, is the ‘free soft-
ware movement’, which seeks to remove any barriers to access. The authors cite some
examples, such as Wikipedia and the significant step forward MIT took in announc-
ing its OpenCourseWare (OCW) initiative in 2001 (another topical example is found
in the MOOC (massive open online course) movement). And this is all continuing
to happen at a time when university registration and tuition fees are increasing in a
way unprecedented since the expansion in the 1960s and 1970s which made higher
education more accessible to a larger demographic.

As a result, the natural question being asked by both students and educational
institutions is exactly what students are getting for their money. This is applying a
certain pressure on physical academic institutions to improve and enhance the
in-­person educational experience of their students. Students are not the only
ones demanding higher outcomes from educational institutions. There is also
increasing pressure from accreditation institutions. (pp. 2–3)

Effective communication, problem-­solving capabilities and multidisciplinarity are

often demanded by professional bodies and employers and have now become
embedded in higher education’s discourses around learning outcomes and graduate
attributes. The dilemma, then, is how to fit instruction around the development of
these into curricula already packed with predefined and rigidly evaluated disciplinary
content. This problem has led to a realisation and methodological shift:

Since video lectures are as effective as in-­person lectures at conveying basic

information, the wisdom of using student and instructor time for live lectures is
questionable. Rather, pre-­recorded lectures can be assigned to students as
homework, leaving class time open for interactive learning activities – activities
that cannot be automated or computerized. This is the key concept behind what is
becoming the new buzzword in educational circles: the flipped classroom. (p. 3)

The next section of this paper moves to examining the definitions of what a flipped
classroom is in the light of the inside and outside activities. Drawing on the research
 the lesson plan 87

to date on the flipping, it seems to adhere to student-­centred approaches in the class-

room, which are reconcilable with the educational theories of Piaget and Vygotsky
in relation to constructivism, collaborative learning and scaffolding within the zone
of proximal development (ZPD). Bishop and Verleger also outline relevant theories
from the literature on learning styles; peer-­assisted, collaborative and cooperative
learning; PBL; and active learning. They do, however, reject very broad definitions
which include reading as opposed to video viewing outside of the classroom.
The authors then relay the results from the research studies published to June
2012 on the flipped classroom as a methodological choice. They located twenty-­four
studies up to that time, for which they present a tabulated summary of context and
findings. The main overall findings show that positive experiences are reported, with
some caveats. The following provides an overview:

Despite differences among studies, general reports of student perceptions were

relatively consistent. Opinions tended to be positive, but there were invariably a
few students who strongly disliked the change. Students did tend to watch the
videos when assigned, and even when they were not. DeGrazia et al. (2012) notes
that students supplied with optional video lectures came to class much better
prepared than when they had been given textbook readings. This observation is
encouraging because although learning gains are high for information presented
textually, Sappington et al. (2002) shows that college students don’t generally
complete reading assignments. Nevertheless, upon recommendation by students,
many instructors instituted a required pre-­class quiz on the lecture material. This
was touted as a highly successful practice. Students preferred live in-­person
lectures to video lectures, but also liked interactive class time more than in-­
person lectures (Toto and Nguyen 2009). Shorter, rather than longer videos were
preferred (Zappe et al. 2009). (p. 9)

The paper finishes with a short section on future directions that research should
take, which suggests more controlled studies examining student performance over
a semester, and that future practices and studies leverage what the existing research
tells us about out-­of-­and in-­class activities. The authors also encourage researchers
to describe clearly the activities they employ in their studies.

FURTHER READING TWO TASK

1. Based on what you have read and by viewing some flipped classroom materials
on YouTube (for example, those produced by a colleagues of mine from civil
engineering at the University of Limerick; Phillips and Quilligan 2014), what
is your opinion about whether a flipped classroom approach would work for
language teaching (or is the discipline irrelevant)? Justify your opinion on the
basis of evidence from your experience, knowledge and research.
2. If a flipped classroom approach were to be used in your future teaching, what
implications would this have for the lesson planning principles and processes
detailed earlier in this chapter?
88 practice in tesol

5.7 SUMMARY
The numerous aspects of preparing for teaching in the form of lesson planning have
been detailed in this chapter. It begins by outlining the many reasons for planning
lessons and the purposes that a written plan can serve. For novice teachers it has
been described as a lifeline in their earlier days of teaching. Section 5.2 introduces
a number of fundamental principles for planning and teaching, based on what
we now know about good pedagogy. The section also discusses in some detail the
concept of the classroom as a social and cultural environment, where the learners
are the embodiment of all of these, represented appropriately in Spiro’s onion model
containing layers illustrating learner, family, school and national contexts. Holliday’s
concept of professional context also forms part of this broad discussion of preparing
to write the lesson plan. His TESEP framework considers whether the teaching takes
place in a BANA-­type context or in primary, secondary or tertiary public educa-
tion systems, and the various affordances and restrictions that these may bring. In
addition to contextual variables, the content of the lesson is centrally important,
and here the language and the topics feature equally, as the nature of this discipline
means that language is both the medium and the product of teaching. In Section
5.3 a framework for writing the lesson plan is presented, consisting of the following:
preliminary information; aims and learning outcomes; prior learning and anticipated
problems; and a detailed procedure of the stages of the lesson. This section concludes
with a brief list of practical and organisational steps to follow before you go to teach
the prepared lesson. Emergent situations in the classroom which call for a deviation
from the lesson plan might include students not understanding the activities or the
content, or might manifest in the form of a positive learning opportunity leading to
authentic language use. These are discussed in Section 5.4. More experienced teach-
ers have developed strategies to negotiate these contexts successfully, but beginning
teachers need to reflect on and prepare in advance for the potential of finding them-
selves in these situations, while at the same time accepting that not all things can be
planned for and sometimes you need to be willing to ‘go with the flow’. With effective
critical reflection around such incidents you will develop successful strategies and
approaches as you become a more experienced teacher.

5.8 ADDITIONAL READINGS

Abbitt, J. T. (2011) ‘Measuring technological pedagogical content knowledge in preservice
teacher education: A review of current methods and instruments’, Journal of Research on
Technology in Education, 43: 4, 281–300.
Harmer, J. (2007) How to Teach English, Harlow: Pearson.
Housner, L. D. and Griffey, D. C. (1985) ‘Teacher cognition: Differences in planning and
interactive decision making between experienced and inexperienced teachers’, Research
Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 56: 1, 45–53.
Shulman, L. (1986) ‘Those who understand: Knowledge growth in teaching’, Educational
Researcher, 15: 2, 4–14.
Spiro, J. (2013) Changing Methodologies in TESOL, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.