Teaching and learning how to plan lessons for EFL classrooms: Implementation of classroom techniques and activities

Abstract

1 IntroductionIn the recent decades, the teaching profession has been concerned by the search for a single, ideal method, generalizable across widely varying audiences that would successfully teach students a foreign in the classroom. Historical accounts of the profession tend to describe a succession of methods, each of which is more or less discarded in due course as a new takes its place (Brown, 2002).The concept of teaching has a long tradition in teaching (Richards and Renandya, 2002). Many teachers have found the notion of methods attractive over the last century, since they offer apparently infallible systems for classroom instruction and are thus sometimes embraced enthusiastically as a universal remedy for the language teaching problem. 1970s and 1980s are considered the years of greatest enthusiasm for methods. In this post-methods era, attention has shifted to teaching and learning processes and the contributions of the individual teacher to teaching However, there are some authors that discuss a number of reasons for the decline of the method concept in teaching. Brown (2002) supports the idea that the term method is best replaced by the term pedagogy. former implies a static set of procedures, whereas the latter suggest the dynamic interplay between teachers, learners and instructional materials during the process of teaching and learning.The present chapter offers an insight on the lesson planning process as part of the teaching and learning followed by teachers in the EFL classroom. Special attention will be given to activities and materials related to new technologies to be implemented in lessons.2 Lesson planning in the EFL classroomWhen ELF teachers face each new lesson there is a feeling of uncertainty with regard to what they have to do in the course of it. This usually means that teachers need to plan what they want to do in their classrooms. A unit plan is a series of related lessons around a specific theme (Farrell, 2002: 30). Planning lessons is the result of a complex planning process that includes the yearly, term, and unit plans. A daily lesson plan is a written description of how students will move toward attaining specific objectives. It describes the teaching behaviour that will result in student learning.Richards (1998:103) stresses the importance of lesson planning for English teachers: The success with which a teacher conducts a lesson is often thought to depend on the effectiveness with which the lesson was planned. In this sense, lesson planning could be defined as the daily decisions a teacher makes for the successful outcome of a lesson.The lesson planning process is of vital importance for the successful development of the class (Salaberri and Sanchez, 2012). Not many teachers enter a classroom without some kind of plan. Lesson plans are systematic records of a teacher's thoughts about what will be covered during a lesson. Richards (1998) suggests that lesson plans help the teacher think about the lesson in advance to resolve problems and difficulties, to provide a structure for a lesson, to provide a 'map' for the teacher to follow, and to provide a record of what has been taught (p. 103). There are also internal and external reasons for planning lessons (McCutcheon, 1980). Teachers plan for internal reasons in order to feel more confident, to learn the subject matter better, to enable lessons to run more smoothly, and to anticipate problems before they happen. Teachers plan for external reasons in order to satisfy the expectations of the principal or supervisor and to guide a substitute teacher in case the class needs one.Planning is often viewed as a key aspect of teaching a successful lesson (Richards, 1998). During the planning phase, the teacher makes decisions about goals, activities, resources, timing, grouping, and other aspects of the lesson. …