ESSAY CORRECTED

Students: Claudia Millafilo

Aracely Rodrguez
Teacher: Gabriela Sanhueza
Course: Methodology
Date: December, 3rd , 2014

METHODOLOGY AND LESSON PLANNING: Is planning effective for learning and

teaching?

Since the beginning of educational research, methodology has provided guidelines

to teachers in order to improve their teaching practices. To follow this further, we
consider methodology as the science which helps to develop the class in a more
effective way. Furthermore, methodology is acknowledged by Celce-Murcia (1991) as
a set of procedures, i.e., a system that spells out rather precisely how to teach a
second foreign language. Throughout the decades, many methods have been
developed in order to be applied in the teachers practices and it is here when lesson
planning is put in action. The lesson plan is a massive useful tool which provides
teachers the lesson framework and guides them when teaching. It is believed that
many teachers consider planning as a burden; however, planning has a major value in
order to prevent lessons turn into chaos; therefore, lesson planning has three main
foundations; to promote learning, improve teaching and the developing of guidelines
for
teachers,
especially
when
they
are
novice.
First of all, lesson planning is about the same as education when it comes to aims:
to help students learn. A lesson plan raises more learning outcomes from students;
therefore, learning is considered the ultimate aim of planning. There have been many
lesson planning shapes which teachers can use in order to observe learning outcomes.
For example, one of them is the ESA model suggested by Harmer (2005). If the
teacher uses this shape, there is going to be an instance of engagement in which
advantage can be taken and create a friendly environment motivating students to be
committed to the following activities by letting them know about what they will be able
to do at the end of the lesson. Additionally, there is another step called studying. In
this stage students are taught some features of the language (grammatical rules) and
are able to practice it in a controlled way. Here the beliefs of Harmer can be
appreciable when he refers to the dynamic relation, in other words the relationship
between the student and the content by themselves and the influence that the teacher
has in this relationship, so as to promote learning through studying. Finally, the last
stage called activation. This part of the lesson promotes learning since students can
actually use the authentic language that their teacher taught them in a freer language.
As a matter of fact, students will learn better if they can see the relationship of all the
activities
and
tasks
that
are
developed
by
them
(coherence).
Second of all, lesson planning helps teachers to improve their teaching practices.
Many teachers may be absent-minded, and they can easily forget what they want to
cover at a certain point of the teaching-learning process, so this type of planning
reminds teachers of some important features of the lesson. For example, a particular
activity s/he wanted to do, the aim of the lesson, the context of the students, the skills
to be taught or the aids they need to bring to accomplish an activity. Additionally, as
the teacher plans every lesson, a record can be made of all of them, and afterwards

he/she can make notes whether an activity works or not. Moreover, the lesson
planning allows teachers to reflect not only on their own teaching practice but also on
the lesson itself; for example, if the new topic was not well learned, then s/he can
make the respective decisions and changes which are product of how well or how
bad the previous lesson went - so as to shape the future lesson.
In light of what it has been just mentioned, a lesson plan makes possible the
existence of variety and coherence among all the lessons. On one hand, according to
Jensen (2001), lessons can vary in terms of macro level, in other words, language,
skills and topics. On the other hand, micro level has to do with teacher talking time
(TTT) and student-centered activities it will depend on the lesson goal whether
students are passive receiving input or have an active participation; and in terms of
classroom organization (whole-class, small groups, pair, and individual tasks). On the
other hand, thanks to a lesson plan, teachers can make the teaching-studying-learning
process coherent. S/he can design the next lesson based on the topic of the previous
lecture or the activities done in class can be interrelated; for example, the content of a
reading passage will be the same as the topic they will be talking about. It is
important to keep in mind these two concepts, because they will avoid letting students
be in the state of boredom and they will also help students to appreciate the
relationship
between
all
the
topics
taught
in
each
lesson.
Finally, lesson planning has an enormous value for novice teachers. At the moment
of teaching, the lack of experience gives to novice teacher new difficulties which they
have to face in their practice. There are many factors or drawbacks to take into
account when teaching; such as time management, anticipated problems and possible
solutions. Time management in the classroom could also be seen itself affected by
students participation and the lack of imagination that the teacher has when creating
activities or moving from one stage of the class to another. Students learning
strategies and the lack of motivation for some tasks can also be seen as anticipated
problems, which are defined by the contextualized group of students. In the light of
this, the teacher must know the group of students and from that he or she can make
decisions so as to improve the teaching-learning-process.
The influences that these factors already mentioned have are hardly solved during
class without planning. Due to this, lesson planning provides guidelines to give them
an idea not only about possible solutions, but also to arrange and organize a class. By
planning the class development and the activities, the class would be more fluent and
properly used for the benefit both students and teachers. Because planning does not
guarantee the effectiveness right away, teachers need to have knowledge about how
to plan. Furthermore, it is crucial to train novice teachers and provide them with the
appropriate tools to understand and be able to plan correctly this is the only way we
could observe learning outcomes and success in terms of teaching practices
To sum up, there is a great deal of benefits that teachers can take advantage of
when thinking of their lessons. The first and most important welfare is that it promotes
learning, as it was mentioned before; the major goal of education is to provide

students with all the tools in order to gain learning. Fortunately, this task can be a lot
more simplified if the teachers make a good lesson plan with a wide range of activities
according to their needs, in other words, teachers can always use authentic material so
students themselves feel part of what education is and which also motivates them
apart of being in presence of a teacher whose trades are reflected by commitment.
The second benefit has to do with the process of teaching. It is known by all teachers
experienced and novice - that a teachers work is really hard and that a lot of time
needs to be invested if it is really wished to observe learning outcomes. Planning may
be very difficult up front; however, it is very practical and it gets easier with practice
The
more
planning,
the
more
effective
the
lesson
will
be.

References
Celce-Murcia, M. (ed.) (1991). Teaching English as a second or foreign language (2nd
ed.).
Boston,
Massachusetts:
Heinle
&
Heinle
Publishers.
Harmer,
Pearson

J.

(2005). How
Education.

to

teach

English:

Planning

Lessons.

Longman:

Jensen, L. (2001). Planning lessons. In M. Celce-Murcia (Ed.),Teaching English as a

second or foreign language (pp. 403-413). Boston: Heinle/Thomson Learning.