Job Discussion Forums

[dagi]

lol, I was about to write what NathanRahl did and then refrained....although I find his reply was a bit harsh, but in general it was exactly what I thought.

I do know teachers who do not plan lessons anymore and those are the ones who have been teaching for 20yrs. They have done it so often, have accumulated so many resources that they do not need to anymore.

Wether you do lesson planning or not IMHO depends on how serious you take your job and on how much you strive to get experienced. It also might depend on the situation you are in. I guess teaching in a language school in China is a bit different than teaching kids in a public/private/int. school in a Western Country.

[gaijinalways]

[ddeubel]

As has been stated, a lesson plan helps make a better teacher (and not necessarily a better lesson). It should be mandatory for all first, second year teachers -- just a simplified P-P-P thing with materials and what's next/Comments.

I do think whether you do a lesson plan depends on many things. I sometimes think students and parents get left out of the equation. The primary reason to do lesson plans is accountability. To paying or unpaying students or parents. A cop doesn't give a ticket without some kind of documentation (I know , bad analogy but...) and so should a teacher keep some recording of what they are teaching. 99% of the time this is only to be filed but it is a sign of professionalism and I think required. Even just if a daybook.

But your experience, the demands of admin, the lesson, the students (really important to have a good lesson plan with multilevel classes/difficult classes) all will go into the mix of whether you do elaborate lesson plans or not.

I also always put up an agenda in the class. Students of all ages like this and it helps guide my actions and also creates expectation -- the key concept when teaching anything.

DD

[gaijinalways]

[John Hall]

About twelve years ago, I did what used to be referred to at the time as the RSA CTEFLA, but which is now known as CELTA. I learned to write lesson plans for every lesson, and in the process learned a great deal about all the objectives and purposes of every stage of a lesson. I had trainers, too, who claimed that they always spent several hours each night preparing their lessons for the next day.

Then, suddenly, I found myself in a NOVA-style institute in Japan, where there were five minutes between classes, and you were not allowed to take the books home at night.

Later, I got into teaching company classes, and then I did have time to plan at home. However, I would often not know which of my students would actually show up in class that day. The most important thing about the lesson plan was having a plan B, a plan C, a plan D, etc., and obviously none of these could be worked out in great detail.

I am now in Costa Rica, where I still do company classes and also teach at a university. In order to support my wife and stepdaughters, I teach like a maniac, sometimes doing as many as eight hours of teaching a day. I used to think that that was impossible, and that any teacher who did that much work without spending much time on preparation was not teaching very well at all.

But think of it this way: if you go to a play, do you expect to see the actors holding and reading from scripts? If you go to see a stand-up comedian, do you expect him or her to refer to notes? Even someone conducting a business presentation: where is their piece of paper? I remember once learning that in ancient India, many people resisted writing when it was first invented, because they thought that the use of writing would cause a deterioration in the arts of memorizing and remembering things. Shouldn't we teachers know well enough what we are doing in class to have it in entirely in our heads, rather than down on paper? And don't your students think that you don't know what you are doing if you have to keep referring to that piece of paper in your hand?

There is some value in planning your class on paper, obviously. But even that can be done "just in your head" once you have had enough practice at it, and have developed the confidence that you can do things that way.

One of the saddest things for me is to see teachers working in a new country spending their evenings slaving away on elaborate lesson plans. I have seen too many teachers teaching in a foreign country who have learned very little about the country they are in, partly because of their devotion to writing these prized documents. Trust me; go paperless! You'll experience more of the way of life of the people in the country you are in, and you will begin to feel that your teaching is more of a "natural, creative" activity, rather than a strict inflexible routine. And you will still be able to accomplish all of your goals and objectives in the classroom... and maybe even more effectively!

[gaijinalways]

Yes, people can get carried away with planning, but once most teachers build up their 'resource library', it's less of a problem. It also depends on the type of classes you're teaching. With larger university classes, having structured exercises is necessary, and some extra stuff in case someting doesn't fly with the students.

Teaching at NOVA and some business classes are more or less no-prep systems, though even some of these teachers have favorite examples for teaching various structural and grammatical points that they keep on file.

[saint57]

[maya.the.bee]

[saint57]

[Glenski]

It's interesting to see how some people will say they just write notes, while others describe something more extensive as a lesson plan. I will amend my own remarks to say that I go in with an outline, and I follow it as best as I can, but I alter it depending on the circumstances. Contrary to what Wild Bill wrote, I don't see my notes/outline as a "crutch", but as a guideline. Just so you know, I have spent the past 5 years in a high school and a university, and in each of those years, the curriculum and syllabuses have changed considerably. That meant creating new lessons for every class every year. If you can do better, you are a better person than me, but I doubt that you (this is a rhetorical "you") can have provided as good an education as I have tried. Am I God's gift to education? No. I just don't believe in winging it in a classroom every single time. In fact, I don't like going in cold at all, and to go in with zero planning at all is not only dangerous, but unhelpful to your students.

In my own college days, I had many teachers who stood in front of the classroom holding notes they'd written years before. They simply read them or referred to them as they lectured. I've seen those notes in some cases, when I had to substitute for those teachers. As much as blindly reading one's notes can put off any student, I still enjoyed classes from many of those teachers simply because their personalities enhanced and overcame the stodginess of that approach, and because it showed how they had prepared enough to leave them free time for other pursuits in their careers. I'm hoping that I can find a somewhat stable curriculum where I am now, so that I can actually have lesson plans to draw on instead of slaving away to make them every bloody week.

It's almost midnight now, and I have to make a lesson for tomorrow. Half a lesson, anyway, as I'm throwing a planned quiz at them, followed by part of last week's lesson which we didn't get to. That reminds me, though; I have to make the quiz itself. Sigh.

[John Hall]

Gaijinalways said: "With larger university classes, having structured exercises is necessary."

Of course, having structured exercises is necessary with large university classes! I think we are having some confusion here over what we mean by the term "lesson plan." Are we talking about a piece of paper, or a plan in its abstract form only? Or both? I always have a plan as to what I am going to do in a class before I go into the class. It just doesn't seem necessary to me that I always have to have worked it out on paper beforehand.

Gaijinalways also said, "Teaching at NOVA and some business classes are more or less no-prep systems." I have to totally disagree that teaching business classes is a no prep system. I'd be fired if I were winging it all the time. I do work with a curriculum based on a needs analysis of the English language requirements of the company that I am teaching at. I certainly have to know what and how I am going to teach a class before I teach it. I just don't put the latter down on paper, that's all.

[Jizzo T. Clown]

[saint57]

[dagi]

[quote="saint57"][quote]Wether you do lesson planning or not IMHO depends on how serious you take your job and on how much you strive to get experienced. It also might depend on the situation you are in. I guess teaching in a language school in China is a bit different than teaching kids in a public/private/int. school in a Western Country.[/quote]

I don't know why I'm taking so much heat on this thread.

A) I am a fully qualified high school teacher in my home country. After I got my B.Ed, I did an AQ so I am also qualified to teach ESL in my home country. Actually, I only took the course so I could infuse ESL teaching into my business courses.

B) I do teach at a Western school. It's called an offshore school district.

C) I teach four sections a day instead of the usual three.

Every teacher at my school is fully qualified and we bust our butts on a daily basis. You and Nathan have confused the purpose of this thread. I want to know if you and Nathan continue to make the kind of lesson plans that you made when you attended teachers' college. I have observed that most fully qualified teachers don't. That doesn't mean we don't prepare.[/quote]

No offense, plse. I did work with many teachers who did not prepare that much, but those were the ones who had lots of experience. I still sit down and make lesson plans, not as detailed as the ones during teacher training, but I do plan, yes. I do not only make notes about goals and objectives but also about the classroom managment. E.g. I think about what I'll do with that kid who's always finished first and also about the ADHD kid who can't concentrate or sit still.
I have classe I prepare a lot for and others where I do prepare less. The lesson plans I purely make for myself and use them as a guideline. Doesn't mean I plan minute by minute and it doesn't mean that I stick to it all the time.
And every year I need to plan less then the year before.

[gaijinalways]

John Hall posted