Lesson Planning in English Language Teaching

Posted on Feb 15, 2025 in Other civil servant exams

Unit 21: Programming in the English Language Area: Lesson Plans

0. Introduction. Our current educational system is based on an open and flexible conception of the curriculum. Teachers will have to establish the most suitable curricular elements for each cycle and level, adjusting the content of the Autonomous Communities Decrees to the educative context, which leads us to the Educational Project of the School. The teachers of each cycle will design the planning units of each class for the school year. Therefore, both the Decree and the Curricular Project are the basis for elaborating the program design. We can consider two types of planning: long-term and short-term planning. Long-term planning corresponds to the cycle, and short-term planning corresponds to the didactic units. Program design is an essential element for guiding the teaching-learning process. It should be an effective and flexible tool for the teacher to proceed with a particular class group. In this unit, we will look at all the elements we should take into consideration when planning didactic units.

1. The Foreign Language Area

1.1. Pedagogical Foundations

The learner is considered to be the center of the teaching-learning process. Learners have an active role in the process of learning. Children perceive reality in a global way, and tasks begin with the learners’ experience and increase in complexity.

1.2. Linguistic Foundation

Language is an instrument of communication.

1.3. Second Language Acquisition Foundations

The input hypothesis (Natural Approach). Principles:

  • Acquisition/learning hypothesis: There are two ways of developing competence in a second language: the natural and unconscious language development, and the conscious rules about the language.
  • The input hypothesis states that acquisition takes place as a result of learners having understood input.
  • The affective filter hypothesis.

Methodological implications: Second language learning is an active mental process. Language learning has two features: interlanguage and error analysis. Errors are seen as positive evidence of the nature of the learning process.

1.4. Psychological Foundations

Children must be trained in developing reflection and social integration activities.

2. Planning Units

2.1. Definition and Importance

It is a unit of work, relative to an articulated and complete teaching-learning process. The objectives, the teaching-learning, and evaluating activities must be specified in it. Importance: it avoids improvisation, it adapts the proposals of the Educational Project and Curricular Project to the specific characteristics of a class group. It organizes the teacher’s work.

2.2. Elements to Include in the Units

Justification of the unit, the topic, cycle, level and learners’ age, previous knowledge, didactic objectives, contents, anticipated difficulties, methodological orientations, activities, time and space organization, materials, connection with other areas, basic competences, evaluation.

3. Criteria for Sequencing Contents and Objectives

3.1. Objectives

These are the results to be achieved by the end of the unit. They must be formulated in terms of capacities. They must be flexible, so they can adapt to individual aspects of learning.

3.2. Contents

They must aim at developing the intended objectives. The contents established by the LOE are divided into four blocks:

  1. Listening, speaking, and talking.
  2. Reading and writing.
  3. Knowledge of the language.
  4. Socio-cultural aspects and intercultural awareness.

3.3. Sequencing Criteria

The learning must range from general and simple contents to detailed and complex ones. The learners’ psychological development must be taken into account. The progress should be cyclical, not linear.

4. The Selection of Methodology

4.1. Methodological Orientations

Learners must be exposed to comprehensible and meaningful input. The activities should be familiar, related to the topics close to the learners’ experience and adapted to their age and interests. Skills must be taught from an integrative point of view, although we should give priority to oral receptive skills at first. Teachers should respect a learner’s natural silent period. Groupings should be flexible to assure a full and varied interaction. Learners must develop communication strategies.

Teachers should be encouraging participants in the communicative act and organizers of the communicative activities, materials, etc. Learning in pairs, groups, or with the whole class will encourage social relations. The English teacher should organize the teaching program with their colleagues for globalization purposes.

4.2. Learning Activities

Let us have a look at how to organize learning activities, bearing in mind we are following the Communicative Approach:

  • Motivation activities (relate the topic with their experience).
  • Oral practice activities (guided dialogues).
  • Oral production activities (role-play).
  • Written practice activities (sound-graph matching).
  • Written production (letters).

5. Evaluation

5.1. Evaluation Criteria

With the evaluation criteria, we will assess the development of the intended objectives. Evaluation is used to check the efficiency of the program design. The evaluation should be done at the learning process, which should be global, formative, and continuous; and at every stage (initial (previous knowledge), continuous (throughout the learning process), and final evaluation (at the end of the didactic units).

5.2. Evaluation Activities

Any activity can become an evaluation activity. The teacher can use a great variety of evaluation techniques: direct observation, direct questions, task analysis, final exams, self-assessment through diary, audio, or video recordings.

6. Assessable Learning Standards

They are specifications of evaluation criteria that allow defining learning outcomes and establishing what students should know, understand, and know how in each subject; they must be observable, measurable, and evaluable and allow graduate performance or achievement. Your design should contribute and facilitate the design of standardized and comparable evidence.

7. Key Competences

Skills to apply the contents of each teaching and educational stage, in order to achieve the appropriate activities and the effective resolution of complex problems in an integrated way. They are:

  • Competence in linguistic communication (CLC)
  • Mathematical and basic competence in science and technology (CMST)
  • Digital and ICT competence (DC)
  • Learning to learn competence (L2L)
  • Social and civic competences (SCC)
  • Sense of initiative and entrepreneurial spirit competence (SIE)
  • Cultural consciousness and expression (CAE)

Conclusion

In this unit, we have seen the importance of planning didactic units in our current educational system. The open and flexible conception of the system turns the teacher into the real designer of the Curriculum. Program design aims at planning teaching practice, to avoid improvisation and rationalize the teachers’ work. Its ultimate goal is for the learner to develop communicative competence in the foreign language.

Bibliography:

  • Anderson, L. W., & Krathwohl, D. R. (Eds.). (2001). Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching, and Assessing: A Revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. New York: Longman.
  • Brewster, J., Ellis, G., & Girard, D. (2002). The Primary English Teacher’s Guide (New ed.). Pearson Education Limited.
  • Byrne, D. (1997). Teaching Oral English. England, UK: Longman.
  • Council of Europe. (2003). Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, teaching, assessment. United Kingdom, U.K: Cambridge University Press.
  • Gardner, H. (2001). Reformulated Intelligence. Multiple Intelligences in XXI Century. Buenos Aires: Paidós.
  • Harmer, J. (2008). The Practice of English Language Teaching (4th ed.). London: Longman.
  • Nunan, D. (2010). Language Teaching Methodology. Anaheim University Press.

Legal Framework:

  • Decree 89/2014, of the 24th of July, which establishes the curriculum for Primary in Madrid.
  • LOE (Organic Law of Education), 2/ 2006 of the 3rd of May.
  • Organic Law for the Improvement in Educational Quality 8/2013, 9th December, LOMCE (BOE 10/12/2013).
  • Royal Decree 126/2014, 28th February, by which the Basic Curriculum of Primary Education is established.

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