Lesson Plan

Title                : Planning a lesson or a series of lessons

Date                : 10th October 2014

Day                 : Thursday

Trainer           : Peter

Time               : 2.00- 3.30 pm

REPORT

The main aim of the session is to focus on what most learners should know and be able to do at the end of the lesson. This will be very useful for the teachers to guide them on designing the type of tasks for the students. Thus, this step will be very fruitful for the learners to see the flow of the lesson as well as understanding the topic taught in the class in an organized manner.

Edited blog entry

In Peter's class, the students were given a matching activity on science, history and geography. The test of previous knowledge, was very useful in carrying out the lesson. This activity sets the ‘mood’ for the next activity, which is the reading and vocabulary activity.

In the second worksheet, students were asked to read the extracts given in the paper. This activated the momentum of the lesson, whereby students were exposed to more active and passive sentences. Thus, the incorporation of grammar elements enable students to be aware of ‘passive forms’ when it comes to report writing or any science sentences.

Besides that,activities such as group discussions and pair works have helped the participants a lot. We personally think that it is applicable for any level of students, be it weak or advanced students. Thus, the selection of material is very important in making sure the students are following the progress of the lesson.  

REFLECTION

Planning a lesson plan is mandatory for any teachers. Hence, lesson plan is not new to any educators, including myself and my classmates, the Cambridge group.

What was an eye opener for some of us is the concept of CLIL (Content Language Integrated Learning). On Day 1 when the concept of CLIL was introduced, some of us questioned its application in teaching. We are thankful that on Day 3, our tutor, Peter, hit the nail on the head when he showed us some samples of CLIL teaching materials and series of lesson plans from module 9. The teaching materials encompassed both the content knowledge and language features and language skills that learners need to learn. We also discussed and analysed the teaching materials through CLIL 4C's framework (content, communication, cognition and culture). The framework was really helpful as we were able to take note on how CLIL lesson plans & teaching materials work together.

Our next task was to identify the six distinct parts of CLIL lessons in three subjects; History, Geography & Science. There were six distinct parts (learning outcomes, activate prior knowledge, language focus, communicative and cognitive skills and assessment) commonly found in CLIL lesson plans. By identifying the parts, we hope to be able to adopt CLIL lesson plans in the future. No doubt, a great amount of time will have to be invested in planning good CLIL lesson plans as well as selecting & adapting CLIL teaching materials. However, we are personally convinced that it is worth the effort. 

One vital aspect we observed about CLIL is, it is learner-centred. Thus, there is much attention on CLIL contexts and teaching aims ( personal aims and learning outcomes). By carefully planning the learning outcomes through a S.M.A.R.T (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-bound) checklist, our students will indeed benefit greatly from the lesson. On the other hand, CLIL lesson plan encourages reflection on personal aim, hence as lecturers, we would constantly think of areas to improve our teaching skills and strategies.

RECOMMENDATIONS

We thought that the activities in this session were beneficial as we were able to analyse three types of CLIL lesson plans. Besides that, the teaching materials taken from Module 9 were good samples of CLIL materials. We were able to see the progression of simple task to a difficult task. However, we think that the language level is slightly high for the majority of our students. 

In addition, the handout on this session was comprehensive and informative. It summarised concisely many important aspects of CLIL lesson plans. However, we think that more time should be given to discuss 'Aims and Learning Outcomes' based on S.M.A.R.T checklist.