Lesson plan

LESSON PLANNING

To plan a lesson is similar to the processes of cooking a recipe, planning a party or a graduation. All of the before mentioned require to consider three basic aspects: Intended audience, age, and aim. Once these aspects are considered, we move on to prepare all the elements and details for offering our audience a good learning experience. It should be noted that the most important component of a lesson plan is the learning aim, thus, in this planning, we have to select, make decisions, organise and follow a series of procedures that permit us to reach such goal.

Planning a lesson can be simple and enjoyable. We only have to imagine we are preparing a great party in which all the guests will be delighted on learning English and will activate their communicative competences and improve their five skills (listening, reading, writing, speaking and interacting with culture). Then, as promised, here there are two presentations that will guide you this process:

Lesson planning is thinking ahead of time and taking into account the communicative competencies, learning aims and leaning factors. A lesson plan is like the score for an orchestra director. Teachers are like directors in a class, and a lesson plan is like the tool we have in our hands to guide the EFL learners' orchestra. Just remember that this core can be composed by being a reflective person and by strictly answering to the following sequence of WH- questions: Who? What? How long? Why? How? Where? and When?

Lesson Planning

To plan a lesson is similar to the processes of cooking a recipe, planning a party or a graduation. All of the before mentioned require to consider three basic aspects: Intended audience, age, and aim. Once these aspects are considered, we move on to prepare all the elements and details for offering our audience a good learning experience. It should be noted that the most important component of a lesson plan is the learning aim, thus, in this planning, we have to select, make decisions, organise and follow a series of procedures that permit us to reach such goal.

Planning a lesson can be simple and enjoyable. We only have to imagine we are preparing a great party in which all the guests will be delighted on learning English and will activate their communicative competences and improve their five skills (listening, reading, writing, speaking and interacting with culture). Then, as promised, here there are two presentations that will guide you this process:

Helping with lesson planning talk

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Planning lesson based on questions

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Lesson planning is thinking ahead of time and taking into account the communicative competencies, learning aims and leaning factors. A lesson plan is like the score for an orchestra director. Teachers are like directors in a class, and a lesson plan is like the tool we have in our hands to guide the EFL learners' orchestra. Just remember that this core can be composed by being a reflective person and by strictly answering to the following sequence of WH- questions: Who? What? How long? Why? How? Where? and When?

Cultural awareness

The world nowadays has become a much smaller place.  Globalisation, travelling for knowing other cultures or performing academic activities, or even settling down in search of job opportunities and/or better living conditions are aspirations that are making part of many people’s life projects.  As a result of this way of thinking, one aspect has emerged: the necessity of having an effective communication and understanding with people of other cultures. In other words to have “cultural competence” is a necessity these days.

When a person has activated his/her cultural competence, s/he can interrelate with foreign people by understanding their cultural characteristics and by even changing their prejudices to have wide and open-minded perceptions, thoughts and feelings towards the target culture(s) of interaction. Nevertheless this competence is not born by magic. It is here where cultural awareness plays an important role in the development of cultural competence. To be conscious of the fact that our own culture and other cultures have cultural values, differences, similarities or connections that can nurture our relations helps us be culturally competent.

To activate our cultural awareness is not only a mission for foreign language learners but also for foreign language teachers. These latter individuals are educators and mediators of the language they are teaching and thus representatives of the culture the language subject of teaching. Therefore, as we have seen in class, it is important to have in minded the following notions and recommendations included in the slide presentation below:

Cultural awareness & the EFL classrooms

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Now, let me propose you an exercise. Let us have a virtual travel to the London in the United Kingdom and New York in the United States by using the pictures embedded in the following slide presentation. 

London and New York

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After that inspirational trip, let us analyse these Anglo-Saxon cultures by asking the following questions: What are the demographical, economical, technological, architectural, academic, religious, social and behavioural characteristics of these Anglo-Saxon cultures? How can we relate those characteristics to our own culture? How do we see these Anglo-Saxon cultures at the end?

If you want to share your answers, you can submit them by filling in the following form:

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Interesting articles

These articles have to do with topics that have been discussed and covered in class. 

The first one has to do with an element that is embedded in our written and spoken language: Grammar. To know how to use it improves tremendously our capacity to produce accurate and understandable outcomes. Such article explains that memorising a list of rules is not needed since grammar can be learnt in a natural way. How to do it? Just take a look at this short but useful article that can guide us to modify our learning habits and enjoy more of learning and teaching grammar. Moreover, we can go beyond and read other further and related readings.

Article on grammar and vocabulary   what not to do

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The second article has to do with some issues that might be present when teaching at any learning scenario: Feedback and discipline. Part of our professional performance as teacher is to analyse the students' learning process. Each students has a different way to learn and to be orientated in order to get awareness and the things that can be improved. It is in this case in which feedback plays an important role. A good feedback is always enriching and beneficial. And, speaking of beneficial things, nothing is compared to study in a quite and comfortable environment, then discipline comes into the arena to help us provide a proper environment for learning. Enjoy therefore, the following presentation:

Feedback to learners & discipline

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Online and free solutions for checking grammar mistakes

Do you feel that sometimes you need a final revision for your written text? Don't you have anyone to revise them? Don't get despaired! The internet can help you with two options that can  detect plagiarism and give you general feedback on your writing.

Paper Rater - Fill in the space, choose the appropriate options and click on "get report" to start receiving your revision results. Review your title if necessary, change the traces of detected plagiarised text, correct the spelling, follow the grammar suggestions, receive scores on bad phrase and transitional words, get a feedback on style and obtain a vocabulary score at the end. Besides diagnosing and measuring your written texts, Paper Rater gives you recommendations to boost your vocabulary and if you like what you get, you can share it on Facebook.

Grammar check - If you want to have a slight revision of your text, you can paste your written product on the table and click on the check mark. You will receive feedback instantaneously. You can also use the "grammar check" widget that is embedded on the right side of this blog.