Lesson Plan and Commentary

Introduction

Lesson planning is an important aspect in teaching practice. A good lesson plan not only offers the teacher a "map" to follow in order to lead the students into the "destination" (Farrell, 2002:33), but also shows "a level of professionalism" on the part of the teacher (Harmer, 2007:160). There are many a reasons why teachers plan their lessons. There could be, as Farrell (2002) suggests, "internal reasons" such as to build up confidence, to foresee and tackle possible problems; or "external reasons" like to fulfill students' expectations, to meet the requirements of the school (pp. 31). Though varied in forms, an effective lesson plan usually consists of the following elements: description of the students, aims and objectives, procedures, anticipated problems and material to be used in the lesson. This commentary is based on a lesson plan (AppendixⅠ) designed to teach English grammar on the topic of future tenses used in making predictions. It aims at a class of 20 intermediate-level Chinese students in a secondary school. The estimated length of the lesson is around 60 minutes. The plan carries out in sections of aims, assumptions, aids and materials, language items, anticipated problems and procedure. In this commentary, I will describe the lesson plan in further details, examine the teaching techniques and approaches, and try to justify the decisions that made. The commentary is comprised of four three parts: background, procedures, stages and activities and classroom management, basically in the sequence of the lesson planning.

1 Background

There are several background questions to look at before a teacher can actually start to plan the content of a lesson. These questions are crucial to the success of the whole plan. Together they decide to which direction the lesson plan is heading. Precisely, they are aims, assumptions, language analysis and anticipated problems.

1.1 Aims

Setting up the aims is the first decision to make in the lesson planning. According to Scrivener (2005), the most important aim of a lesson, or "main aim" as he put it, is about what the students will have achieved by the end of the class (pp. 124). Therefore, the aims should be set up "from the learner's perspective" (Scrivener, 2005:126).

There are three main aims in the lesson plan, carried out in the form of procedure aims. Firstly, the student will have revised their knowledge of future tense through the warm-up activity. Secondly, students will have a clear understanding of the use and form of "will do" and "going to do" structures, and will be able to distinguish the subtle difference in the meanings of "will do" and "going to do" when used in future prediction by end of the language focus activities. Thirdly, students will have more confidence on the accurate use of "will do", and "going to do" in future prediction through the communicative tasks. In the mean time, the lesson plan also has a sub-aim; that is, the students are expected to practice their oral English and communicative skills through the communicative tasks.

1.2 Assumptions

Assumptions can be vital to the teacher's decision-making in a lesson plan. It is assumed in the lesson plan that the students have learnt about future tense in the previous lessons and have thus been introduced to the forms of "will do", and "going to do". There is no need to emphasize on the language structures using controlled practice. The main focus will therefore be placed on the meaning and the use of the two structures in future prediction, especially the difference in the meanings of the two forms. Another focus will be on the production stage where students are given the opportunity to put what they have learnt into actual use.

1.3 Language analysis

Language analysis is the essential research concerning a particular grammatical done by teachers before they actually teach it (Scrivener, 2005:206). It could be covering aspects of structures, meanings, pronunciations, functions and so forth. Scrivener (2005) also advises that teachers should select one "target sentence" to help them focus on their planning (pp. 206). Since the lesson is about the "will do" and "going to do" structures used in future prediction, two target sentences chosen are:

The economy will get better soon.

It's going to rain tomorrow.

1.3.1 Form

As shown in the above examples, when "will do" and "going to do" structures used to predict the future, the sentence constructions are exactly the same as they used to express other meanings referring to the future:

will do going to do

Positive subject + will + base infinitive subject + to be + going to + base infinitive

Negative subject + will + not + base infinitive subject + to be + not + going to + base infinitive

Questions (question word) + will + subject + base infinitive (question word) + to be + subject + going to + base infinitive

1.3.2 Meaning

Future tense can be use to predict future events. Both "will do" and "going to do" are commonly used structures in making future predictions. There is a slight difference in their usage. The structure "going to do" is actually a present form. It refers to a future event that grows out of current state or cause. Therefore it is used to made predictions which based on the present situation. e.g. Be careful. You're going to break it. When we use "will do", however, our prediction is not necessarily based on current satiation. It could be something we think or guess will happen in the future. Also worth-noting is that the pronunciation for "going to" in conversational English is something like "gonna", especially in the American English.

§Anticipated problems

Teachers also need to anticipate what might go wrong in their lesson to be better prepared for the possible difficulties (Harmer, 2007:157). Although it is not possible to identify every potential problem in the lesson plan, two aspects are suggested for consideration, which is either in terms of language or classroom management (Gower, Phillips, Walters, 1995:178).

Two possible problems are anticipated in this lesson plan. Firstly, it may not be easy