by Estefania » Thu Aug 29, 2013 12:05 pm
Unit 2_Planning a unit of work-8. Discussion topics
1. I think it’s Deniz’s planning style since I teach in a secondary school. My students have 3 hours per week. When planning, I pay attention to the aims of the lesson, but I always try to connect the contents to the previous and later units. I think that it is important to follow a logic but it is also important to surprise students with something. I usually present vocabulary and/or grammar in context. From there, students discover the points to deal with in a text and/or a listening activity and they practice by producing (sentences, guided text, dialogue…). From then on, the unit is developed by practicing and deepening into the contents gradually. The last step is the listening comprehension of more extensive texts and the production of my students when speaking and writing a text. For homework, they do different types of tasks (focused on vocabulary, grammar, reading, writing, listening…).
2. I think that the most important qualities when planning a unit of work are logic, since the contents must the introduced gradually and in an interconnected way, variety in order to motivate students with different types of activities and tasks relevant for them, and possibility of improvisation, since in an English class students are continuously interacting and maybe at a point of the lesson, something that we didn’t plan may arise and give place to an interesting part of the lesson where students are practising or discovering something new.
3. When I plan a lesson, I try to plan in advance a series of lesson to interconnect them, I start with the aims, I combine the coursebook and other materials (other books, extra-material, websites, videos and extra-listening…). I think that planning in great detail is difficult because I know that I cannot control everything that will happen in the actual classroom, when the teaching-learning process is flowing. I must be ready for improvisation.
4. I would tell this new teacher that s/he should relax, look for specific things to do according to the aims of his/her lesson and be ready to change and adapt all the material in class, depending on the dynamics of the students.
Unit 2_Planning a unit of work-8. Discussion topics
1. I think it’s Deniz’s planning style since I teach in a secondary school. My students have 3 hours per week. When planning, I pay attention to the aims of the lesson, but I always try to connect the contents to the previous and later units. I think that it is important to follow a logic but it is also important to surprise students with something. I usually present vocabulary and/or grammar in context. From there, students discover the points to deal with in a text and/or a listening activity and they practice by producing (sentences, guided text, dialogue…). From then on, the unit is developed by practicing and deepening into the contents gradually. The last step is the listening comprehension of more extensive texts and the production of my students when speaking and writing a text. For homework, they do different types of tasks (focused on vocabulary, grammar, reading, writing, listening…).
2. I think that the most important qualities when planning a unit of work are logic, since the contents must the introduced gradually and in an interconnected way, variety in order to motivate students with different types of activities and tasks relevant for them, and possibility of improvisation, since in an English class students are continuously interacting and maybe at a point of the lesson, something that we didn’t plan may arise and give place to an interesting part of the lesson where students are practising or discovering something new.
3. When I plan a lesson, I try to plan in advance a series of lesson to interconnect them, I start with the aims, I combine the coursebook and other materials (other books, extra-material, websites, videos and extra-listening…). I think that planning in great detail is difficult because I know that I cannot control everything that will happen in the actual classroom, when the teaching-learning process is flowing. I must be ready for improvisation.
4. I would tell this new teacher that s/he should relax, look for specific things to do according to the aims of his/her lesson and be ready to change and adapt all the material in class, depending on the dynamics of the students.
