(Paper presented in UGC National Seminar, 2010)
COMMUNICATIVE
LANGUAGE TEACHING
AND
THE IMPORTANCE OF LESSON PLANNING
-
Vijaya
Babu,Koganti
ABSTRACT
The
different methods that emerged in the teaching of the English language
explain the revolutionary changes that occurred in the progress of the
English language teaching ideology. Of
all the methods, namely ‘Grammar Translation Method’ ‘Direct Method’, ‘Oral Method’,
‘Audio-Lingual Method’, ‘Bilingual Method’, etc., the Communicative Language
Teaching (CLT) has become the ‘umbrella’ approach with an accepted
‘norm’. All other methods are teacher
– centered or teacher directed in one way or the other. CLT probes the nature
of social, cultural and pragmatic features of a language and promotes learner
autonomy.
A
good lesson plan with Pre, While and Post activities and in a P-P- P
(Presentation, Practice and Production) Model will make the class situation
and output more interesting and creative. An effective lesson plan guides the
teacher in a step-by-step procedure and helps him achieve his goals.
Though
our experience enables us to plan the steps of our lessons mentally, a
concrete plan in black and white is essential to evaluate the progress of our
lesson, ourselves as teachers, and our students. Especially in the case of a
CLT class with student – centered activities, a carefully planned lesson plan
assumes greater importance.
This
paper attempts to present the steps and intricacies involved in preparing the
lesson plan – especially in the CLT Class and analyse the reasons behind
them. It also tries to offer checklists to make the Student Centered classes
more interesting and communicative.
|
COMMUNICATIVE
LANGUAGE TEACHING
AND THE IMPORTANCE OF LESSON PLANNING
The
different methods that emerged in the teaching of the English language explain
the revolutionary changes that occurred in the progress of the English language
teaching ideology. Of all the methods,
namely ‘Grammar Translation Method’ ‘Direct Method’, ‘Oral Method’,
‘Audio-Lingual Method’, ‘Bilingual Method’, etc., the Communicative Language Teaching
(CLT) has become the ‘umbrella’ approach with an accepted ‘norm’. All other methods are teacher – centered or
teacher directed in one way or the other. CLT probes the nature of social,
cultural and pragmatic features of a language and promotes learner autonomy.
CLT is a generic approach and it lays emphasis
on learning communication through interaction.
Compared to the traditional language methodology, the CLT method gives greater
freedom and scope for the learners to break the circle of bondage as a passive
observer. CLT method, as observed by David
Nunan (1991:279) provides opportunities for learners to focus not only on the
language aspect but also on the ‘process of learning’ it self. It gives us a scope to link class room ‘language
learning’ with ‘language activation’ out side the class room. Changing the role of the teacher as a
dictator, this method shapes the teacher into a facilitator, guide and a mentor.
Students work individually, in pairs and in small groups with selected
authentic, real – life situation materials and case studies. It provides an
opportunity to learn the language through several activities and communicative
events like information gap activities, jigsaw activities, task completion
activities, information gathering activities, opinion sharing activities,
information transfer activities, reasoning gap activities, role plays etc.,
CLT
method can be adopted for teaching a language both in Content-Based Instruction
(CBI) and Task-Based Instruction (TBI) - called in brief the Process – Based
CLT approaches. Though they are described as extensions of the CLT movement,
they take different routes to achieve the goals of CLT. (Jack C. Richards, 2001).
Normally in most of the classrooms, while following Content-Based Instruction
(CBI) content is covered and language focus is ignored, though the content
chosen is prepared around the aspects of grammar, vocabulary, skills, functions
etc., CLT helps teachers to devise a number of lessons/ activities with a focus
on reading, writing, listening and oral presentation skills, and group
discussions as are found in standard course books which are designed to develop
LSRW skills.
Task
– Based Instruction (TBI) focuses on learning a language through ‘pedagogical’
and ‘real world’ tasks like drills, cloze activities, listing, sorting and
ordering, matching, comparing, problem – solving, sharing etc., This
facilitates the teachers to develop their own worksheets abandoning the text
–books.
A
good lesson plan with Pre, While and Post activities and in a P-P- P
(Presentation, Practice and Production) Model will make the class situation and
output more interesting and creative. An effective lesson plan guides the
teacher in a step-by-step procedure and helps him achieve his goals. It helps the
instructor to check where he/she is going wrong and whether he is able to take
his students towards the right perspective as active learners. A well built
lesson plan keeps him confident and comfortable because he has his objectives
well fixed.
It
also makes him to check the supporting activities along with the elements of
Critical Thinking. It is a good driving device to keep all the students
motivated and interested. A lesson without a methodical plan makes the students
passive. Students lose interest and thus the class turns monotonous and
chaotic. A well-designed plan makes the teacher a good classroom manager. When
the students are deeply involved in learning, they don’t have time to
misbehave. This is all possible with a well made lesson plan. Though our
experience enables us to plan the steps of our lessons mentally, a concrete
plan in black and white is essential to evaluate the progress of our lesson,
ourselves as teachers, and our students. Especially in the case of a CLT class
with student – centered activities, a carefully planned lesson plan assumes
greater importance.
What
should go into a lesson plan? Yes. Traditionally we talk about objectives,
procedure and a conclusion. But we must not forget that our lesson has several
things to offer to our students. My experience as a participant in a CTS
(Critical Thinking Skills – ELT) Training Programme from Oregon University made
me realize and learn various aspects of a lesson plan. A good lesson plan,
apart from the topic, level of the students and duration of the lesson, to
teach Communicative ability and Critical Thinking skills should have:
a.
Overarching
Goal of the Lesson
b. Prerequisites (These are assumptions we are making about our
students’ skills, knowledge, and experience for this lesson.)
c.
Instructional
Objectives (based on Bloom’s Taxonomy and Critical
Thinking Strategies with Macro - micro abilities based on the steps and methods
to present the lesson)
d.
Instructional
Procedures (Opening of the Lesson , Closing and
various steps in between with supporting material and activities)
e.
Assessment
(Description
of how we will determine the extent to which students have attained the (critical
thinking) instructional objective(s))
f. Follow-up Activities (Description
of the activities that will be used to extend/reinforce the (critical thinking)
components of this lesson (ex: homework, reviews, activities done in subsequent
lessons, etc.), and which (critical thinking strategies) from the lesson will
these follow-ups target?)
g.
Evaluation
(to
appraise the strengths and weaknesses of this lesson)
h. Self-Assessment (our assessment of our teaching - process/technique
for reflecting on our own teaching of this lesson)
As
the focus of this plan is about improving Critical Thinking Skills, it has a greater
focus on CT Strategies, which require a lot of training and more than that
practice, to develop such a lesson plan. Apart from that, the remaining aspects
are all the same.
Planning Lessons and Courses,
a book by Tessa Woodward (2001) provides a step by step approach to lesson
planning. These steps include
-
Who
are the students?
-
How
long is the lesson?
-
What
can go into a lesson?
-
How
do people learn and so how can we teach?
-
What
can we teach with?
-
How
can we vary the activities we do?
-
Getting
down to the preparation?
-
What
are our freedoms and restraints? ( Woodward, 2001:viii –xiv)
A good lesson plan with communicative
activities and focus on language skills must have the following:
a. Learner Objectives:
b. Language Skills (L/S/R/W) :
c. Grammar Focus:
d. Materials:
e. Preparation:
f. Presentation:
g. Practice:
h. Evaluation :
and
i.
Expansion:
After finalizing the selection of the
topic and the target audience, the Teacher/instructor has to frame the
objectives of the lesson very carefully. The objectives should include the
teaching procedures along with the expected outcome of the lesson. We also need
to observe which language skill –Listening / Speaking / Reading / Writing is
going to be focused; because the activities related to one particular skill may
vary from the other. Then the teacher also has to workout the grammar aspect
that requires special focus. To avoid ambiguity, the teacher must not take
several aspects of grammar for presentation. Then we need to list out the
materials selected for the presentation of the lesson – black/white board, chalk,
markers, charts, cards,handouts/worksheets/text books etc.,
The next step is to focus on the most important parts of
the lesson plan – namely Preparation,
Presentation, Practice, Evaluation and Expansion.
We
have to note down the techniques and methods we take up or plan to prepare the students for the class. We
can elicit their existing knowledge of the topic by using a K-W-L chart.
(What we) Know
|
(What we want to)Want
to Know
|
(What we have)
Learned
|
We can use discussions,
questions, authentic materials, pictures or previous homework/assignment to
review and to elicit their knowledge. Instead of the teacher recapping the
lesson, he/she can use the eliciting technique to promote speaking activity.
The presentation
part should include the linguistic or topical content of the lesson and
relevant learning strategies. We also need to describe the target vocabulary,
target grammar, teacher presentation, student work etc and also the Learner Centered Activities like Brainstorming, Mind mapping, Think – Pair –
Share (TPS) Activities, Info-Gap Activities, and Worksheets /exercises etc,
under the Presentation part. Presentation provides the language input that
gives students the foundation for their knowledge of the language. The input
may be from the instructor or from the text books. Even while using
Content-based text, the instructor can focus on the language/grammar aspect by
using content only as support to sustain interest.
An important part of the presentation is the structured
output, in which the students practice the form presented by the instructor. In
structured output, accuracy of performance is important and though it is not
truly communicative, it makes the learners comfortable to produce language
items that are introduced recently or in the previous classes.
In the next part, i.e, the Practice part, the presentation - focus shifts from the instructor
to the learner. The instructor should
carefully choose/design relevant activities to promote communication using the
structured output. He/she also should observe the activity closely and record
observations whether the chosen activity is communicative, interesting and
productive. We have to take time to plan the Follow-Up activities that
reinforce the learning of the students.
As
the learners are involved, they get busy with the task assigned to them. The
learners work in pairs or in small groups on a topic based task with a specific
outcome. The teacher monitors and helps the students and acts as a resource, as
a facilitator. He /She also ensures that the target language is used during the
completion of tasks.
Surprisingly the structured output of the Presentation
part becomes a communicative output and the class will be abuzz with noise -
the productive noise of the students. The criterion of success is when the
learner succeeds in his/her learning and gets the message across.
Our next part is Evaluation.
Evaluation enables the instructor to monitor individual student comprehension
and learning, and also to observe the strengths and weaknesses of the lesson,
the progress of the lesson, student responses, the need for changing the
steps/activities of the lesson plan, and finally the outcome. It helps to
reinforce the linguistic or topical content that is presented in the class.
Under this part, we have to plan about the strategies we will take up to ensure
the learning of the students. We have to listen, observe and document the
participation of the students in the class. Our follow up activities also help
us to evaluate their learning.
Under Expansion,
we can plan for assignments or project-work to allow the students to apply the
knowledge outside the classroom also. They should be practical and realistic
and must build confidence among learners. Expansion activities also help us to
evaluate and assess the teaching – learning process.
The following Teacher Self-Reflection Checklist (www.teachnet.com) will help us to evaluate our lesson
planning:
- Do I provide students with exemplary models of oral and
written language?
- To what extent does my questioning foster critical and
creative thinking?
- Do I encourage students' questions and curiosity?
- Do I encourage students to rethink, reorganise and
refine their oral and written ideas?
- Am I encouraging students to listen and respond to the
remarks of their peers during large and small groups discussions?
- Am I providing sufficient opportunity and time for
students to work independently, in pairs and in small groups?
- Do I collaboratively structure language and learning
experiences with students?
- Does my classroom environment encourage students to
take risks during speaking and writing activities?
- Do I provide a variety of resources and experiences to
meet the needs of all students?
To what extent do I assist students in setting purposes for reading, in relating material to previous experiences, and in constructing meaning from printed text? - Do I encourage and enable students to access and use a
wide variety of resources?
- Do classroom resources reflect fair, equitable and
accurate portrayals of peoples of different cultures, ages and genders?
- Am I aware of how culture and gender influence
students' interaction and communication styles?
- Do Students see me as one who appreciates and enjoys
reading and writing?
- To what extent are my assessment techniques fair and
appropriate for evaluating progress and for making instructional decisions?
And with a
slight modification the same checklist can be extended to evaluate the
effectiveness of a lesson plan in a CLT class:
- Does the lesson
plan emphasise learning to communicate through interaction in the target
language? And how?
- Does the lesson plan introduce authentic texts into
learning situation? And how?
- Does the lesson plan provide opportunities for
learners to focus not only on the language but also on the learning
process itself? And how?
- Does the lesson plan enhance the learner’s own
personal experience as important, contributing element to classroom
learning? And how?
- Does the lesson plan attempt to link classroom
language learning with language activation outside the classroom? And how?
- Does the lesson plan incorporate learner activities
that include 1) an information gap, 2) a choice and 3) feedback? And how? And how?
- Does the lesson plan provide for more student talk and
less teacher talk, where teacher serves as a facilitator? And how?
The lesson
plan for a CLT class should promote communication through interesting
interactive games and activities. The teacher also has to keep in mind the
Student Talk time and Teacher Talk Time ratio.
A
quick look at the Lesson Evaluation Sheet (prepared during the CLT workshop,
Hyderabad) will make us realize the intricacies involved in planning for a CLT
lesson.
No
|
Area
|
Observations
(Yes/No)
|
1
|
Lesson
Preparation
a) Clear
objectives?
b) Well
planned?
c) Realistic
|
|
2
|
Lesson
Presentation
a) Teacher
Talk Time: Student Talk Time
b) Eliciting?
c)
Dealing with Activities?
|
|
3
|
Classroom
Management
a) Clear
instructions?
b) Time
management?
c) Class
monitoring?
|
|
4
|
Classroom
Atmosphere
a)
All Ss actively involved?
b)
T encourages Ss?
c) Student -Friendly?
d) T sensitive to Ss’
needs?
|
As
teachers we need to remember that we must take time to build effective lesson
plans. Our lesson plan must outline clearly the roles that should be played by
the teachers and students in the class. It is a kind of screenplay. It should
also mention the timeline – the time allotted for preparation, presentation,
practice activities and evaluation. The instructor should realize the
objectives and design activities to promote meaningful communication. The
activities need to correspond with the objectives to make the learners retain
information in an active way. An effective lesson plan helps both the teachers
and the students to move in a correct direction. If we fail to plan, we need to
plan for our failure.
K.Vijaya Babu,
M.A,B.Ed,M.Phil,CTS-ELT(Oregon)
Lecturer in English, ELT Trainer,
Academic Cell,
O/o Commissioner,
Collegiate Education,Hyderabad
References
- Nunan,D., “ Communicative Tasks and the Language
Curriculum”, TESOL Quarterly,
25.2(summer1991): 279-295
- Richards,Jack C and Theodore Rodgers.2001. Approaches and Methods in Language
Teaching. Second Edition, New York: Cambridge University Press.
- Woodward, T.(2001). Planning
Lessons and Courses. Oxford: OUP
Web resources
