PLANNING LESSONS

Abstract

            This paper presents planning lesson. It starts with permendiknas number 22, 23, 24 year 2006 about School Based Curriculum in which it gives chance and freedom for the school and teachers to develop their own curriculum, syllabus and lesson plan though in fact it is unworkable. Therefore, that is the reason of writing this paper. This paper aims at describing lesson plan comprising in five major parts. The first part is the introduction. The next part highlights the pre-planning consisting of four sections: (1) activities, (2) skills, (3) language and (4) content. The tird part elaborates the main issue discussed in this paper the plan dividing into four sections: (1) the planning continuum (2) making a plan consisting of three subsections: 2a.pre-planning background, 2b. Pre-planning decision, 2c.the plan (3) the formal plan serving in four subsections; 3a.class descrption&timetable fit, 3b.lesson aims, 3c.activities, procedures&timing, and 3d.problems&possibilities and (4) planning a sequence of lessons presenting in five subsections; 4a.before&during, 4b.short&long-terms goal, 4c.thematic strands, 4d.language planning and 4e.activity balance. The ways of using lessong plansis is in the fourth part dividing in two sections: (1) action&reaction clarified in three subsections; 1a.magic moments, 1b.sensible diversion, 1c.unforeseen problems and (2) plans as records and research tools. The fifth part presents the example of lesson plans. The conclusion comes in the last part utilizing the previous explanations in investigating the issue discussed in this paper.

Keyword: pre-planning, the plan, using lesson plan, example of lesson plan

INTRODUCTION

Permendiknas number 22, 23, 24 year 2006 on School Based Curriculum (SBC) assigns schools to design, develop, and implement curriculum in accordance with situation, condition, and superiority of local potential. The principles to develop SBS are (1) based on the potential, progress, needs and interests of learners and their environtment; (2) diverse and integrated; (3) responsive to the advancement of science, technology, and art; (4) relevant to the needs of life; (5) comprehensive and continues; (6) life-long learning; (7) the balance between national and regional intersests. Based on these principles, SBC are highly relevant to the concept of decentralization of education in line with the implementation of regional uatonomy and the concept of School Based Management (SBM) including school authonomy. Local goverment can be freer to improvise in improving the quaity of education. School togather with the school commitees were also given authonomy to design their own curriculum appropriate with the needs on the ground. One of the flairures in the implementation of the curriculum in the past is the uniformity of the curriculum from Sabang to Merauke without considering the real situation in the field and disgarding the superiority of local potential. School in the city have the same curricululum with schools in industrial areas with schools in the coastal areas. Thus, the curriculum will be less operational because it does not give sufficient competence for students to develop themselves and their regions.

            Besides those negative sides as mentioned above, SBC also has positive impact, one of them is giving freedom to teachers and schools to create their own curriculum in agreement with the circumstances of students, schools and environmental conditions. Schools together with school commitees can formulate an appropriate curriculum suitable with the needs, circumstances and conditions of the school environment. Schools can coordinate with education stakeholders, for examples in the sectors of industry , handicrafts, tourism, farmers, fisherman, profesional organizations, and so on so that the curriculum made by the school completely in accordance with the needs on the ground.

            Unfortunately, in fact teachers are still used to run teaching learning process as outlined in the syllabus or lesson plan in 1994. Thought given freedom in the present curriculum teachers are not ready yet to take advantages of the flexibility as indicated in School Based C     urriculum.

            With the given authonomy teachers’ creativity should emerge as they can be drafter of writing this essay since it tries to explore lesson plan, especially as revealed by Jeremy Harmer.

            Lesson planning is the art of combining a number of different elements into a coherent whole so that a lesson has an identity which students can recognize, work within, and react to whatever metaphor teachers may use to visualize and create that identity (Harmer, 308). A lesson plan  is a teacher’s detailed description of the course of instruction for an individual lesson. A daily lesson plan is developed by a teacher to duide class instruction. Planning the material is mush more difficult than delivering teach lessons. Planning is when the tea chears look at the curriculum standards and develop the content that matches those standards; they also have to take into consideration the needs of the students they are planning for. The extent of the detail will vary depending on the number of years of experience that the teacher has and the number of time he/she has taught the lesson. Obviously, a teacher with several years of experience may have plans that are much less detailed than beginning teachers. There will be requirements mandated by the school system that employs them regarding their reason sibilities.

            This paper aims at describing lesson plan comprising in five major parts. The first part is introduction. The next part highlights the pre-planning consisting of four sections; (1) activties, (2) skills, (3) language and (4) content. The third part elaborates the main issue discussed in this paper the plan dividing into four sections; (1) the planning continuum, (2) making a plan consisting of three subsections; 2a.pre-planning background, 2b.pre-planning decission, 2c.the plan (3) the formal plan serving in four subsections; 3a.class description&timetable fit, 3b.lesson aims, 3c.activities, procedures&timing, and 3d.problems&possibilities and (4) planning a sequence of lessons presenting in five subsections; 4a.before&during, 4b.short&long terms goal, 4c.thematic strands, 4d.language planning and 4e.activity balance. The way of using lesson plans is in the fourth part dividing in two sections: (1) action&reaction clarified in three subsections; 1a.magic moments, 1b.sensible diversion, 1c.unforeseen problems and (2) plans as records and research tool. The fifth part presents the examples of lesson plans. The conclusion comes in the last part utilizing the previous explanations in investigating the issue discussed in this paper.

PRE-PLANNING

            As stated in the prior part, this division clarifies pre-planning as the first stating point. Before making lesson plan, teachers must consider the language levcel of the students, their educational and cultural background, their likely level of motivation and their different learning styles. They also need the knowledge of the content and organization of the syllabus or curriculum they are working with and the requirements of any exams which the students are working towards.

            To elaborate the pre-planning, this part is divided into four sections revealing the four planning elements are folllows:

1.      Activities

Teacher must consider what students will be doing int he classrooms; make decissions about activities almost indepedently of what language or skills they have to teach.

2.      Skils

Teachers make a decision about which language skills the students develop and need to plan exactly how they are going to work with the skills and what sub-skills to practice

3.      Language

Teachers need to decide what languages to introduce and have the students learn, practice, research or use.

4.      Content

Teachers select content which has a good chance of provoking interest and involvement.

With all of the above features in their mind, teahcers can finally pass all their thinking through the filter of practical reality, where their knowledge of the classroom they work in, the equipment they can use, the time they have avaliable, and the attitude of institution they work in all combine to focus their planning  on what they are actually going to do. Now, this paper is in a position to move from pre-planning to the plan itself.

THE PLAN

            The present allotment serving as the third part of this paper discusses how to make lesson plan as the main issue revealed in this paper. As mentioned in introduction in part one, it is divided into four sections. Having done some pre-planning and made decissions about the kind of lesson the teachers want to teach. They can make the lesson plan. This may take a number of different forms, depending upon the circumtances of the lesson and also on their attitude to plannng continuum as described in the following first section as follows;

1.      The planning continuum

Teacher may do all the (vague) pre-planning in their head and make actual decissions about what to include in the lessons as they hurry along the  corridor to class.

Theachers are following a course book and they do exactly what the book says, letting the book writers, in effect, do their planning for them.

Teachers walk into class with no real idea of what they are doing to do (the so called jungle path) teachers write formal plans for their classes which detail what they are going to do and why, perhaps because they are requiered to do so by some authority.

2.      Maing a plan

Teachers might proceed the following steps of making a plan from pre-planning to  a final plan:

-         Pre-planning beckground: teachers consider the facts that feed into pre-planning decission

-         Pre-planning decision: teachers takes decisions based on the background information.

-         The plan: on the basis of pre-planning decissions teachers now make the plan

3.      The formal plan

When teachers are to be observed and/or as part of a training scheme of for reasons of internal quality control, formal plans are sometimes required.

They should contain some or all of the following examples:

-         Class description and timetable fit:

They tell the teachers who the students are and what can be expected of them, can give information about how the group and how individuals in it behave, teachers need to say where the lesson fits in a sequence of classes (the before and after) and teachers incluced information about how the class has been feeling and what kind of activities they have been involved in (e.g. controlled or communicatives, procedures, and timing.

-         Lesson aims

They must be specific and directed towardsan outcome to be measured and should reflect what the teachers hope the students will be able to do. A lesson will often have more than one aim.

-         Activities, procedures, and timing

The main body of a formal plan lists the activities and procedures in the lesson, together with the times the teachers expect each of them to take. Teachers include the aids they are going go use and show teh different interactions which will take place in the class.

-         Problems and possibilities

A good plan tries to predict potential pitfalls and suggests ways of dealing with him. It also includes alternatives in case teachers find it necessary to divert from the lesson sequence they had  hoped follow

4.      Planning sequemce of lessons

Planning a sequece of lesson is based on the same principles as planning a single lesson, but there are number of additional issues which need to be paid special attention to:

-         Before and during

Lesson plan is only a proposal of what the teachers hope to achieve but in practice inforeseen things are likely to happen during the course of a lesson therefore teachers need revisit it constantly to update it.

-         Short and long-term goals

Students need short and long-term goals in order to motivate them. Teachers need to build for both goals when they plan a sequence of lessons so that they can hope to give their students a staged progression of succesfully met challenges.

-         Thematic strands

It is better for the teachers to carry the themes over more than one lesson, or at least to reappear, so that students perceive some coherent topic strands as the course progresses. By doing so both teachers and students can refer backwards and forwards both in terms of language and also the topics the teachers ask the students to invest time in considering.

-         Language planning:

Teachers’ decision about how to weave the language through the lesson sequence will be heavily influenced by the need for a balance of activities

-         Activity balance

It is one of the features which will determine the overall level of student involvement in the course. It will also provide the widest range of experience learning styles of the students in the class

            The prior part of this paper hs elaborated the was how to make a lesson plan, in the present part how to use the lesson plan is further described by considering actioan and reaction and also plans as records and research tools.

USING THE LESSON PLAN

            Reffering to the above explanations on the ways how to make lesson plans, this part examines how to use lesson plans assuming however carefully the teachers plan and whatever form their plan takes, they still have to use that plan in the classroom and use their plan as records of learning for refference.

1.      Action and Reaction

Teachers’ proposal for action, transformed into action in the calssroom, is bound to evoke some sort of student reaaction, they then have to decide how to cope with that reaction and whether they can continue with their plan or whether they need to modify it as they go along.

A number of reasons why teachers may need to modify their proposal for action once a lesson is taking place are as follows:

-         Magic moments

Teachers have to recognize them when they come along and then take a judgment about whether to allow tjem to develop, rather than denying them life because they do not fit into their plan

-         Sensible diversion

 Teachers take the opportunity to teach language that has suddenly come up, similarly, something might occur to them in terms of nection which they suddenly want to develop on the spot.

-         Unforeseen problems

Often crop up teachers’ plan and cause them to move away from their plan, whether this is a temporary or permanent state of affairs

2.      Plan as records and research tools

Written plans are not just proposals for future action but also records of what has taken place, if teachers have time to record how they and the students experienced the lesson, reflecting carefully on successful activities or less successful activities, not only this will help them to use the same activities again, but it will also lead them to think about how they teach and consider changes in both activities and approach, lesson planning in this way allows them to act as their own observers and aids them in their own development.

The above part has examined how to use lesson plan by considering action and reaction and plan as records and research tools. In the next part, this paper presents example of planning, making and using lesson plan.

           

EXAMPLE OF LESSON PLAN

Subject             : Language Arts

Grade               : Grade 1

Topic               : Words and Actions

Content            : Vocabulary Involving Key Classroom words

Goals

            Students will be able to identify important objects in the classroom. They will also be able to understand common directions given to them in the classroom. Students will be able to ask permission to leave the classroom.

Objectives:

            Given a set of pictures of objects in the classroom, the students will match the picture to the object by placing the picture next to the object. After listening to a direction given by the teacheer, the students will follow that direction by correctly completing the action.

Materials:

            Oxpord Picture Dictionaries indext cards markers

Introduction :

            Through questioning, teacher will establish student’s prior knowledge of common directions (please take out a pencil)

Development :

            Using the picture dictionary as a reference teacher will model the appropriate action. Students will use their own dictionaries to follow along. As students become comfortable, they can model the appropriate actions as they say each word

Practice

            Students will repeat the vocabulary after the teacher while looking at the picrtures, or the  actual object. Students will work with a partner asking each other question about the  classroom and giving each other instruction in English

Checking for Understanding

            Listen to the children pronounciation the vocabulary. Ask the students to act out the given instructions (TPR)

Closure

            Review the vocabulary words. Assign practice work at home

            The above explanation highlights the example of lesson plan. The conclusion of the issue revealed in this paper comes in the following part as follows:

CONCLUSION

            The chalanging question asking why teachers learning process as outlined in the syllabus or lesson plan in 1994 thought given freedom in the present curriculum and why they are not ready yet to take advangtages of the flexibility as indicated in School Based Curriculum is the basis of writing this paper since it tries to explore lesson plan, especially those as revealed by Jeremy Harmer. With the given autonomy, teachers’ creativity should emerge as they can be drafter of writing their own lesson plans. But infact, teachers still find many difficulties in doing so. This inspiring phenomenon drives the writer of this paper to learn more about how to plan, make and use lesson plans correctly.

            From the explanations explored in the previous parts we can learn that it is not an easy task for teachers to write lesson plans because they have to consider elements such as their knowledge of the students and syllabus or curriculum they are working exams the students are working towards. This paper focuses more on the lesson plan itself and how to plan, make and use it in class.

In the prior parts, this paper has examined lesson plans in general and specifically how to plan, make, use and also the examples of them. It starts with the pre-planning in which teachers have to take into account a number of crucial factors such as activities, skills, language and content that they plan to do in class. The plan as the core issue investigated in this paper follows the discussion by exploring the planning continuum, making a plan, the formal plan and planning a sequence of lessons. In making plan teachers might proceed pre-planning background, pre-planning decisions and making the plan clas description and timetable fit, lesson amis and activities, procedures and timing are covered in the formal plan. The next section explores planning a sequence of lessons consisting of before&after, short&long terms goals, thematic strands, language planning and an activity balance. To have more understanding ends with using lesson plans where teachers must pay attention to actioan and reaction such as magic moments, sensible diversion and unforeseen problems and also how to make use of the plan as records and research tools. Since many perhaps majority of teachers still facing obstacles in making lessson plan, an example of lesson plan is also served this paper. The conclusion of planning lesson as examined in this paper is that teachers should always improve themselves academically so that they can perform their best in the teaching learning process in class. They need to attend many teachers trainning to enlarge their knowledge to be able to help their students. It also important for them to develop their competence in administrative stuff such as writing lesson plans in order to be able to organize the class properly as assigned by the central govermment because local govermments can be freer to imporvise in improving the quality of education now. Pun, sekolah bersama komite sekolah diberi otonomi menyusun kurikulum sendiri sesuai dengan kebutuhan di lapangan. Schools together with the school committies were also given autonomy to design their own curriculum appropriate with the needs on the grounds. Therefore, it is a good chance for teachers to practive theri capability in facing the challenges in their own schools. One of the examples is by conducting ethno pedagogy as proposed by Alwasilah in which teachers can make use of the local wisdom, knowledge and culuture in disigning the class instructions. Hopefully this short paper can inspire teachers to be readier in carrying in their big responsibility in preparing their students in the real word.

REFERANCES

Alwasilah, A. Chaedar, at all. Etnopedagogi. PT. Kiblat Buku Utama. 2009

Harmer, Jeremy. The Practice of English Language Teaching. Person Educated. Limited. 2001

CURRICULUM VITAE

            Purwati, S.S., M.Hum Works as a lecturer of English Educational Program, Faculty of Teacher Trainning, Galuh University.