{"id":610,"date":"2012-05-28T00:49:54","date_gmt":"2012-05-28T00:49:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/?p=610"},"modified":"2012-05-28T00:49:54","modified_gmt":"2012-05-28T00:49:54","slug":"how-important-is-lesson-planning-scott-thornbury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/2012\/05\/28\/how-important-is-lesson-planning-scott-thornbury\/","title":{"rendered":"How important is lesson planning? – Scott Thornbury"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Scott<\/a>How important is detailed lesson planning?<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

Because you\u2019re probably expecting me to answer the question in the negative, and because I love surprising people, I\u2019ll answer it like this:<\/p>\n

VERY important \u2013 if you\u2019re a new teacher, faced with all the unpredictability, spontaneity and simultaneity of the classroom zoo. It\u2019s HELL in there, and your lesson plan is like a magic charm that will protect you from being eaten alive. Your very detailed lesson plan allows you to navigate a safe path through the jungle. BUT, however detailed, however carefully thought out, it\u2019s not foolproof. There will come a point \u2013 very early on in your career, probably \u2013 when, as the Scots poet, Robbie Burns put it: \u201cthe best laid plans of mice and men\/ gang aft agley\u201d. That is to say: stuff happens! So you need to learn to adapt your plan, maybe even abandon it.\u00a0 It\u2019s not even a case of having a plan B. Or C. Or D. There comes a point when you just have to think on your feet.<\/p>\n

VERY important \u2013 if you\u2019re participating in some kind of training program, and especially if you\u2019re going to be observed. A detailed lesson plan is a must \u2013 and it\u2019s also very revealing evidence as to the quality of your pre-lesson decision-making. You can tell a lot about a teacher by looking at their lesson plan. How realistic are the objectives? How logical is the staging? How varied are the activities? How plausible is the timing? And so on. But, again, just because you have planned it like that, doesn\u2019t mean it will go like that. Just as chess-players can\u2019t predict their opponent\u2019s first move, you can never be sure how your class will respond to your plan on the day. A skilled observer will be looking at how you monitor the effectiveness of your plan \u2018in flight\u2019 \u2013 and how you modify it, where appropriate.<\/p>\n

NOT so important \u2013 if you have a coursebook and accompanying teacher\u2019s guide that does it all for you. But even the best coursebooks were never written specifically for your particular class on that particular day, so you will need to select, adapt and supplement \u2013 maybe a little, maybe quite a lot. besides, an over-reliance on the coursebook will result in lessons of a certain sameness and even blandness.<\/p>\n

NOT so important \u2013 when you\u2019ve been teaching for a while and have developed a fluent set of classroom management skills and activity routines. I\u2019ve always maintained that when you start teaching it\u2019s 90% planning and 10% management. But for an experienced teacher, it\u2019s 10% planning and 90% management. Like cooking, you start off following the cookbooks faithfully, until you start acquiring some reliable cooking skills and intuitions, and you can start to improvise successfully.<\/p>\n

NOT so important \u2013 in fact impossible, when you\u2019re asked to substitute for another teacher, or to take over a class at short notice. I had to do this a lot as a fairly new teacher in a school in Egypt, and I learned very quickly how to manufacture a lesson out of very little \u2013 a single visual aid, or a short dictated text. These skills were invaluable, not only because I learned how to be resourceful and to get maximum benefits out of minimal materials, \u00a0but also because I discovered how much the learners can contribute to the content and flow of the lesson \u2013 if you trust them.<\/p>\n

COMPLETELY unimportant \u2013 if, having developed a set of effective management skills and teaching routines, having experienced what it\u2019s like to think on your feet, having learned how to be resourceful with very little, and above all, having learned to trust your learners, you are ready to fly on your own \u2013 and without a detailed flight plan. It\u2019s then that you\u2019ll experience the (almost) unbearable lightness of teaching.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How important is detailed lesson planning? Because you\u2019re probably expecting me to answer the question in the negative, and because I love surprising people, I\u2019ll answer it like this: VERY important \u2013 if you\u2019re a new teacher, faced with all the unpredictability, spontaneity and simultaneity of the classroom zoo. It\u2019s HELL in there, and your … Continue reading How important is lesson planning? – Scott Thornbury<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":42,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lesson-planning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}