Lesson Planning - Part 9 - Correction
When our answers are not correct then, obviously, they need to be corrected but it is quite important that we go through a process of correction that will help students. Quite often they've made a mistake simply because of something like reading the incorrect answer out or misrepresenting what they've actually written down. So, always give the opportunity when a mistake has been made for the student to self-correct first. We can often do this in a nonverbal way to show them that they're not actually correct. We might repeat back what they've said to us in a questioning manner or we may just make a gesture to make sure that they understand that they're not correct. So, we allow for a process of self-correction. It may be that the student has actually got the answer wrong and so we move on from there. Is there somebody in the class who can give us the correct answer? So moving on to peer correction. Again, it may be possible but that we're not able to get the correct answer from anybody in the class and then we can step in a teacher. So, the teacher will correct. So, we actually go through a process of allowing them to correct themselves if possible. If they can't, can one of their peers correct them and if they can't, the teacher corrects. It is important that we go through this process and that we don't just immediately go into teacher correction. "John, no, that"s wrong. The answer is X Y or Z." Try to allow this process to take place. In conclusion to this particular presentation, we thought about how we can go about planning an individual ESA lesson plan. Obviously, when we're teaching, we're going to be needing to plan for every day or every other couple of days with any particular class. So, we have to create a sequence of lessons. Just a couple of things to consider when you're doing your lesson planning for a sequence. Firstly, what are the goals or the aims of this particular course that you're teaching? Does it lead to an examination? Is there a particular syllabus that you have to cover and is there a particular route through that syllabus? So, when you're planning a sequence of lessons, have a look at what the students are supposed to be able to do by the end of your course in terms of the syllabus and any examination that's taking place. Whilst we may be working towards some particular end, it is important that when planning a sequence of lessons that we remain flexible. In other words, can we adjust that sequence to their needs? We may say that I'm planning two particular lessons on the present continuous but the students are finding difficulty with it. Is it possible within your sequencing to allow for three or maybe even four lessons and will that still fit into the overall scheme of things? Finally, it's important to add some variety into the teaching and quite often within all of these requirements, there will be the actual skills that the students have to pick up and those will be the productive skills and receptive skills. So, make sure that all the elements of speaking, writing, reading and listening are covered in your overall sequence of lessons. So what we've covered here are the reasons why we plan, how to go about planning, what should actually be inside it and we've also covered an actual lesson plan to show you how it's filled out. Hopefully, by planning your lessons, you will give yourself a clearer focus as to where your classes are going and it will present much more straightforward classes to your students.
Below you can read feedback from an ITTT graduate regarding one section of their online TEFL certification course. Each of our online courses is broken down into concise units that focus on specific areas of English language teaching. This convenient, highly structured design means that you can quickly get to grips with each section before moving onto the next.
