Two important factors in a classroom: Planning lessons and methodology

According to Gonzlez and Iluf (2014) Methodology is defined as the teaching

process, in which there are different elements involved, such as: the teachers
performance, the content that is going to be explained, and how the student
acquires this content. Furthermore, to make sure that these elements have a
successful result in our students, there needs to be an organization in these
aspects, coherence in the topics that the teacher is going to develop and the
activities that students are going to do as well. That is why, many teachers
organize their classes through some previous planning, that can benefit the
participants of the classroom. Moreover, this planning includes most of the time:
the aims of the class, the procedure, the objectives of the class, etc. We strongly
believe in the idea that a previous reflection of what the class is going to be about
will only improve the methodology process; that is why the main purpose of this
essay is to state whether our definition about methodology is appropriate and to
explain why we believe that a suitable planning lesson can improve this process.
First of all, there are multiple sources that support our definition, such us:
Scrivener (2005), who claims that Methodology refers to a way of teaching. It has
to do with what language is, how people learn, how teaching helps people learn.
The teacher has to make methodological decisions about the aims of a course,
what to teach, teaching techniques, activity types, ways of relating with students,
ways of assessing. As you can observe, he also claims that methodology is a
teaching process that involves the relationship between the teacher, the content
and the students. We cannot continue with our explanation without mentioning
another term that we believe will make our explanation simpler; we are talking
about the Didactic Triangle

The Didactic triangle is the support of methodology, since it has the three elements
that are fundamental for the teaching process (see in the picture), if one of these
elements is missing, the process will not be completed. Nevertheless, there is one
aspect that is very important in this process and it is not mentioned in this triangle,
we are referring to the context; Paschen, (1979); Knzli, (1998) explain: The
didactic triangle is usually drawn with teacher, student and content as its points.
There are, however, numerous variations depending on how the points are
understood in a larger context where the societal factors are explicitly drawn out. It
is very important to be aware of the background of the learners, to create a good
learning environment; the teacher needs to know the condition in which the
students are, what they know and how we can use this in the teacher favor.
Planning lesson sometimes is a very controversial topic, because is not
something that all teachers do, in terms of organization of the class it could be a
good strategy because it would mean that you are giving time to prepare a class.
A lesson plan requires the aim, the activities, the materials that teacher is going to
use in the class and finally the evaluation. Talking about evaluation, different ways
exist to evaluate if the student is learning or not, like at the end of the class doing
an understanding about what they did during the lesson or it could be with a test
asking different questions about the topic. Harmer (2005) proposes that an
evidence of a lesson plan gives to the students confidence that the teacher is
committed with the class, subsequently, they can feel secure with what they are
learning. On the other hand, a lesson plan can be useful for the teachers because
they will have a help if they lose the objective during the class. Beside, Jensen
(2001) suggests that a lesson plan must have coherence, variety and flexibility in
terms of macro (content) and micro (time) levels. Furthermore, we need to take into
account that planning a lesson can be very useful because of the different
situations that we have in a class, such as the behavior of the student in some
activities. The idea of a lesson plan helps the teacher to make some decisions
about how an activity can be more successful in terms of the elements that he is
going to use to present in the class and also it is related with the physical
environment and if it would affect the material that we would use. Another benefit
that the lesson plan has is that the teacher can feel confidence about what he or
she is teaching. Consequently, the student will be more self-assured about what
they are learning because they realize that teacher knows the topic. In addition to
this, a lesson plan could facilitate the continuity of learning, meaning to connect
activities if there is coherence among them.

Although, many teachers claim that planning a lesson is very important,

sometimes they are not able to do it, since it takes most of their time. We have to
remember that an educator has lots of obligations, like jotting notes on what just
happened in class that you want to remember for next period, tomorrow, or next
year, posting the homework online, responding to parent calls and emails,
attending IEP meetings, making handouts/visuals, organizing manipulative, setting
up the classroom for todays experience and so on. Moreover, there are some
teachers that have to struggle with some misbehaved students that do not care
about the class, this is really unmotivated for the educator to continue the classes
and to plan them, since there will usually be a negative result; as Graham Butt
(2006) claims: Many teachers react to such classes by planning less. Their
reasoning is that because nothing works it is a waste of time and effort preparing
much for such children. Experience tells them that the usual rules no longer applyfor example, that students will only misbehave if they have poor quality teaching
badly planned lessons or insufficiently stimulating activities. Despite of, this type of
situations we suggest that teachers need to create a way to engage their students
and plan their lessons because thus the student will know that they are interested
in teaching and also in their learning and that, it will progress through time. In the
case of misbehaved students, Butts quotes Blum (1998) when he claims: they
often behave badly when lesson are brilliantly planned because they prevent the
teacher from starting properly; they often behave badly because they have poor
skills in the subject areas they are asked to Study (usually literacy and numeracy);
but, most importantly, they often behave badly because they a very thin layer of
motivation and a low level of concentration. Here Blum suggest a challenge that
according to us, can only be solved by a good preparation of the elements that are
going to be used in the classroom, and also to find good strategies that can help
the educator with these type of student. The only time that a teacher can consider
this is at the moment of planning a lesson.

Consequently, as you could observe in our previous explanation, there are

lots of sources that agree with our definition and that share most of the elements
that are very important to complete the teaching-learning process. Moreover, we
know that our society has changed during the history of the world, that is why we
could not omit the importance of what the context means to complete this
procedure. On the other hand, we must highlight the importance of planning a
lesson, since its result will only promote the improvement of the knowledge in the
learner, even though there are some cases in which teachers have to deal with
unmotivated students, planning a class will only give solutions for that type of
situations, but the teacher needs to be committed to his or her class, he or she
needs to know that even though it will take time, a good educator can organize his
or her time in favor of the student. Therefore, we have to declare that we are agree
with the idea of planning a lesson because the student will see the commitment
that teacher has with the class and the interest that exist about the students
learning. Evidently, the methods that the teacher will use in a lesson will influence
the way the student is going to acquire the knowledge that is being given. A
proactive teacher must know the background of the student and thus to create a
good lesson plan, and with all the elements that will be necessary for a successful
knowledge.

References
Butt, G. (2006). Lesson Planning (2da Edition ed., Vol., pp. 50-51). London,
Continuum International Publishing Group.
Correa, R. (2014, August). English Language Methodology [Power point
Presentation]
Harmer, J. (2005). How to teach English: Planning Lessons. Longman: Pearson
Education.
Jensen, L. (2001). Planning Lessons. In Celce-Murcia, Teaching English as a
Second or Foreign Language. (pp.403-413). Massachusetts: Heinle &
Heinle.
P. (2014, 05). Didactic relation in the teaching-studying-learning process.
Recuperado
09,
2014,
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http://www.helsinki.fi/~pkansane/Kansanen_Meri.pdf