Lesson Plan Development Based on English as a Foreign Language (EFL) Model

Subject: Education
Pages: 8
Words: 2128
Reading time:
9 min
Study level: Undergraduate

Introduction

Teachers may possibly question ” which technique they ought to implement’ before the commencement of teaching in a classroom. This generally means that educators must plan their classrooms teaching method. Most educators employ the use of daily, per term, and periodical component of lesson planning (Yinger, 1980). An effective lesson plan starts with appropriate and clearly written objectives. An objective is a description of learning outcome. Objectives describe the destination the students will reach.

The study of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) offers actual examples of the characteristics of SI that can improve and develop teachers’ instructional pattern (Nunan, 1999). The procedure comprises 30 points classified into three major parts: Preparation, Instruction, and review/Assessment. The six points under Preparation analyse the lesson planning method, including the language and content objectives, the use of additional materials, and the quality of having great value or significance of the activities, while, instruction handles building backgrounds (Tharp, & Waxman, 2004, p. 32).

The EFL theory was formulated to create cohesiveness in the training of sheltering instruction and examining to determine accuracy, or quality of ELLS’ success in educational achievement when properly carried out. It comprises eight components: (1) lesson preparation, (2) building background, (3) Comprehensible input (4) strategies (5) interaction, (6) practice/application, (7) lesson delivery and (8) review/assessment (Echevarria, Vogt, & Short, 2008).

EFL presents teachers the chance to plan and express instruction clearly or formally in words for ELLs that is grade-appropriate (Harmer, 2007).

Development of the EFL Model

In order to offer teachers with an organizational underlying structure for planning and delivering efficient sheltered content lessons for students (English learners), the EFL Model was developed and considered in detail (Richards and Renandya, 2006). The acronym EFL stands for English as a Foreign Language, a study instrument planned for teachers, administrators, supervisors, and coaches to rate the degree to which the eight parts and thirty characteristics of the Model is carried out in sheltered content lessons. The prospect is that the instruction express clearly or formally in words to language minority students are in English (or the individual language of instruction), with language that a person has spoken from earliest childhood support, especially for beginning speakers, as needed and available (Echevarria, Vogt, & Short, 2008).

EFL is a research-based model for sheltered instruction. It has shown through empirical observation that teachers who are appropriately trained in this model can make an important difference in the academic success of ELLs.

Sheltered instruction is also said to be the most significant instruction new device or process resulting from study and experimentation since the 1970s, mainly because it covers the needs of secondary students.

The plan was first introduced in the early 1980s by Stephen Krashen as a method to use second language skills and strategies while teaching content area instruction. The technique trains academic topic and its related vocabulary, concepts, and skills by using language and context to make the Knowledge acquired through study, experience or instruction understandable (Echevarria and Graves, 2003, p.53).

Modern research studies (Centre for Applied Linguistics, 2007) have established that language group of students who differ racially or politically from a larger group in classes with EFL -trained teachers do better than comparison groups with teachers unskilled in the model. High implementing teachers (always scoring 75% or more of the features on the EFL practice during lesson observations) had the uppermost performing students on consistent assessments. Low Implementation was identified as scoring 50% or lower of the features on the EFL practice (Short, Vogt, & Echevarria, 2009).

Efl Lesson Plan

  • SUBJECT: English Language
  • LANGUAGE FOCUS: Reading
  • Class: students aged “9 to 11” years old
  • LESSON 1 Length of lesson 45 mins
  • LESSON TOPIC: Reading and understanding of Poem
  • OBJECTIVES: To teach students how to skim for main idea of the passage-identify key words.

Prior Knowledge: Students have learned how to information by reading and finding the main sentence of each paragraph.

Language: Students will:

  • Define and train the use of new lexemes (words) and phrases visually as well as in writing.
  • Students will read about the Harlem Renaissance and speak about it

Materials: Students will use:

  • Reading materials
  • Overhead projectors
  • Whiteboard
Step Time Task (Teacher) Task (Pupils) Interaction Purpose
1 5-10 Mins Opening:
The T Introduces the topic of poetry. T then asks Ss to write down as many different kinds of poems on the white board within 3 Mins
Listen:
Students call out the difficult words to the poem as the Teacher writes them on the board.
Meanings
(T- Teacher; Ss- Students)
Arouse interest. Activate schemes for Poems.
2 5-7 Mins T Distributes handouts of different poems, T asks Ss to read it aloud
T asks each Ss to recite the poem one after the other.
Ss read the handout and the poem aloud. Ss reads out poem individually to the T.
Ss check their understanding of the poem and pronunciation
Focus attention of Ss on the concept of skimming for general gist with authentic materials.
3 15 Mins T tells Ss that they just practiced skimmed to get the general meaning or gist of a passage. T gives another handout on poem from textbook. T asks Ss to recite and search for vocabularies and writes them on board. T then explains how key words can be searched using dictionaries. Ss read the handout and recites the poem

Ss call out the difficult words to the T

Ss guides with the vocabulary.

Getting Ss to read passage quickly to get the overall meaning.
4 5 Mins T summarizes the importance of reading a passage quickly first in order to get the gist. T gives homework of reading the next day’s newspaper’s front-page story and writing them down the gist of the story in 4 sentences.
Follow-Up:Next Lesson: To teach the students to find the main idea of passage by scanning.
Ss listens To remind Ss what they have just done and how-to develop Ss cognitive awareness.

Poem

I am weaving a song of waters,
Shaken from firm, brown limbs,
Or heads thrown back in irreverent mirth.
My song has the ush sweetness
Of moist, dark lips
Where hymns keep company
With old forgotten banjo songs.
Abandon tells you
That I sing the heart of race
While sadness whispers
That I am the cry of a soul….
(Honey, 2006, p. 6).

EFL lesson plan for students aged “9 to 11” years old

To create an EFL lesson plan for all grade level, the teacher must possess the qualities stated below:

  1. Morphological – understanding of words and vocabulary, as well as the role of each word to the extent that parts of speech are related (nouns, adjectives, adverbs etc) (Willis, 1996).
  2. Syntactic – psychological result of learning and reasoning of how words mix in a language to be able to understand and recognize significant well-formed information that will let student to decide the elements of equation in the accurate order.
  3. Phonological/Phonetics – psychological result of learning and reasoning of how words are pronounced, if students are expected to be able to verbally communicate their answer to the rest of the class (Ellis, 2003).
  4. Semantic – psychological result of learning and reasoning of the meaning of words.

Lesson Preparation: Content and Language Objectives

During lesson preparation, when EFL-trained teachers prepare to deliver sheltered instruction, they must formulate both language and content objectives for each lesson to support ELL’s language development. These objectives need to be clearly defined and aligned with adopted state standards for both content and language (Bruton, 2002).

High implementing EFL teachers incorporate the following components and features into content lessons. It is important to note that we define ‘lesson’ somewhat loosely. A first grade teacher (children’s ages of 6-7) may teach lessons that last 15-20 minutes or less. We would expect to see the thirty EFL features incorporated throughout the day in an elementary classroom, in varying degrees in different content subjects: phonics, spelling, reading comprehension, writing, social studies, science, and mathematics. In the intermediate grades (ages 8-12), content lessons may last 30-40 minutes or more, and within each lesson we would expect to see most of the EFL features as appropriate and relevant. In the secondary grades (13-18), a lesson may be planned for two or three fifty-minute time periods. When the EFL model is implemented in a school, it is of critical importance that fidelity to the Model’s components and features is of the highest priority (Echevarria, Vogt, & Short, 2008). What follows are the eight components and thirty feature of the EFL models as they are worded on the EFL protocol. A brief explanation follows each component.

When putting together language goal intended to be attained for EFL Lessons, educators establish key content vocabulary and concept words and phrases essential for understanding the content: consider language functions students will apply in the lesson decides which language particular course of action are required to carry out the lesson’s activities (reading, writing, listening, speaking). Identify potential grammar or language composition connections; consider the assignments students have to complete and any firmly enclosed language and research possible language learning strategies (e.g. the use of past tense in history classes; the importance of following directions in sequence in science, etc) (Mitchell and Myles, 2004, Nation, 1989, and Gibbons, 2002)

Building Background

Concept clearly related to students’ backgrounds and accumulation of knowledge or skill that results from direct participation in events or activities.

Links clearly made to precedent learning to lesson concepts (Cook, 1989).

Fundamental vocabulary draw attention to (e.g. introduced, written, repeated, and highlighted for student to see)

A student’s awareness of the world-presents a basic for understanding, learning and recollection of information and ideas found in texts. Students from culturally different backgrounds may find it difficult to understand texts and concepts because of a difference in plan (Zamel, 1983, Rutherford, 1987).

Comprehensible Input

Language is without much difficulty gained when various essential component or elements are present: Clear messages the student can comprehend; exciting and significant lessons; instruction that adopts normal language patterns; contribution provided in adequate measure; and proper supervision of mistakes more than correction raises student anxiousness (Hedge, 2000).

Strategies

In the limits of the EFL Model, learning strategies are distinct as conscious, flexible plans students apply to support comprehension so as to make sense of what is read and learned. Learning strategies stays in the learner’s head, as distinguished from instructional strategies, that are techniques, approaches, and processes that educators use while teaching (Grabe 1991).

Theories like English as a Foreign Language (EFL) plan are sheltered instruction models. They make active the previous knowledge of the student, offer support for developing educational skills and language, offer manipulative for active participation learning, provide ample time to create output and incorporate real assessment. Sheltered instruction principles and methods of instruction are based on the CBI model. A model of sheltered instruction, EFL (Echevarria, Vogot, & Short, 2008) was formulated to present an approach for teachers to consistently put into practice instructional qualities for improving the academic success of ELLs. The EFL model was formed to help pre-service educators build up an effective foundation in sheltered instruction, to support practicing educators in beefing up their lesson planning and delivery, and to give students with more regular instruction (Willis and Willis, 2007).

The EFL has also established beyond doubt to be a valuable instrument for supplying critical assessment or suggestions to improve performance to teachers and centring their self-reflection. Beside, site-based supervisors can use the EFL to teach and assess teachers. The EFL is planned for flexibility and tested in an extensive range of classroom situations, including those with ELLs only and those with a mix of native and foreign English speakers, classrooms with students who have firm educational backgrounds and those with students who have had inadequate conventional schooling (Harmer, 2001, Beglar and Hunt 2002).

The EFL presents physical examples of the features of lesson instruction that develops teacher’s instructional practice. Thirty items, grouped into three main sections like preparation, instruction, and review assessment, and to form the code of correct conduct. One of the most widely acknowledged methods for teaching learning strategies to ELLs are the Cognitive Academic Learning Approach (CALLA). CALLA is an instructional model for content and language learning that establishes broad use of learning strategies as it prepares ELLs for content area instruction in all English classrooms (Prodromou, 2007).

In conclusion, there is focus on the daily lesson planning decisions that most language teachers face. Because we all have different styles of teaching, and therefore planning, the suggestions in this chapter are not meant to be prescriptive. Teachers must allow themselves flexibility to plan in their own way, always keeping in mind the yearly, term and unit plans. As Bailey (1996) points out, a lesson plan is like a road map ‘ which describes where the teacher hopes to go in a lesson.

Reference List

Bailey, K. M. (1986) The best-laid plans: Teachers’ in-class decisions to depart from their lesson plans. In K. M. Bailey & D Nunan (Eds.). Voices from the language classroom: qualitative research in second language classrooms (pp15-40). New York: Cambridge University Press.

Beglar,D and Hunt, A.(2002) Implementing Task –Based Language Teaching in Richards, J and Renandya, W., 2002 METHODOLOGY IN LANGUAGE TEACHING Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Bruton, A. (2002) From tasking purposes to purposing tasks ELT Journal 56/3. Web.

Centre for Applied Linguistics (2007) Academic Literacy through sheltered instruction for secondary English Language Learners. Final Report to the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Washington, DC: Centre for Applied Linguistics.

Cook, G. (1989) Discourse Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Echevarria, J. & Graves, A. (2003) Sheltered content instruction: Teaching English language learners with diverse abilities (2nd ed.). Boston: Pearson Education.

Echevarria, J., Vogt, M. E., & Short, D. (2008). Making content comprehensible for English learners: The SIOP model (3rd ed.). Boston: Pearson Education.

Ellis, R. (2003) Task-Based Language Learning and Teaching Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Gibbons, P. (2002) SCAFFOLDING LANGUAGE SCAFFOLDING LEARNING Teaching Second Language Learners in the Maistream Classroom Portsmouth: Heinemann.

Grabe, W 1991 Current developments in Second Language Reading Research Tesol Quarterly 25/3. Web.

Harmer, J. (2001) The Practice of English Language Teaching 3rd edition Harlow: Pearson Education Ltd.

Harmer, J. (2007) How to teach English, Harlow: Pearson Education LTD.

Hedge, T. (2000) Teaching and Learning in the Language Classroom. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Honey, M. (2006) Shadowed Dreams: Women’s Poetry of the Harlem Renaissance. NY: Rutgers University Press.

Mitchell, R, and Myles, F. (1998) SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNING THEORIES London: Hodder Arnold.

Nation, P. (1989) Speaking activities: five features ELT Journal 43/1. Web.

Nunan, D. (1999) Second language Teaching and Learning Boston, Massachusetts: Heinle and Heinle Publishers.

Prodromou, L and Clanfield, L. (2007) Dealing with difficulties, Solutions, strategies and suggestions for successful teaching Surrey: Delta Publishing.

Richards, J and Renandya, W. (2002) METHODOLOGY IN LANGUAGE TEACHING Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Rutherford, W. 1987 Second Language Grammar: Learning and Teaching London: Longman.

Short, D., Vogt, M.E., & Echevarria, J. (2009) The SIOP Model for administration. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Tharp, R. G., & Waxman, H. C. (2004) Observational research in U.S. classrooms: new approaches for understanding cultural and linguistic diversity. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Willis, J. (1996) A Framework for Task-Based Learning Essex: Longman.

Willis, D., and Willis,J. (2001)Task-based language learning in Carter, R and Nunan, D., (eds) Teaching English to Speakers of other languages Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Yinger, R. (1980) A study of techer planning. Elementary School Journal, 80 (3), 107-127.

Zamel, V. (1983) Teaching those missing links in writing ELT Journal 37/1. Web.