PLANNING

Overall decisions about foreign language teaching and course content are usually not taken by
teachers, but by some higher authority. It will be necessary for each institution to know that the
same kind of teaching is taking place in all of its classes at the same level, but previous decisions
about the exact syllabus and the textbook to be used can often be made at school level as well.
In order to achieve the Common European Framework of foreign language teaching all the
members of the EU have to take the recommendations published in the White Paper of the
Council of Europe into consideration. Based on the guidelines published by the Council of
Europe national curricula are compiled by the member states. The National Curriculum of
Hungary is on the top of the hierarchy in the planning procedure which belongs to long-term
planning and will be described in this chapter. The National Curriculum should be adapted to
each school profile. That is the reason why each school is obliged to make its local curriculum.
In the middle of the hierarchy different syllabuses can be found in which course-book writers
turn their attention to the central organising strand of their materials, namely the syllabus. At the
bottom of the hierarchy short-term planning goes on, namely planning the lessons for each class;
lesson plans.
General principles of course design
While planning a training programme the designer of the course has to take the following steps
into consideration:
1. Needs analysis – the needs of the target group have to be considered carefully so that the
designer can decide on the course content.
2. Setting aims and objectives – by aims we mean the overall general goals of the training
programme e.g. achieving B2 level in oral communication; by objectives we mean the
more concrete targets of a course which specify the language, content and methodology
of the course to be planned;
3. Orientation – at this stage of planning brainstorming with colleagues and selecting
course materials go on; this procedure can be supplemented with negotiating with
learners as well;
4. Planning the course – at this stage the content of the course with the teaching methods
to be used are defined and organised; the time to be devoted to certain parts of the course
must also be designed;
5. Implementing the course – this stage of planning means planning teaching units
(lessons and periods), teachers are supposed to set aims and sub-aims of the lesson, select
suitable teaching techniques and specify learners’ and teachers’ roles;
6. Assessment and evaluation – here course designers plan the various ways of course
evaluation and the different types of assessment, the ways of testing, etc.
7. Quality control – means the different types of accreditation during which the course
will be evaluated and compared with standards and sometimes modified in order to
improve the required quality.
In the following chart taken from Matheidesz, M. (2002) we can see what criteria of planning
are to be considered. If we miss any steps of designing, we can lose the interests of the target
group or the support of our colleagues. Quality control is especially important today when we
want to standardize and harmonize our teaching programmes not only with Hungarian but with
European colleagues as well.
General principles of syllabus design Syllabus design concerns the selection of items to be
learnt and the grading of those items into an appropriate sequence. It is different from curriculum
design (Nunan, 1988: Ch.1.). In the latter the designer is concerned not just with lists of what
will be taught and in what order, but also with the planning, implementation, evaluation,
management and evaluation of education programmes. There are a number of different types of
language syllabus, all of which can be taken as a starting point in the planning of a new course
book. Every syllabus needs to be developed on the basis of certain criteria, such as learnability,
frequency, coverage and usefulness. Learnability means that we teach easier things first and then
increase the level of difficulty as students’ language level rises. Frequency would make sense at
the beginning levels, to include items which are more frequent in the language, than ones that are
only used occasionally by native speakers. By coverage we mean the scope for use. Some words
and structures have greater coverage than others. Teachers may decide on the basis of coverage
whether to introduce a language structure before another one or not. Usefulness gives the reason
why certain words, such as ‘book’ or ‘pen’ are highly recommended in classrooms though they
might not be that frequent in real language use. They are useful words in a classroom situation.
 Planning a syllabus
A model plan of syllabus design should contain the following:
1. The general aims and specific objectives of the course (in terms of student learning)
2. The organization of the course:
a. the number of hours per week, the total number of lessons
b. interrelationship with other course components
3. The outline of content – the topic headings covered weekly
4. Methodology used (general indication of balance of lecture/class activity, amount of
student participation)
5. Teaching materials:
a. main course books followed
b. supplementary readings
c. worksheets, audio-visual materials
6. Student assessment: a. requirements students are to meet b. assignments and test papers
during the course c. end-of-the-course test or exam
7. Course evaluation: methods used to evaluate the success of the course against the aims
and objectives, e.g. by obtaining student feed-back etc.
Types of syllabuses
1. The grammar syllabus
– It is the commonest type of syllabus.
o A list of items is sequenced in such a way that the students gradually acquire
knowledge of grammatical structures leading to an understanding of the grammatical
system.
o The grammatical structures, such as the Present Continuous tens, the Present Simple
tense, comparison of adjectives, relative clauses are usually divided into sections
graded according to difficulty and importance.
The advantages of grammar syllabuses are the following:
o they provide students with a very good system of language structures and a good
basis for developing cognitive skills.
Their disadvantages are the lack of harmony between linguistic forms and meanings and
speech intentions. (Harmer 2003: 296, Kurtán 2001: 40)
2. The lexical syllabus
– It is possible to organise a syllabus on the basis of lexical items with associated
collocations and idioms usually divided into graded sections.
– Lexical items can be selected according to:
o Vocabulary related to topics (e.g. clothes, housing, crime)
o issues of word formation (e.g. suffixes and other morphological changes)
o word-grammar triggers (e.g. verbs which are followed by certain syntactic
patterns)
o compound lexical items (e.g. multi-storey car park, walking stick)
o connecting and linking words (e.g. if, when, until, etc.)
o semi-fixed expressions (e.g. would you like to, if I were you, I’d...)
 o connotations and metaphors (e.g. kick the bucket). (Harmer 2003: 297, Kurtán
2001: 43)
3. The situational syllabus
– A situational syllabus offers the possibility of selecting and sequencing different
real-life situations rather than different grammatical items, vocabulary topics or
functions.
o Sections would be headed by names of situations or locations, such as: in the street, at
the supermarket, at the restaurant, etc.
o Various types of situational syllabuses can be distinguished; we can speak about
real-life and imaginary situations.
o In various situations students can practice grammatical structures, pronunciation, and
vocabulary in different speech functions.
o Situations in the syllabuses make it possible for the students to practice language
items in broad contexts not only at the level of sentences. (Harmer 2003: 298, Kurtán
2001: 40)
4. The topic-based syllabus
– Another framework around which to organize language is that of different topics,
such as the weather, health, generation gaps, clothes, etc.
o Topics provide an organizing principle in which students will be interested in the
headings indicate a fairly clear set of vocabulary items which may be specified.
o Topics are most relevant to students’ communicative needs though they may differ
from what they want.
o Compiling a topic-based syllabus the designer has to take the age, fields of interest
and motivation of the target group into consideration.
o While dealing with certain topics students can be formed in their critical, and free-
from- stereotypes ways of thinking. (Harmer 2003: 298, Kurtán 2001: 44)
5. The functional-notional syllabus
– Language functions are things you can do with language, such as inviting,
promising and offering. A functional notional syllabus might look like the
following:
 Requesting
 Offering
 Inviting
 Agreeing and disagreeing etc. (Harmer 2003: 297, Kurtán 2001:
In European syllabuses they are divided into
A. Macro-functions (e.g. finding the way, explanation, description, etc.)
B. Micro-functions (e.g. greetings, introduction, apologizing, etc.).
Purely functional syllabuses are rare. Usually both functions and notions are combined. (van Ek,
1990)
6. The notional syllabus (Wilkins, 1976)
– Notions are concepts that language can express.
 General notions may include ‘number’, ‘time’, ‘place’, ‘color’.
 Specific notions look more like vocabulary items: ‘man’, ‘woman’, ‘afternoon’.
  In Hungary certain notions are prescribed in the National Curriculum, e.g. space and
time relations in which various prepositions, adverbs referring to spatial and time
relations are to be taught.
7. The task-based syllabus
– A task-based syllabus lists a series of tasks and may list some or all of the language to
be used in those tasks.
– Prabhu (1987: 26) calls it a procedural syllabus.
– In the focus of task-based syllabuses the following instructions are given:
– - Following the instructions, draw a map.
– - Fill in a form in which you can apply for a visa.
– The theoretical background of a syllabus like this is to make language learning
experiential, practicable.
– Syllabus designers want to prepare the students for real life needs; they want to
provide them with more and more tasks which can be useful every day.
8. The activity-based syllabus
– An activity-based syllabus develops students’ language competences according to
certain language skills.
 Usually these skills are developed in an integrated way but sometimes certain skills,
e.g. writing or reading get into the focus of a syllabus,
 e.g. writing formal letters can be the focus of a special course organized for
secretaries. (Harmer 2003: 299, Kurtán 2001: 42)
9. The mixed or multi-strand syllabus
– A common solution to the competing claims of the different syllabus types we have looked
at is the mixed or multistrand syllabus.
Modern syllabuses are combining different aspects in order to be maximally comprehensive
and helpful to teachers and learners; in these you may find specification of topics, tasks,
functions and notions, as well as grammar and vocabulary. (Harmer 2003: 299, Kurtán 2001:
44)
Short-term planning
 Lesson plans: 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. Plans are proposals for action rather than scripts to be followed
slavishly.
Pre-planning
Before teachers start to make a lesson plan they need to consider a number of crucial factors,
such as the language level of the target group,
 their educational
 and cultural background,
 their levels of motivation,
 and their different learning styles.
Teachers also need knowledge of the content and organisation of the syllabus or curriculum
they are working with, and the requirements of the exams the students are working towards.
Armed with the knowledge of the students and of the syllabus the teachers can go on to consider
the four main planning elements:
1. content,
2. language,
3. skills
4. activities.
Content:
 As communicative language teaching is content based teachers always have to be aware
of the fact that English is only a tool for the students through which they can learn a lot
about the world.
 That is the reason why the content of the lesson: the topic (e.g. animals, healthy way of
living, elections, etc.) about which the students will learn something in English must
enjoy priority.
 Lesson planners have to select content which has a good chance of provoking interest and
involvement.
 Content is to some extent dependent on a course book the teachers can still judge when
and how to use the course book’s topics or whether to replace them with something else.
 The teachers can predict knowing their students, which topics will work and which will
not.
Language:
 Teachers have to decide what language to introduce and have the students learn, practice,
research or use.
 One of the dangers of planning is that where language is the main focus it is the first and
only planning decision that teachers make.
 Once the decision has been taken to teach the Present Continuous, for example, it is
tempting to slip back into a drill-dominated teaching session which lacks variety.
  Language is only one area that we need to consider when planning lessons.
Skills:
 While planning the lesson, teachers need to make a decision about which language skills
and what thinking skills we wish our students to develop.
 Teachers must be aware of the fact that communicative language teaching is holistic so
while teaching English they are supposed to develop students’ learning skills while using
metacognitive, cognitive, and social mediation strategies.
 In the pre-planning phase teachers have to think over the various ways in which students’
learning strategies, logical ways of thinking and their cooperative techniques can be
developed in the lesson.
Activities:
 When planning, it is vital to consider what students will be doing in the classroom,
teachers have to consider the different work forms, the types of activities whether they
are stirring or settling.
 The best lessons offer a variety of activities within a class period.
 Students may find themselves standing up and working with each other for five minutes
before returning to their seats and working for a time on their own.
 It is not only work forms that must be altered, but the different types of skills, such as
oral and written, receptive and productive skills.
 Teachers always have to be aware of the fact that students have no other chances of
developing their speaking skills but in the classroom. That is the reason why oral skills
should dominate foreign language lessons.
 Organising the various activities in the lesson teachers must take the classical phases of a
lesson into consideration.
The plan
The lesson plan should contain:
 The name of the teacher and that of the mentor teacher (in case of teaching practice),
 The date and duration of the lesson,
 Some information about the school and the profile of the target group.
Group profile:
By group profile we mean:
 the number of students, their language proficiency and ability,
 their learning experience in English.
Defining Various Types of Aims:
The most important part of planning is defining the various types of aims in the lesson.
 Content aim defines the topic of the lesson to be taught about in English,
  language aims contain all the language competences (vocabulary, grammar,
pronunciation, spelling) and language skills (listening, reading, speaking and writing) to
be developed in the lesson.
 The last but equally important type of aims will contain thinking skills of the students to
be developed, namely
 metacognitive (e.g. centring learning),
 cognitive (e.g. predicting, eliciting, matching)
 and social mediation strategies (e.g. cooperating, peer correcting, etc.).
Course materials
The course material (course book, handouts, supplementary books and other material) must also
be defined before describing the various activities of the lesson.
Warmup activity:
 A lesson is to start with a warm-up activity the function of which is to lead in a topic
and to create a special English atmosphere.
 It should be short, interesting, motivating during which the students meet the basic topic
of the lesson.
 The warmup can be a kind of revision as well.
 All work forms can be planned for warmers.
Presentation stage:
 The next stage of the lesson is the so-called presentation stage in which new structures or
words are presented.
 At this stage teachers must take all learner types and different learning styles into
consideration.
 As a consequence of the variety of types and styles teachers are supposed to present the
new material in as many ways as they can.
Consolidation stage:
The presentation stage which is usually organised frontally is followed by the practice or
consolidation stage which can be subdivided into three phases:
1. the controlled,
2. semi-controlled
3. Free practice stages.
Controlled practice
 It is sometimes called accurate reproduction stage.
 This is the time when new structures or words are drilled under the strict control of the
teacher.
 During this period each mistake or error must be corrected lest students should get
incorrect pattern.
Semi-controlled stage:
 At the semi-controlled stage some elements of free choice appear.
  Students can choose from different options sometimes halves of sentences are given and
they are supposed to finish them, etc.
Free practice stages:
 At free practice or production stage (sometimes called as communicative output) students
are given plenty of chances of using the language items in free speech or writing.
 Usually role play activities or essay writing can be set at this stage.
 Students’ mistakes and errors are corrected only in the forms of delayed or gentle
correction here.
 All the activities belonging to the practice stage are to be organised either in group work
or pair work.
 Students’ talking time can be increased if teachers do not plan frontal activities for
practising.
Feedback:
Each lesson must be closed with a feedback part, feedback has got double function: at this stage
teachers assess their students’ production in the forms of content feedback and form feedback.
In a lesson teachers have to keep various types of balance.
These types are the following:
 the balance of work forms (frontal, group, pair)
 the balance of skills (receptive/productive – oral/written)
 the balance of activities (warm-up, 3 Ps, feedback)
 the balance of stirring and settling activities (after a competition a writing activity must
be planned)