[Type the document title] [Year]

Rationale Lesson Plan

(Days, Months, and Seasons of the Year)

July 05, 2023

Introduction
 There are many elements to consider when planning a successful EFL/ESL
classroom. Language teaching has for decades been the curious endeavor of
applied linguists and other professionals who have been motivated to create
principles and procedures for the design of teaching methods and materials.
According to Richards & Rodgers (2014), the most effective approaches have been
evolving since the 20th century. Especially those related to oral approaches that
leave the greatest weight to the presentation-practice-production (PPP) as a teaching
technique, or the so-called naturalistic principles of learning. Thus, the Direct Method
arises to educate without the need for translation, or the use of the student's mother
tongue, transmitting the meaning directly through demonstration and action, instead
of using grammatical rules that, in this particular plan, will be acquired by induction. It
is this method that we have found interesting to create various playful and dynamic
activities focused on reinforcing the students' oral and written skills, paying special
attention to the components of pronunciation and vocabulary acquisition.

However, even if we choose a novel method of teaching and learning English

to second language learners, there are many challenges to be met. Developing oral
and written skills, and strengthening pronunciation and vocabulary components,
requires a holistic view of all the elements that influence and are required to achieve
it. In this regard, Ur (2012) highlights the importance of establishing a written lesson
plan, even for the most experienced teachers. This allows outlining the general and
specific objective of teaching and learning, which in turn, shapes the content and
activities to focus on the level of knowledge to be achieved. As well as, control the
time, and keep the right order to systematize and clarify the thinking, necessary to
achieve learning. On this basis, the Lesson Plan for the days, months, and seasons
of the year is established. It is a plan thought under a context, as well as,
parameterized to create and explain the contents, establish the activities, visualize
the phases, and manage the evaluation processes. All is to strengthen oral and
written English language skills through pronunciation and vocabulary.

I. Class Context

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 The educational context of the English lesson "The Days, Months and
Seasons of the Year'' is designed to develop written and oral skills, reinforcing the
linguistic components of pronunciation and vocabulary. It is aimed at primary school
children between the ages of seven and eleven. The maximum number of students
per class is ten. As for their level of prior knowledge, they must have reached the
"Basic - A1'' classification (according to CEFR (2001), at this level students master
the basic grammatical structures of English, such as subject-verb agreement, verb
tenses related to everyday life situations and pronouns, as well as common
vocabulary, and the pronunciation of basic sounds), which means that they are
prepared to reach the "Elementary - A2" classification level. For this purpose,
Cambridge includes the subject matter of the days, months and seasons of the year
in the level. (McCarthy & O'Dell, 2017). Students at this level handle more complex
structures, such as relative clauses, conditional sentences and modal verbs, as well
as more vocabulary and better pronunciation of vowels and consonants. In addition,
the lesson will have a total duration of 90 minutes, and as mentioned in the
introduction, the teaching method is Direct Dictation in the target language. As a final
consideration within the EFL/ESL elements, the class is taught by three teachers with
adequate and sufficient preparation to teach.

II. Contents

As mentioned above, by teaching the days, months and seasons of the year
through the lesson, students will develop the linguistic components of vocabulary and
pronunciation. Therefore, the programmatic content includes the production of
English expressions through repetition and imitation exercises, as well as word
classification activities and written production. This is to incorporate new vocabulary
related to time and different situations of daily life, also important dates, the use of
modal verbs, past-present temporality, the change of seasons, verbs in indicative, as
well as the use of prepositions. As stated by Thornbury (2017), among the most
important strategies for vocabulary acquisition are the exercises of spaced repetition
of phrases and sounds, the use of cognates, contextualization, and word-image
association techniques. Likewise, Ur (2012) agrees that images create a positive
impact on language learners to help them memorize and also adds that the imitation
of phonetic consonant and vowel sounds, including rhythm, intonation, stress of
simple words and consonants improves pronunciation.

III. Teaching and Learning Goals

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 1. The didactic objective focuses on helping students achieve oral and written
comprehension and pronunciation skills through dynamic activities to teach
the basic vocabulary of the days, months and seasons of the year, at the A2
proficiency level and will design and implement summative and formative tests
to assess performance.

2. The learning objective focuses on completing the oral and written lesson on
the days, months and seasons of the year, so that students are able to reach
a minimum level of A2, in terms of pronunciation and writing the vocabulary
taught. The specific objectives for each phase were formulated so that:

a) In the warm-up phase, upon request, students will be able to complete a

word circle activity to match and make compounds of the days, months,
and seasons of the year.

b) In the body phase, after oral and written instruction through

demonstration of Pictures on a word map, and sentence writing
exercises on the board, students will be able to pronounce at least 12 of
the 22 words, as well as, perform creative tasks to form 3 simple
sentences of at least 5 syllables to be represented in a household haiku.

c) In the wrap-up phase, students will demonstrate that they have

strengthened their oral and written skills, expanded their vocabulary and
improved their pronunciation by writing on a piece of paper the three
main ideas of the topic studied, as well as commenting on any
opportunities for improvement that were not clear in the session.

IV. Activities

1. Warm-up phase: The lesson plan has a duration of 10 minutes, two of

which will be used to introduce the students to the topics to be covered in the review.
In this first activity, students work individually while teachers identify the knowledge
of each student, in order to give way to the introduction of the review, which will be
shown through audiovisual content. After the first 4 minutes of introduction to the
topic, the intention of the class is to become interactive, so the next 3 minutes are
used to implement an activity in which students can actively participate. Then,
teachers ask each student a question to find out their pronunciation and, finally, they
dedicate a minute to ask the class if any doubts have arisen in these first minutes of
class.

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 2. Body: Body: In this phase, 5 minutes are taken to test the vocabulary of the
students with simple questions related to the topic of the days, months, and seasons
of the year. Then, teachers take 20 minutes of the class to give rise to some aspects
of phonetics such as rhythm, intonation, and accent, since this class emphasizes
pronunciation. Additionally, the next 10 minutes are taken to reinforce the vocabulary
through an interactive activity, which is called Word Map, which consists of writing at
least 12 words including nouns, adjectives, prepositions, and verbs that can be used
to construct sentences related to the days of the week, months and seasons of the
year. The following activity, in addition to evaluating the students' pronunciation, will
also take their writing into account. Household Haiku consists of using numbers,
prepositions, verbs, and all previously learned vocabulary. In the end, students will
exchange their work with each other so that another student can read it in class
putting into practice their pronunciation. Finally, At the end of this phase, another
round of questions is asked, since the objective is always for students to remain
aware of the class, and if at any time they get distracted, they can use the last 5
minutes to resolve their doubts.

3. Wrap-up: The last phase of the lesson has the objective of verifying the
learning of the students during the class. First, they are asked for a summary of what
they did during the lesson while the teacher writes the specific objectives on the
blackboard, and checks off the areas covered, with each student intervention. Then
the teachers consult with the students about the type of test they would like to have
to assess their knowledge. They take 10 minutes to make a list of options and for
students to have the freedom to choose the option of their preference. The last 10
minutes are used for the teachers to review the results and choose the final
evaluation, together with a reflection by the students.

V. Evaluation Procedures

With respect to the evaluation processes applied to the students, this lesson
plan selected the combined method of Summative and Formative Evaluation, based
on the continuous evaluation of various tasks performed during the activities
developed in class, the application of a test, a self-evaluation and interviews for
feedback. The approach was based on applying the described tests and giving
feedback to the students on their progress, as well as accompanying them in the
elaboration of an action plan to foster their self-knowledge. To limit the negative
effects of the tests, the evaluation instruments recommended by Dyer (2019) were

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used, in terms of communication strategies and student participation in the design of
the test criteria. The data obtained from the evaluations were of great importance,
since they allowed us to know the level of knowledge and oral and written skills
acquired by the students, as well as to improve some of the objectives not achieved
in future classes.

VI. Conclusion

To conclude, we would like to reflect on what it meant to us to take the

Met&Did in TEFL I and II courses, which allowed us to prepare ourselves to
understand and master the new methodologies for teaching and learning English,
which finally enabled us to design an English lesson plan. Undoubtedly, it was an
enriching and meaningful experience, seeing ourselves as teachers, when we had
always been language learners. To realize that teaching another language goes
beyond what we can appreciate as students, and also beyond what we learn as a
discipline, or what we develop from a technical point of view. It is a formidable
challenge to try to make the theories we have learned work in our favor when we
apply them in practice.

Design an efficient and effective lesson plan so that our students quickly
develop the necessary competencies. Anticipate that although the plan is well
grounded, and carefully thought out in terms of time, activities, assessment
processes, and design of innovative resources, it will always have to be related to the
reality of the academic world, and to the problems of society, and the student's
environment. The teaching process is very complex and changing. Undoubtedly, as
students and future teachers, we will have the duty to be able to solve the current
needs and problems of language teaching. At the same time, propose and promote
didactic alternatives that encourage the correct use of expressions and listening,
reading, speaking, and writing comprehension. Without forgetting the proper
application of teaching methodologies and evaluation processes that empower
students, accompany them, and encourage them to continue and achieve their goals
with the language. Our challenge is to achieve it.

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VII. References

CEFR. (2001). Common European Framework of Reference for Languages:

Learning, Teaching, Assessment. In Almeida, L. (2023). Lesson Plan:
Rationale. Met. & Didactics in TEFL (II) (2223-3). Classroom. [PDF].
Department of Linguistics. Metropolitan University of Venezuela.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JpGjm4601McEfSGeqd5GS8C8rZ856APp/vi
ew

Dyer, K. (February 14, 2019). 5 formative strategies to improve student learning from
Dylan Wiliam and NWEA. Teach. Learn. Grow. The education. [Blog].
https://www.nwea.org/blog/2019/5-formative-strategies-to-improve-student-
learning-from-dylan-wiliam-and-nwea/

Harmer, J. (2009). How to Teach English. Teaching Writing. Ch. 8. [pdf].

https://classroom.google.com/c/NTQzMDY4NDgwODE0/m/NTQzMzg3MDQ
5MDc0/detail

Harmer, J. (2015). The practice of English Language Teaching. Pearson.

McCarthy, M. & O'Dell, F. (2017). ENGLISH. VOCABULARY. IN USE. Vocabulary

reference and practice with answers and ebook. Third Edition. In Almeida, L.
(2023). Lesson Plan: Rationale. Met. & Didactics in TEFL (II) (2223-3).
Classroom. [PDF]. Metropolitan University of Venezuela.
https://classroom.google.com/u/0/c/NTUzMTAyNjk1OTA4/m/NjEwMzI0ODUy
NDE1/details

Richards, J. & Rodgers, T. (2014). Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching.

Cambridge. University. Third Edition. In Almeida, L. (2023). Lesson Plan:
Rationale. Met. & Didactics in TEFL (II) (2223-3). Classroom. [PDF].
Department of Linguistics. Metropolitan University of Venezuela.
https://classroom.google.com/u/0/c/NTUzMTAyNjk1OTA4/a/NjE0NTI3MTQ5
Njcx/details

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Thornbury, S. (2017). Language Teaching Methods. Cambridge University. In
Almeida, L. (2023). Lesson Plan: Rationale. Met. & Didactics in TEFL (II)
(2223-3). Classroom. [PDF]. Metropolitan University of Venezuela.
https://classroom.google.com/u/0/c/NTUzMTAyNjk1OTA4/a/NjE0NTI3MTQ5
Njcx/details

Ur, P. (2012). A Course in English Language Teaching.Cambridge University. In

Almeida, L. (2023). Lesson Plan: Rationale. Met. & Didactics in TEFL (II)
(2223-3). Classroom. [PDF]. Universidad Metropolitana.
https://classroom.google.com/u/0/c/NTUzMTAyNjk1OTA4/a/NjE0NTI3MTQ5
Njcx/details