Strategies for Helping Graduates of Teacher Training

Institutions to Overcome Difficulties in Lesson Planning: at

Escola Primária Completa Samora Machel – Morrumbala.

Trainee: Supervisor:
Lúcio Luciano Victorino Bernardo Caramba

Universidade Pedagógica
Quelimane
2019
Structure of the work
CHAPTER I: Introduction
CHAPTER II: Literature review
CHAPTER III: Data presentation analysis
CHAPTER IV: Conclusion, Suggestions and Bibliography.
CHAPTER I: Introduction

Background of the Research

The need to plan lessons before going into the classroom and
how this should be done more accurately and effectively in
English as Foreign Language (EFL) teaching process has been
discussed by a number of experts and teaching practitioners at an
extensive perspective. However.

For this to happen they surely need help from people who are
willing to provide support or research on the reasons behind
the situations and bring possible solution
cont
The trainings should be in a way that teachers trainees
and teachers trainers transforming the theoretical and
practice input they get during the courses to the real life
situations.
Statement of the Problem
The researcher chose ‘difficulties that graduates encounter in
lesson planning, for the reasons that the researcher is a Teacher
Trainer at Instituto de Formação de Professores de Morrumbala,
has repeatedly in many occasions been confronted by Upper
Primary School headmasters and deputies claiming that some
newly recruited teachers face such problem with focus on
English teaching.
Objectives
General Objective

To analyse lesson planning difficulties that graduates from

teacher training institutes encounter in the course of their
activities.
Cont.

Specific Objectives:

Investigate teachers’ attention to the use of

available resources for lesson planning;
Provide teachers, teacher trainers and educational
authorities with additional academic information
regarding to lesson planning for English teaching
improvement in Mozambique;
Encourage teachers to plan their lessons.
Rationale of the Research
The current study is a result of the researcher’s concerns
regarding planning difficulties that teachers graduated from
the teacher training institutes have when they are in the
field.
Research Questions
How to use syllabus as a useful instrument for effective lesson
planning?
What support is given to teachers recently graduated from the
teacher training institutes?
How to encourage teachers to share their experiences in their
daily work as a way to reflect critically about their
profession?
CHAPTER III: data preentation analysis

According to Scambor (2002:2), document analysis is an

investigation method that focuses on data material and documents,
which already exist. The analysis includes documents, no
interviews or other survey material (collected data material).
Therefore, the types of documents analysed and interpreted were
nine lesson plans from three teachers that consisted of three lesson
plans from each one of the teachers of english.

Document Analysis In this section, the researcher organised the

questions in a sequence with numbers preceded by a letter that
corresponds to the word question (Q). The answers of the inquired
teachers are also organised in the sense that they can follow the
order of each question and its respondent.
Q1. Physical Characteristics of the Lesson Plan

This question was set to find out the physical conditions of the lesson
plans. Out of the nine lesson plans collected, only six did not portray
good physical characteristics, and lesson plans presenting good physical
characteristics were three.

Table I: Characteristics of Lesson Plan

Total Lesson plans Lesson plans in good Lesson plans without good
analysed physical characteristics physical characteristics.

9 3 6
cont

The researcher noticed that most of the lesson plans were

not in good conditions and some looked yellowish.
Regarding this, the researcher understands that those
lesson plans were in such bad conditions because they
were not kept in good and safe places in the school, and
that is not good.
From experience, the researcher understands that lesson
plans should be kept in very good conditions, and this can
be assured by keeping them in portfolios, or file folders,
book shelves or cupboards which might be available in
the school. Doff (1988:101), affirms that “teachers can
look at the lesson plan again after the lesson, and use it to
evaluate what happened, as to whether they did what they
had planned or if each stage was successful”.
Q2. Is the content of the lesson clearly presented

The contents the researcher checked on were the activities described in

the lesson plan, the description of teacher and students’ activities as well
as aims. The majority of the plans the researcher worked on did not even
have a contents. Six, out of nine lesson plans did not have a contents
column and only the remaining three lesson plans entailed contents.

Table II: Presentation of contents

Total Lesson plans

checked Lesson with clear contents Lesson without contents

9 3 6
Cont

Being a practicing teacher, the researcher understands that a lesson plan

should contain contents which are the description of what is to be learnt
during the lesson plan, and these should be distributed accordingly
across the stages of the lesson.
Borich’s (2007) quoted in Volkan Cicek and Hidayet Tok assert that
“lesson planning involves writing down a description of the education
process in which it is shown what (…) learners should learn”. By what
the theorists mean the contents prepared and incorporated in the lesson
plan and brought to the classroom by the teacher. On the other hand,
Goodwin (2011:10) points out that “teachers can find contents in their
grade-level course books and programmes”. Therefore, the researcher
finds it intriguing that teachers at the target school encounter difficulties
in incorporating contents in their lesson plans.
 Q3 Are the objectives of the lesson plan clearly stated?

In addition to this, objectives should focus on what learners will be able

to do with the language and not just on what they will know. The
researcher’s assertion is supported Harmer (2001:314).

Q4. Is the lesson plan divided into stages (Presentation, Practice,

Production) or into more stages?

However, there were differences in how the lesson plans are divided. For
instance, two different teachers teaching the same lesson topic to different
pupils of grade 6 on 2nd October 2017 which topic was “Places in the
community”, from unit 6 entitled “The community”
Cont

one of the teachers divided the lesson plan into four stages:

Introduction, Presentation, Practice and Production whereas the other divided into six
stages namely: Warm-up, Introduction, Presentation, Practice, Production, and
Consolidation.

However, according to what we know, there is no static lesson plan, but

dynamic lesson plan according to the objectives that you are going to set .

Q5. Does the lesson plan entail a contents column of teacher and students ‘activities?

in the course of the lesson. Doff, (1988:101) asserts that “(…) a lesson plan helps teachers

to prepare the lesson; it helps them decide exactly what they will do and how they will do

it”.
CHAPTER IV: Conclusion and Suggestions

4.1 Conclusion
Teaching a language mainly English is a big challenge for
teachers and students because it requires using different
strategies in lesson planning, to overcome some problems.
The researcher has come to realise that teachers at the target
school have planning difficulties that vary depending on
each teacher’s ability and skills. Nonetheless, the most
stunning and conspicuous difficulty is on defining
objectives.
4.2 Suggestions

Teachers
Teachers should create group discussion among English teachers, it
should have been a chance for each teacher to express his/her problems
about English lesson plans; nevertheless, it could make them feel
involved in the English language.

Education Authorities

The Ministry of Education and Human Development at different levels

should promote in-service trainings so that teachers of English get
opportunities to update their knowledge.
 The end

Thanks for your attention and time.