Facultad de Educación

Pedagogía Media en Inglés

Argumentative essay: What is Methodology, and how effective planning lessons could be?

Authors: Javiera Barrueto

Scarlett Espinoza

Course: English as a Foreign Language methodology.

August 26th, 2014

The development of research when teaching and learning a foreign language is

taking place in the classroom has considered many factors through time to find the

best way to do it. Nonetheless, we believe that in spite of the existence of several

resources to help teachers to achieve and improve an English lesson successfully,

the reality has not been as good as it should be. According to our experiences

brought from high school, we must recognize that there exists a big emptiness in

the teaching of a language, and its reason is because teachers are not only not

taking into account the problems presented by the language for students’ learning,

but also because they are not conscious about the importance of selecting and

putting into practice a correct method (or a variety of them) to make their classes

meaningful. In consequence, we will argue about why is appropriate to define

methodology as a science which proposal is to improve a certain area of study, in

this case the field of teaching and learning a foreign language, and how well its

usefulness has been exploited by teachers . Furthermore, we will discuss about

planning lessons, why and how lesson plans would be an effective tool to make a

lesson looks organized when it is applied correctly, and how useful for a novice

teacher could be in his/her first experiences as English teacher.

Firstly, as we stated previously, methodology has been established as a science

which proposal is related to the improvement of a certain area or field of study, in

this case for teaching and learning purposes of a foreign language. Methodology

enhances the teaching practices providing a set of tools, in order to apply them in

the classroom and make the teaching/learning process effective. Moreover, it is the

way how you teach being concerned about what students have and what they

need to know to reach their goals. Methodology is a science because according to

Tamura (2006), it is always answering to challenges which involve psychological,

physical and environmental aspects in the process of teaching. These problems

correspond to: what to teach?, what are the aims of teaching?, and how to teach?.

In other words, it is a science because all the knowledge and skills that students

should have are driven by objectives which are established by the teacher, and

which are developed through methods and techniques appropriate for the students’

context. The effectiveness of learning is not going to be possible if the teacher

does not consider his/her students’ characteristics, thus he/she should know to go

from the easiest to the most difficult stages. To go deeper, Tamura (2006) also has

pointed out that methodology implies that the teacher has to encourage several

initiatives to deal with the nature of problems to learn English through these

questions. Personally, we think that it is appropriate to say that this nature of

problems comes because teachers are not reaching the main general purpose of

this learning process, which is to create functional users of the language.

Methodology has provided from many years ago theoretical underpinning to help

teachers to use a set of procedures according to the social needs. It seems to be

clear for us that there are many facilities given to teachers to work proficiently in

the classroom; however, they are not consistent with the results in schools. Celse-

Murcia (1991) has set up that it should be assumed by teachers that the goal of

language teaching is learner ability to communicate in the target language, in real

context. Apparently, it does not seem to be done if English teachers are not

achieving neither the development of the potentiality and ability of students for

studying, nor the stimulation of their interest in learning the language.

Secondly, we are moving to the next topic which is about planning lessons. We

consider a planning as a framework for teachers, which helps them to organize and

remind them their intentions and goals to be achieved in a lesson. Planning

lessons promote learning and teaching because as Jensen (2001) has stated, a

lesson plan acts as a map or checklist that guides the teacher to remember what

they will do in a lesson step by step. It is necessary to consider that the elaboration

of those lessons is based on the goals and objectives of a syllabus previously

designed. Although, there are several shapes to plan a lesson, it is compulsory to

be conscious about student’s characteristics, such as their age, level of English

proficiency, to name but a few. We deem that despite the purpose of planning is to

provide a kind of guideline to work the lessons orderly, if teachers are not aware of

the possible issues that can interfere in the accomplishment of planning lessons, it

would not be effectively applied. There should exist a balance between the

application of planning lessons which were already defined, and the space for

possible modifications of them. As we have noticed as students, not always our

teachers have done all the stages that they hope to do, sometimes because a

class has been suddenly cancelled, or because one activity has taken more time

than expected. In these situations, teachers have to know how to act in order to not

lose the rhythm of the learning process. Nevertheless, the advantages of planning

lessons are much more important, thus we recommend them definitely. One of the

advantages that we can highlight is the fact that planning is very important both

because it makes teachers be more professional, and because planning acts as a

guide in order to organize the class. Planning lessons is even more useful when

teachers are going to be observed, and at the same time when students are in

front of novice ones. On the other hand, teachers who have taught during more

time and have acquired more experience, being Jensen (2001) says that initially,

planning lessons would be very useful for those who are inexperienced;

consequently, every minute of the class is accounted. As time passes, novice

teachers will be gaining abilities to be more flexible and spontaneous as needed.

To know how to plan effectively, Jensen (2001) has provided the idea of planning

either from a macro perspective, or from a micro one. The macro level corresponds

to a lesson which is reflected in the syllabus and texts with the methodology used

in the institution. Through this, the teacher is supposed to be able to develop

his/her own understanding. The teacher is in charge to elaborate a daily lesson

which contains all the stages and contents that students are supposed to learn.

This action is put into practice by teaching strategies that teachers have acquired

during their life experiences as professors, because the only purpose is to permit

that students can learn. This could be related to the instructional process of

pedagogy. Kansanen (1999) argues that pedagogy also means didactics. It is

always connected with some context, some institution and its curriculum. In

consequence, pedagogy guides the learning and teaching process according to the

aims stated in the curriculum and in the lesson plans already designed.

In the long run, we conclude that methodology provides a set of tools in order to be

used in a variant way. The ones which will be chosen to apply in the classroom

should consider students’ attitudes and abilities according to their capacity of

learning and processing the content. It means that there is not a single method for

each goal, it will depend on what the teacher hopes his/her students learn. For

some activities one method would be more effective and appropriate according to

its aim, for others another completely different, thus a good teacher should provide

a combination of methods. Consequently, it is important to combine methods

because it permits to maintain students’ attention on what they are doing. On the

other hand, we have noticed that planning lessons helps not only teachers to be

more professional, but also helps them to remind what they are supposed to work

in the lesson orderly. Besides, Harmer (2005) expresses that the advantages of

planning lessons are proved in the confidence that students will have in their

teachers. We consider that planning is also part of the teacher’s training,

especially in novice ones. It will help them to develop their teaching skill more

proficiently. Yet, we agree that planning lessons is a framework designed in order

to be applied in a lesson, it should not be an obstruction of a possible magic

moment when they turn up into a lesson, as Harmer (2005) has named it.

Accordingly, teachers have to be flexible in their planning when suddenly there are

unexpected issues or when students are motivated on a specific activity, thus it

could take a few minutes more.

References

Celse- Murcia, M. (1991). Teaching English as a second or foreign language (2nd ed). Boston, Massachusetts: Heinle & Heinle Published.

Harmer, J. (2005). How to teach English: Planning Lessons. Longman: Pearson Education.

Jensen, L. (2001). Planning lessons. In Celse- Murcia, Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language. (pp. 403- 413). Massachusetts: Heinle & Heinle Published.

Kansanen, P. & Meri, M. (1999). Didactic relation in the teaching- studying- learning process. University of Helsinki. Finland.

Tamura, E. (2006). Concepts of the methodology of teaching English. The economic journal of Takasaki City. University of Economics, 48 (3), p. 169- 188.