The following are some statements about lesson planning I believe I have heard, read, thought and imagined in the past few years. I felt spending some time thinking about the statements might be interesting or useful so here I am typing them up. I also thought the list could be a nice start or part of a workshop related to lesson planning. If you’d like to read about my experiences and thoughts related to lesson planning from 2000-2010 you can find them here. 

I wonder if there are statements you strongly agree with or strongly disagree with or those you think are slightly BS, totally BS or totally legit. Any other additions to the list are welcome as well.

1. I am too busy to plan regular lessons.
2. There is no need to plan for most classes.
3. There is no sense planning lessons if we are not paid extra to do so.
4. The best lessons are those that are unplanned.
5. Since we are just “covering” grammar points there’s no need for lesson plans.
6. A lesson plan is essential for every class. 
7. You can’t have a lesson plan if you don’t have target language. 
8. We need to use the proper format when lesson planning. 
9. The key to a successful lesson plan is following the correct frameworks appropriately. 
10. Lesson plans are primarily for the teacher. 
11. Lesson plans without objectives are useless. 
12. Lesson plans need to have SMART objectives. 
13. We need to use the right verbs when writing objectives so that we know what students will learn. 
14. Lesson plans can be written in any format, including the back of a napkin. 
15. We need to write out everything the teacher will say in class. 
16. We need to write out everything the teacher will do in class. 
17. We need to write out everything the students will do in class. 
18. We need to write out everything the students will say in class. (Even if it takes 30 pages). 
19. They key to lesson planning is finding the right Youtube video to start the lesson. 
20. The best starting point to lesson planning is choosing fun activities.
21. The hardest part to planning lessons is choosing objectives. 
22. The hardest part to planning lessons is choosing appropriate activities for lessons. 
23. Even if we don’t plan for regular lessons we need to be sure to do so for open classes. 
24. Lesson plans for open classes need to show new activities. 
25. Lesson plans for open classes need to be fancy and flashy.
26. Lesson plans need to include some use of the latest technology. 
27. Lesson plans (especially for open classes) need to include eye catching materials. 
28. There is a strong correlation between lesson planning skills and teaching skills. 
29. There is no correlation between lesson planning skills and teaching skills.

Glossary: 

open class = sort of a like an observed demo class. Probably with real students and probably already practiced a bit. It depends on the situation but the purpose might be for the teacher to get feedback on his/her lesson but it also might be for the teacher to introduce ideas/techniques/methods/memes/activities to those in attendance.

regular class = A normal class on a wet Tuesday in May.
(Or actually any day of the week with any weather. Just a normal class without observers)

cover = one of my least favorite words related to teaching. I don’t really know what it means but I do know that it doesn’t tell me much about what the students are doing or learning.

Updates and additions:  

Jonathan Sayers (@jo_sayers) over at ELT+Technology decided to follow a suggestion in the comments to put the list on Survey Monkey. And, here is the collection on a Likert scale. Check it out.

You’d better sit down. You might even want to pour yourself a drink. Maybe a double. I don’t know how to say this so think will just come out and say it:

I don’t really care what you do in your class.*

It’s true. I just don’t care. I can’t even begin to. Teaching my own classes are challenging enough. There is so much to think about.  I don’t even know your students or your context or situation or beliefs, so how can I start to care about or judge what you are doing and what decisions you are making?

Seriously.

Use a book.
Don’t use a book.
Use a book and tear out the pages in order to make paper airplanes. It is really not my business at all, as far as I can see.

Feel free to pre-teach vocabulary. Or not.

TTT? Knock yourself out.  80% or 75% or 50%? What do I know? I do believe that not all TTT is the same and that simple percentages don’t tell us much but that might be a story for another day. The point is that it is not up to me.

TTT (The test-teach-test one) Go right ahead.

Neurolinguistic basic extra-sensory augmented reality programming? Why not? It makes no difference to me. I couldn’t care less. I could care less. It is not up to me. I wish you the best in all your future endeavors.

Languagology? Cool. Nice name. Best of luck.

VAKTification station. Sounds good.

Skills or knowledge. Knowledge and Skills. Skills and knowledge. Great.

New method? Old method? Designer method? Vintage-approach? Neo-Grammar Translation? Awesome.

Please feel free to be an anti-Luddite. Please feel free to ban pencils. Insist that students only communicate through QR codes if you wish. Get them to wear bluetooth earpieces and talk through those.
(Actually, you probably don’t want to do that. Nobody likes that.)

Demand medium for all I care.

Do your part to conserve A’s or contribute to grade inflation. Grade pass/fail. All fine in my eyes.

Extensive speaking! Intensive writing! Intense writing! Output! Input! Not my concern.

Meme? Theme? Rheme? The supreme dream team always up with a scheme? Sweet.

Develop professionally! Or don’t. Use the internet to do so! Or don’t. Use Twitter! Or not.  It’s not up to me and it doesn’t really matter to me either. In fact, feel free to not develop professionally as I believe it will make things easier in the job market for those of us that choose to do so.

Why is that we teachers (especially English teachers?) seem to care so darn much what other people are doing in their classes?
[Perhaps I am just misreading it? Comments on how our perceptions differ are very much welcomed.]

I mean, are accountants judging each other about using or not using different accounting techniques? Do they care if their competitors ARE DOING IT WRONG? I don’t think so.

Are plumbers being bombarded by their peers about what they *should be doing and how they *should be doing it? I don’t know. Maybe they are. I guess what I am sensing [imagining?] is that teachers (not just on the internets mind you) are emotionally invested in what other teachers do and how they do it.

I can’t really think of a situation where I would care all that much about the pedagogical or andragogical choices someone else is making. I just don’t see how it is my business or how there is much of an upside for me to care.

You might be saying that I should care about the children (or students of whatever age)  and that everyone deserves a better education. I can see where you are coming from. I truly can,  but, to be honest I just can’t bring myself to care. I can’t do it.

Even if the teacher is so bad (whatever that means), this is likely just one teacher of many that the students will have in their lives. Not such a big deal.
Yeah, exams and careers and college and everything. I fully realize these things exist and are important. But I didn’t hire the teacher or sign up for their class or have the government decide that this  teacher was suitable or participate at all in whatever random events conspired to put that human in the classroom to teach. It’s not my business.

I have been thinking about this for about 6 months.
Not constantly. Off and on, like.
I just can’t think of any reasons to care about how another English teacher conducts their business.

The only things that came to mind were sexual, emotional or physical violence. In that case I’d probably feel most comfortable contacting the authorities.

Anything that might be considered bad teaching in some circles does not concern me. I think some people would be more inclined to care about how other teachers are teaching if they are going to have the same students after the “bad” teacher. While I suppose I’d prefer it if the students learned something and were not continually placated with hangman and candy, I just figure that every class is going to present some challenges so I don’t need to get all up in someone else’s business on the basis of potential damage caused to a group I might teach some day. I think it is my job to teach the students I have and that worrying about how their previous teachers teach is not super productive.

I can’t really see the point in worrying about what any other teacher does.

*I guess the disclaimers/potential exceptions here are: 
1) If I care about you as a person and I want you to be be successful and happy.
2) If I am paid to care about your teaching and development I will then care.
(Currently accepting offers)
3) If you are sharing your experiences in a way (BLOGGING!)  in a way that can help me learn and develop more I do care about that, but if I am being really honest I’d say I selfishly care more about the sharing and the thinking than what you actually do in class.

Updates/Apologies/Clarifications:

a) I was not talking about anyone in specific or any group of people.
b) I was not really talking about a trend I have seen on the internet.
c) I was perhaps talking to myself (or previous versions of myself) and convincing myself not to care so much (read: judge) what other teachers do.
d) I was trying to have a bit of fun.
e) I wanted to say (was trying to say) that I think it is great when people blog about teaching English. I am amazed at all the amazing blogs out there. I think sharing such experiences as well as strategies, techniques, methods, memes, approaches, techniques, ideas, thoughts and feelings is wonderful and I have gotten a lot out of it.
f) I wasn’t saying I don’t want to hear about what people do, just trying to say that I don’t have a say in the matter. In the comments below @TOMtesol compared “interested in” and “care about” in below and I suppose that is an apt comparison. I am very interested in what teachers do and are doing but the specific choices they make are not something I feel I have the right to care about or judge.
g) ) I suppose my main point is simply that it is not my place or my concern to care about how other people do the job that they are hired to do so I will do my best not to judge them or try to convince them that my way (which is based on my beliefs and experiences) is the best way.
h) Sorry to make you read all this way before finally getting to the point. It seems to me that in this field there is a lot of shoulding and judging without knowing the situation. I don’t think this is helpful (although it really comes easily to me) so I am going to do my best from refraining from it.
i) What you choose  to do is up to you.

A story:

A long time ago I worked in a country that was not Korea. I worked with 5 other teachers. I was among the youngest 2 teachers there (so you can get a sense about how long ago this was.) We worked in the same location but taught separate classes, which means that my students always came to my class and never went to someone else’s even though we were teaching the same pages from the book or the same language points or whatever. For whatever (possibly silly) reason the teachers with the most experience were assigned to teach the highest levels. In case you care, I was assigned the lowest level. The teachers assigned to the highest level included an extremely experienced teacher who had taught a foreign language in the states for around 20 years and a not so experienced teacher who had just received her MATESOL. She mentioned it so frequently that the experienced teacher asked her once if the ink was dry yet. For a variety of reasons they did not get along. One day she was doing some sort of vocabulary teaching and perhaps her students found it challenging. Her counterpart decided to share materials with her during the break time because she was “quite obviously struggling with the vocab part.” She didn’t take too kindly to this and a shouting match broke out in the staff room. I was mortified as well as worried about coffee being hurled all over my brand new computer. I remember wondering to what extent it is really my job to care about how other teachers are doing their teaching.
(In retrospect, perhaps he didn’t actually even care about the students and just seized an opportunity to twist the knife on someone he didn’t get along with)

Now, this is obviously an extreme example and there were a variety of factors beyond simply caring about the students of another teacher but it has stuck with me for a long time.

A (non) example:

A friend who happens to be a reader wondered if an example might help make my point more clear. I don’t really have a clear one except to say that I sometimes get a strange feeling when I read about/hear about/see teachers doing things that seem “wrong” to me. Some kind of emotional reaction. Why are they doing it wrong? Why can’t they see the light, I wonder. This post was in some ways an attempt at convincing myself that it is not really up to me to ensure that everyone agrees with me or is doing their job in accordance with what I believe is good teaching. My job is to worry about my students.

Jeremey Harmer (@harmerJ) just posted an interesting blog post about teaching competitions and lesson polishing.

At the end he asked three questions.
One of them was, “Are teaching competitions a good thing? And if so, for whom?” 

I (@michaelegriffin on teh twittters) said that such competitions are very popular here in Korea but still “bad”  terrible and @harmerj wondered why they are so popular if they are bad.

My speculation is that teaching competitions  are thought to be useful as a way to share ideas and techniques with other teachers. I can see some truth and possible benefit in this. I also think they are a way to gain prestige for the school, principal and teacher as way to validate all the hard work that teachers do in trying to develop professionally. I believe that teachers who win such competitions can some points for their career and the prestige that goes along with winning.

(A very interesting and multi-thread conversation starting from @harmerJ’s post and tweet  arose. I favorited all the related tweets, including my own(!) so you can see what people were saying).

Even though I mentioned some potential benefits and reasons for the continued existence and popularity of teaching competitions I think there are major problems with the idea. The first is that students and learning are very easily brushed aside for the purpose of flashier, teacher-centered, and attention grabbing moves that don’t have much to do with student learning.

One thing that I have heard a lot about in Korea for such classes is how they are very well rehearsed. I find this equal parts interesting and troubling. In a place were teachers often complain about a lack of time and the need to “cover” vast amounts of material there is somehow enough time to practice and rehearse such lessons.

I also think the tendency towards “look at me” activities, long turns from the teacher, and flashy powerpoints is another good way to forget about students.
It probably also bears mentioning that there is a tendency to simply judge the teacher based on his/her English ability (which in turn can lead to the teacher talking more and more).

So, on the subject of teaching competitions, here is an example of a winner.
This is a high school lesson focusing on food/diet and other things.
Have a look. The lesson itself starts at 1:22.

When I have shared this and other similar videos some teacher trainers new to working with Korean public school teachers the trainers typically said this is something they should have seen before coming to Korea. I think it is especially telling because this is the model of what  ”good” (championship winning) teaching looks like and what some teachers might be striving towards. I have seen more of these lessons (in person and on video) than is probably healthy and can see quite a few parallels between those that tend to win.  guess to me the whole thing is just about priorities that are very different from what I believe to be important (namely student LEARNing).

So, to answer the above question if competitions like this are a good thing I’d have to say mostly not.

Please note:
I have been conflicted about posting the above link for a long time and I want to emphasize don’t mean any disrespect to the teacher who bravely taught this lesson (or anyone who has taught a similar lesson or under similar circumstances) . I felt it could be instructive for teachers around the world to see what a winning or model lesson looks like in Korea. As I just mentioned to a friend, “If you don’t want me to share it then please don’t post it on my internet.”

In terms of  comments on this post and the desire to be as sensitive as possible I would like to request that comments not include judgments or attacks on the teacher. Descriptions of what you see in the clip are more than fine, as is speculation about why things might have been done the way they are done. Thanks for reading!

A language school, somewhere…

Teacher: Look at the man on page 26. What do you think he does for a living?
Student: Actually, teacher, I think he is probably a model hired by a  big book company for the purpose being in this book.
Teacher: OK, fair, umm, yeah. Hah. Good point. Well what mood do you think he is in?
Student: You mean, “What mood is he supposed to be in for the purpose of this question?”
Teacher: Yes, I guess so.
Student: I’d say he is supposed to be pensive. Yes, pensive.
Teacher: Pensive, wow, good word. Why do you think he is pensive?
Student:  Because we are an advanced class and we covered all the normal words in previous books. So we need new words.
Teacher:  Well, what do think is making this fictional person pensive?
Student: Probably some sort of middle class problem or something related to the aspirational lifestyle. Maybe he is thinking about ipads or something like that.
Teacher: Interesting. Thanks for sharing. What….?
Student: What…What does he look like? Is that what you are going to ask? This is not my first time using a textbook, you know?
He is pretty good looking and has very nice skin and teeth. I should also mention that I think his race was specifically chosen to be appropriate for this page in the book. We can’t have too many white people you know. We need a nice mix of races and the occasional handicapped person. It doesn’t matter if coursebooks reflect real life because that is not their job and it would be impossible for them to reflect real life for all students in any case and not all students want coursebooks to reflect real life, anyway, or something. So, that is why we are looking at this nicely dressed good looking guy with nice teeth and skin and you are asking us a series of farcical questions.

End scene. 

My original intention when I started typing this post was not (really) to trash coursebooks. It was actually to praise #ELTpics and to spread the word about this incredible resource. I guess the book  trashing was just a bonus. One thing (of the many) I love about #ELTpics is that there are pictures of real people doing real things. The pictures tend to have a lot of character as well as characters. So, if you don’t know #ELTpics I strongly recommend you check it out. Here is the Flickr photostream. Check it out and tell your teaching friends. 

As for the rant, well, I figure sometimes it is better to let out a rant instead of keeping it bottled up for a long time.  :)

“Keeping Things Bottled Up 1″
Photo taken from http://flickr.com/eltpics by @fionamau, used under a CC Attribution Non-Commercial license, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/

Recommended Reading:
(Slightly related to the dialog above)

R is for Representation by Scott Thornbury

Universality and Mediocrity Part 1: The Great Coursebook Swindle by Steve Brown

Disclaimers:
The views expressed above are solely and not actually entirely those of the author.
The author fully realizes there are a variety of ways to teach.
The author realizes there a variety of factors, pushes, pulls, and decisions that go into writing and publishing a coursebook.
There is no suggestion that all coursebooks are bad nor that coursebooks hurt people.
No coursebooks were hurt in the creation of this post.
This post is the fifth of 5 posts in five days so the author wishes to excuse himself if this post doesn’t make sense.
He’d also like to apologize for using the third person so much.
Some of my best internet friends are coursebook writers.

Seoul, South Korea 1:13 AM
Early April 20th 

I am super tired and I have tons of work to do. Unfortunately, it is the type of work that requires full attention and sizable amounts of coffee. I am not quite ready to sleep but I am pretty much done doing hard work today so I find myself blogging. For some reason I decided to join Tyson’s 5 in 5 challenge and now it is a battle of attrition and a test of will. Or not. I have enjoyed the nudge to write more and the excuse to not obsess over typos and the like.  Wondering what to do and trying to avoid the news out of Boston an article caught my attention.  Here it is.  On the surface it might seem like the type of article I would be into. Korea. English. Global whathaveyous. Economics. As I read a bit I got that sinking feeling that something and some things might be a bit off. 

It just hit me that if I were to try to deal with all the mythconceptions about Korea and English teaching I would have no time to actually teach. Anyway, I am not offering up sources but just my thoughts, which are a bit different than the author who didn’t offer up much in the way of sources either, to be fair. Sorry if the tone is snarky. It has been a long week. 

It is funny because the piece I am responding to is not actually the worst offender of Korea-focused half truths I have seen, it just crossed my radar at the right/wrong time. 

So, I thought I’d share some thoughts on the piece. The original is in italics.  

>>Nowhere is this  [the importance of English] more apparent than in South Korea, where the government has gone as far as to outlaw the teaching of English in early education for the sake of preserving its own native language. But despite the official ban, nearly 96 percent of Korean kindergartens offer English (all private – South Korea does not have public kindergarten); the demand for early exposure to the language is simply too high.

Not quite sure the reason for the ban is because people are worried about English encroaching. I think more likely they are worried about the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. I am not saying this is a good idea. 

>>The rampant consumption of English education extends beyond the classroom itself, as native English speakers have begun to exploit a burgeoning black market for private tutoring, which can command rates as high as $75 per hour.

“Have begun” is an interesting choice of grammar here. Private lessons were pretty big bag in 1994. Yes, one can make some serious money doing private lessons but “burgeoning” might be a bit too much. I don’t know many people that do much in the way of privates. Maybe I just know the wrong people?

The “author” of the piece on tutoring, Kang Shin-Who,  has a less than stellar (by less than stellar, please read: shitty). So there is that. It seems to me that he has an ax to grind so it might be better to avoid sharing his claims all around the world.

 >>South Korea ranks near the bottom when it comes to English-language proficiency in east Asian countries.

This is an easy one. Everyone takes TOEIC. In other countries people that are not interested in English don’t take it. In Korea, everyone takes the tests. Of course they rank lower. The author seems to blame early education programs for this. Are they doing early English education better in Japan example? 

 >>This [low scores and rankings] could be due to the fact that, despite the prevalence of English instruction, these illicit hagwons (cram-schools) are effectively unregulated. Apart from concerns regarding improper hygiene and lack of lunch programs, these schools are also not required to hire certified teachers. Not only are these schools incredibly expensive, many of them are total shams.

I don’t find it odd at all that after school language institutes don’t offer lunch. Sadly, I actually fully agree with the sham comment. I would like to mention that Spanish teachers at Berlitz or whatever in the good Ol US of A are not likely to be certified teachers either. I actually don’t think being a certified teacher is would  be much of an advantage in most hogwans, anyway.

>>For an article that talks a lot about economics there is not much in the way of supply and demand here.

Also, I am honestly confused if the author is confused about kindergartens or pre-schools or hogwans or a mix or something totally different. Perhaps has has these all mixed up which would make things make much less sense than they do.  

>>On its face, this seems like an unnecessarily bad situation. As with any black market, all the Korean government needs to do in order to protect mothers from wasting money in illegal, often-ineffective early English education is lift the ban on teaching English in kindergarten; this would allow for increased oversight and improved education.

I am not certain more government oversight would automatically lead to improved education.

>>Why did South Korea ban early English education in the first place?
The answer seems to lie in a cultural phenomenon that has something to do with the Internet sensation, Psy.

Yeah, this is when I sort of tuned out. I am ready to blame a lot on Psy, I really am but this is too much. As above, my understanding is that the policy is not about preserving Korean culture or language but trying (in vain and foolishly) to level the playing field and not allowing the haves to get a head start on the have nots in the clearly important race for English.

Anyway, hasn’t this all been going on for a while? Did it start when Psy made it big in the West last year ? Did it start when Psy arrived on the Korean music scene (more than 12 years ago? Did it start when Youtube got popular? 

I might have missed the author’s point but is there any reason why students learning English at an early age would mean that they would lose touch with Korean or Korean culture?  I get dizzy and grumpier when I think about who I disagree with more here. The people that might think Korean kids are going to suddenly stop speaking Korean or the people that think the ban is based on this belief. 

Finally, @EBEFL, over at Evidence Based EFL would probably not approve of the phrase, “the exception the proves the rule” but I have already fulfilled my snark quota for the day so I am out of here.

Goodnight and thanks for reading. Apologies to the author if I was a bit too harsh. I just realized he is still a student. Feeling a bit guilty. Anyway,  I will brush my teeth and go to bed.

Signing off..

mg
2:15 am