Introduction

In the book so far I've looked at some important issues to consider before you teach. In this chapter I'll focus on getting down to course and lesson planning.

First of all, I'll look at a broad definition of planning because I don't believe it necessarily means the kind of detailed writing exercise that perhaps first springs to mind. Next, I'll consider the advantages and disadvantages of planning ahead for our teaching. I'll consider who you can plan with and when. Next, since many teachers are trained to feel that they should start from a consideration of aims when planning, I'll look at whether this is a wise or normal thing to do! I'll look at the ‘starting from aims’ view and at the ‘starting from different angles’ view and see how these two differ. The next section will be on types of plans, their general headings and styles. Planning doesn't just happen before classes, so there will be a section on things you can do during and after lessons too. To encompass all these planning options I'll introduce a model for lesson and course planning which I call the design model.

What is ‘planning’?

By course and lesson ‘planning’, I don't necessarily mean writing pages of notes for scrutiny by someone else. That is a view of planning we can have if at some point in our teaching lives we have taken a course where such documentation was required and assessed by examiners.