Week 6 Response 1: Lesson Planning and Curriculum

On page 69, the authors raise a valid question, namely, can a language realistically be taught within the classroom setting?  This seems like an absurd question to pose to the reader, who obviously believes such a proposition to be true--to be the basis, or at least an element, of their profession.  Yet it's a question worth asking, because many people will argue that it is impossible to teach a language at all.  I think this directly relates to our teaching philosophy and value systems, as mentioned in this chapter (e.g. classical humanism, reconstructionalism, and integrated approach).  Overall, I think the goal of every teacher--content or language--should aim to maximize learning opportunities that focus on the process of learning, as opposed to the product-oriented curriculum.  This will serve our students far better than giving them prepackaged, cookie-cutter English dialogues.  Instead, they will be prepared to apply their linguistic knowledge (grammatical, semantic, and pragmatic) in a variety of settings and situations.

Planning such a lesson must take many things into consideration, and evaluating its effectiveness undoubtedly is a challenge.  On page 35, a list of criteria is offered to evaluate a teacher's lesson plan, which gives the following as evidence of a successful lesson, according to Ur:

(1) the class seemed to be learning the material well; (2) the learners were engaging with the foreign language throughout; (3) the learners were attentive all the time; (4) the learners enjoyed the lesson and were motivated; (5) the learners were active all the time; (6) the lesson went according to plan; (7) the language was used communicatively throughout.

In what perfect world does this ever happen?  This simply is not feasible most of the time.  I'm not saying that these things should not be objectives to strive towards, but I don't think a lesson must meet every one of these objectives for every lesson.  Nor should these be expected of every student on a regular basis.  There is simply too much variability among students.