Lesson Planning | Focusing on its purpose

The most common way to prepare a class is focusing on the method in which the teacher will use to transmit content or perform an exercise with the student. There is nothing wrong with that, however, there are other ways to do it.

A quite effective way is to prioritize the goal not the method. For instance, if the purpose of the class is for the student to understand the difference between the present perfect and the past simple, the teacher can develop his class in the "reverse" sense. That is, if what really matters is the student to understand the difference and learn how to properly to use these tenses, then it does not matter how he will be able to master it. In this sense, no specific explanation or exercise is mandatory, but only the ones that provide results.

What does it change in practice? Basically, it allows more flexibility to make the class as personalized as possible for the student. After all, each one learns at his own pace, with his specific skills and difficulties. Focusing only on the objective, the methods can vary, indefinitely, to achieve the same goal.

In a broad sense, it allows yet another perception. What is the ultimate goal of those taking an English course? Obviously, speak English. Therefore, everything must be done so that the ultimate goal is achieved, without wasting time in accidental activities, that is, what is not essential for that specific student. A situation of concrete application of this principle would be to change the subject at a certain point in the class. Several studies indicate that memory follows interest. Therefore, a person will more easily retain what he is most interested in at the moment. If a student tries to ask a question out of context of the class of the day, it is more worth it to interrupt the subject and solve the student's question than to scold him for that and stay on the subject. For the very reason that was mentioned, what he is asking is more interesting to him at the moment, therefore, he will retain it better than any other information. Since the main goal is to learn English, if the student learned anything at all, the class was effective.