Planning and Preparing an English Lesson

1444 Words6 Pages
Wright (2005) explains, although a teacher may have good content knowledge of the English language, when planning and preparing to teach English in a diverse classroom, it is essential to be aware that, the learners may not know what the teacher is talking about, as a result, little or no learning takes place. This essay will discuss aspects that need to be taken into consideration before and whilst planning and preparing to teach a diverse English classroom. The essay will also include some of my experiences as a student teacher when teaching English. Walt, Evans, and Kilfoil (2009) state that some teachers argue that planning and preparing are words that can be used synonymously, however, Walt et al. (2009) dispute this argument and have chosen to distinguish between planning and preparing for a lesson. According to Walt et al. (2009), planning is a cognitive and creative process, which requires decisions to be made on what (content) and how (pedagogical methods) to teach, whilst preparing can be defined as more action orientated, for example, drafting a worksheet after planning what content is going to be taught. Taking the above definition of planning into account, I feel that, planning is guided by the South African curriculum document, previously being The National Curriculum Statement, whilst the new curriculum document which is currently being used is the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS). Therefore, when planning a lesson, the teacher needs to refer to the curriculum document, to bear in mind the requirements that need to be met, and depending on which grade and whether the teacher is teaching English as Home Language, First Additional Language or Second Additional Language, the requirements would differ. When the National Curriculum Statement was being used to guide the curriculum, teachers would need to refer to lesson outcomes and
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