Reconceptualizing language teaching: an in-service teacher education course in uzbekistan

SECTION 5.3
Lesson Planning – Into, Through, and Beyond
“A good lesson plan is a living document. It is not set 
in stone, but rather it is a guide that keeps you – the class-
room practitioner – engaged and thinking about what you 
are teaching” (Kriegel, retrieved from, https://www.pinterest.
com/pin/48202658491339333/ on August 18, 2018). 
GOALS
By the end of this section, you will be able to…
A) discuss your level of comfortability with lesson planning and discern 
advantages and disadvantages of writing one;
B) learn about three phases of a successful lesson plan: into, through, 
and beyond; and,
C) write a draft lesson plan using your own preferred template, and 
exemplify and discuss the three phases within it appropriately.
INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW
This section introduces you to the overarching framework of a lesson 
plan that is beneficial for teaching and learning languages: into, through, 
and beyond. 
Think about the following:
1) How much autonomy are you comfortable with in terms of lesson 
planning? Would you prefer a teaching situation in which lesson plans are 
given to you and you are closely expected to follow them, or would you 
prefer being handed a textbook and told to write your own daily lesson 
plans? What are the advantages and disadvantages of each situation?
ACTION 
What are the advantages and disadvantages of using a lesson plan that 
is given to you, and one that you write yourself?
KEY CONCEPTS
There are three key concepts when designing a lesson plan: into, 
through, and beyond. As there are many lesson plan templates that are 

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RECONCEPTUALIZING LANGUAGE TEACHING
used in Uzbekistan, we argue a successful lesson plan will generally have 
the following three facets:
Into: The opening or initiatory phase of the lesson. This section usually 
consists of a warm-up or activation task that is meant to ease students into 
the lesson so that they are comfortable listening, speaking, reading and/
or writing in English. Sometimes, language teachers use icebreakers as the 
opening or initiatory phase.
Icebreakers are fun activities that lighten up the atmosphere of the 
classroom and are a great way to build a community of students of all ages. 
However, we do not recommend just doing them to fill up time. We rec-
ommend choosing ice-breakers that can help to (1) establish a place where 
students can take risks in English; (2) can lead into the topic of the day (see 
below in II); and/or, (3) can give the teacher insights as an initial needs as-
sessment, into the specific interests of the students, which can help build 
course content.