Teaching English as a Foreign Language, Second Edition

particular importance to the secondary school, because when
classes are large, and when motivation is not high (and a
teacher who has a class which is interested most of the time
can consider himself either very lucky or very successful), the
teacher must always be flexible and sensitive. If he is not, the
class will become extremely bored, or—worse still—extremely

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Learning English in the Secondary School
177
undisciplined. A pleasant manner is simply not enough when
teaching a large class.
Organisation
Decisions about organisation will partly have to be taken at
the school level, but each teacher needs to operate
systematically within the school system, and this means
being organised personally. Sometimes teachers say that their
own ‘style’ is to be disorganised as if this is rather charming
and of very little importance to the student. While it is no
doubt true that there have been brilliant teachers who have
been very disorganised, there is a great deal of arrogance in
thinking that one is brilliant oneself: nobody will suffer from
being systematic.
What is meant by ‘being systematic’? First, the teacher
should become familiar with the work of the school as a
whole and relate his own work to the total picture. This
means that he should prepare a general scheme of work for
himself for each class he teaches, within the overall scheme
that the school uses. Within this general scheme, which may
be organised on a termly or an annual basis, he should
prepare teaching units which will vary in size from two or
three periods to half a term or more. Within these units the
individual lessons will be planned.
Of course not every teacher needs to spend all his time
working out long-term schemes. These are activities which are
best done in co-operation with colleagues. Nor do they
necessarily have to be very detailed (though in some countries
very precise details are demanded from teachers for the whole
year’s work). It is sensible, however, for every teacher to have
notes which will tell him more or less what he is going to teach,
with some reference to the basic materials he expects to use,
and some reference to the order of teaching. This is the basis for
his teaching; though certainly not an iron law, for a good
teacher will always adapt when he discovers that his class
generally knows more than he had anticipated, or when
unexpected problems occur. Some people insist in putting in the
timing for each item in the scheme of work but there are strong
arguments against this, which are discussed in Chapter 14.

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Learning English in the Secondary School
178
It is essential in the secondary school situation that the
teacher should know for every moment of the lesson exactly
what he is expecting each pupil to be doing, and of course
what he should be doing himself. Whether the work is
silent, like writing or reading, or controlled oral activity at
class or group level, or free group activity, the teacher
should know exactly what kind of behaviour he is
expecting from the class, and how that relates to the
teaching aims of the lesson. This means that, at the
beginning of his career, the teacher will certainly need to
spell out in great detail the aims of the lesson and the
activities which will help to realise those aims. If the teacher
starts by doing a training course which provides teaching
practice, there is usually time to prepare lessons in detail
and to consult with tutors and fellowstudents, so that the
process of preparation is developed carefully and
systematically. But not all teachers are lucky enough to be
able to do this. Nevertheless, in the early years of teaching
such careful preparation is essential, and some teachers
prefer to work as carefully as this throughout their working
lives.
This means that a lesson plan is likely to contain several
different types of information, which need to be clearly
distinguished. First, it will contain the main points in the
organisation of the lesson for the benefit of the teacher: then
it will also contain detailed organisational information about
class activities; finally it may contain a great deal of ‘content’
material which the teacher cannot expect to remember—like
the detailed forms of oral exercises, or a passage to be read to
the class, or a list of points which will be put on the
blackboard for a writing exercise. A good lesson plan will
not mix up these different types of information, but will lay
them out so that the teacher can use them easily in class
without the class being aware that notes are being consulted
all the time.
An example of a workable lesson plan is given on page 179.
It will be seen from the lesson plan that the teacher has
two main aspects to consider: the selection of materials, and
the choice of classroom procedures. The problems of the
selection of materials relate partly to the overall level of the
class and the nature of the school’s syllabus or scheme of

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