Reflection on Lesson Plan Assignment

At the end of our CALL lesson, we have been given a task to create a lesson plan based on our chosen skill for a target group of students. For this task, we have chosen the Speaking skills for a group of 40 Polytechnic students. The lesson will be conducted in two periods, 40 minutes each. The lesson period is longer than the usual Speaking skills lessons as the students are in the Intermediate level, meaning that they have the basic rules and knowledge in the English language. It is also not as long as other higher education Speaking skill lessons as the students may not have acquired enough knowledge to master the skill. There are sub-skills involved in the lesson which are Listening and Writing. The theme for the lesson is 'Challenges in Growing Up'.

The reason why we chose Speaking skill apart from other more common skills, this is because Speaking skill is under-rated and seem useless, while it is actually one of the most important and useful tools in life. Speaking skills are important whether it be communicating one on one or to a larger audience. Building rapport, a connection with the audience allows them to feel part of the relationship, valued and considered. When that occurs and they engage and respond it allows positive two-way communications to begin to develop. It is important for the students to see how having good Speaking skills can improve their English language learning in all aspects. With Speaking skills, students can deliver their thoughts better, and thus have more confident in developing and improving their other set of skills such as listening and writing. With good speech comes good feedback, therefore more improvements. 

Some of the challenges that we faced in designing this lesson plan were finding the one computer software that fits our objective. Most softwares that are available only focus on the right pronunciation with the right grammar. Even though those elements are important in public speaking, we had to be critical to find the one that suits our lesson plan. Our focus was for the students to develop self confidence in reading and understanding their speech material. That would mean that even though their pronunciation and grammar may be wrong, the students would at least feel confident in speaking in front of the public despite their error. We would like to instill the idea of the first step towards success is self-faith in the students. After weeks of searching, we have finally found the right software, Dragon Naturally Speaking which focuses on pronunciation and gives positive feedbacks right away. With the software, students would be able to detect and correct their errors, and attempt to do the test multiple times. After that, the students will have to practice in front of the whole class for the teacher to evaluate. 













After the presentation, we received positive and constructive feedbacks. Some of the comments are regarding time allocation, as we would be handling a big number of students. The audience also commented our choice of material the poem 'If' by Rudyard Kipling. We cleared up the air by explaining that the poem works both ways; as high-order thinking material and also as lesson for the students behind the message. The positive feedback we received was very enlightening. After the task, we agreed that designing a lesson plan is not an easy job. Being a teacher is not just about ruling over children, it's about educating the future generation. Teaching is a noble job and a huge responsibility. We hope that educators could improve and use our lesson plan for a better future.