How important is lesson

planning? Scott Thornbury

How important is detailed lesson

planning?
Because youre probably expecting me to answer the
question in the negative, and because I love surprising
people, Ill answer it like this:
VERY important if youre a new teacher, faced with all the
unpredictability, spontaneity and simultaneity of the
classroom zoo. Its HELL in there, and your lesson plan is
like a magic charm that will protect you from being eaten
alive. Your very detailed lesson plan allows you to navigate
a safe path through the jungle. BUT, however detailed,
however carefully thought out, its not foolproof. There will
come a point very early on in your career, probably
when, as the Scots poet, Robbie Burns put it: the best laid
plans of mice and men/ gang aft agley. That is to say: stuff
happens! So you need to learn to adapt your plan, maybe
even abandon it. Its not even a case of having a plan B. Or
C. Or D. There comes a point when you just have to think on
your feet.

VERY important if youre participating in some kind of

training program, and especially if youre going to be
observed. A detailed lesson plan is a must and its also
very revealing evidence as to the quality of your pre-lesson
decision-making. You can tell a lot about a teacher by
looking at their lesson plan. How realistic are the objectives?
How logical is the staging? How varied are the activities?
How plausible is the timing? And so on. But, again, just
because you have planned it like that, doesnt mean it will
go like that. Just as chess-players cant predict their
opponents first move, you can never be sure how your
class will respond to your plan on the day. A skilled observer
will be looking at how you monitor the effectiveness of your
plan in flight and how you modify it, where appropriate.
NOT so important if you have a coursebook and
accompanying teachers guide that does it all for you. But
even the best coursebooks were never written specifically
for your particular class on that particular day, so you will
need to select, adapt and supplement maybe a little,
maybe quite a lot. besides, an over-reliance on the
coursebook will result in lessons of a certain sameness and
even blandness.
NOT so important when youve been teaching for a while
and have developed a fluent set of classroom management
skills and activity routines. Ive always maintained that

when you start teaching its 90% planning and 10%

management. But for an experienced teacher, its 10%
planning and 90% management. Like cooking, you start off
following the cookbooks faithfully, until you start acquiring
some reliable cooking skills and intuitions, and you can start
to improvise successfully.
NOT so important in fact impossible, when youre asked to
substitute for another teacher, or to take over a class at
short notice. I had to do this a lot as a fairly new teacher in
a school in Egypt, and I learned very quickly how to
manufacture a lesson out of very little a single visual aid,
or a short dictated text. These skills were invaluable, not
only because I learned how to be resourceful and to get
maximum benefits out of minimal materials, but also
because I discovered how much the learners can contribute
to the content and flow of the lesson if you trust them.
COMPLETELY unimportant if, having developed a set of
effective management skills and teaching routines, having
experienced what its like to think on your feet, having
learned how to be resourceful with very little, and above all,
having learned to trust your learners, you are ready to fly on
your own and without a detailed flight plan. Its then that
youll experience the (almost) unbearable lightness of
teaching.