© 1999 by Oxford University Press
Articles |
Lesson art and design
Taught EFL and trained EFL teachers in the UK, Egypt, New Zealand, and Spain. He has been involved in the writing of four general English courses, as well as About Language (Cambridge University Press 1997). He is currenty working for International House, Barcelona, and is writing a book for Addison Wesley Longman on the teaching of grammar. E-mail: 
sthorn{at}encomix.es
Novice teachers find lesson planning difficult because of the lack of experientially-derived lesson schemata. As a substitute—and as a way of encouraging experienced teachers to re-think lesson design unconstrained by narrow methodological prescriptions—I suggest that teachers look to the expressive arts for principles and structures for lesson design. Such a perspective may harmonize with their learners' expectations, as borne out by a student survey of lesson metaphors. Good lessons, I conclude, share features with, among other art forms, good films. They have plot, theme, rhythm, flow, and the sense of an ending.