Abstract:

The process of learning has been lately associated with lifelong learning which emphasizes the idea of acquiring knowledge throughout life. The two sides of this process – acquiring knowledge in the classroom and applying it in the workplace – are being merged into a process of continuous self-development. This new approach to learning poses a challenge to the teacher in the classroom: how s/he can tailor the teaching process to help students develop the habits of lifelong learning. In other words, what can the teacher do to bridge the gap between acquiring and applying knowledge? In the context of credit based education a teacher of English in a non-native environment is faced with the task of helping students acquire language and study skills needed to obtain knowledge in English by listening to lectures, reading authentic business and professional materials, preparing course papers and speaking on the topics of their future profession. This is a hard task when a lesson is limited only to fifty minutes and the bulk of the assignments is to be mastered by the students independently. To successfully achieve this task effective lesson planning and management become an important part of teacher-student interaction. It helps students acquire both necessary language and management skills while preserving their motivation. The teacher should be aware of several factors, such as the psychological factor of students’ retention whereby they cannot be attentive and active throughout the lesson and consequently, of the amount of time students need for learning. This inevitably results in plans going awry.

In this paper an attempt is made to address typical problems of lesson planning and implementation. The secret of planning is prioritizing activities and setting deadlines. Effective lesson management presupposes a variety of things from setting the goals of the lesson, its structure and timing, pace maintenance, to students’ behavior, attention and motivation. Efficient group management depends on the number of students’ in class, their individual learning styles (visual, kinesthetic, etc.), and their cultural backgrounds, the level of their language skills, personal motivation and many other factors that can influence the pace of the lesson. Results of a comparative analysis of the problem of prioritizing the goals will be reported and a discussion of how lesson structure and timing impact students’ attention, active participation, behavior and motivation will be presented. Stemming from our teaching experience some tips will be shared on how to make every minute of the class efficient as well as achieve group management.

Keywords:

study skills, lifelong learning, problem solving, information seeking, lesson.