Reflection on Teaching Approaches and Methods for Lesson Planning
ELT Theory and Practice
Violin Aprilia Susanto
Key approaches/methods adopted: Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)
Lesson topics covered: Hobbies and Free Time (Introducing Hobbies, Evaluating Benefits and Challenges, and Comparing Family Hobbies)
When I designed the three sequential lesson plans for a 9th-grade student with the theme "Hobbies and Free Time," I used the principles of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT). According to ELT theory, the main goal of CLT is to build communicative competence. This means students should not just memorize grammar rules or vocabulary words separately. Instead, they need to learn how to use the language to communicate with real meaning in everyday life.
In the past, traditional methods like the Grammar-Translation Method or the Audiolingual Method focused too much on grammar formulas and repeating sentences. Because of this, students could do well on paper tests but could not speak in real conversations. CLT changes this by focusing on one big rule: people learn a language best when they actually use it to talk and share ideas with others.
In CLT, language is a tool for social interaction, not just a school subject to memorize. The important parts of this approach are creating an information gap, using real-world materials, personalizing topics, and choosing fluency over accuracy. In a CLT classroom, the teacher acts as a helper and a confidence builder, not just someone who fixes every mistake. Based on these ideas, I made my three lesson plans to help my student step by step: from describing hobbies, to giving opinions, and finally to comparing different ideas.
A major rule in CLT is that real communication only happens when there is an information gap. This means one person knows something that the other person does not know. If a student only reads a dialogue from a textbook where they already know all the answers, it is not real communication. I used this principle in Lesson Plan 1 with a game called "The Hobby Detective". In this activity, I showed five "Mysterious Characters" and hid their hobbies. The student became a detective who really needed to find out the information. She had to practice speaking by asking the target question: "What do they usually do in their free time?" I gave her clues by making sounds or using visual props. This activity turned boring grammar practice into a fun and real game, which is exactly what CLT is about
Another important part of CLT is encouraging students to give their own opinions and feelings instead of just copying the teacher. Also, CLT suggests using authentic materials from real life. I used this idea in Lesson Plan 2 in the activity called "Hobby Video Analysis". In the Production stage, I did not use a boring textbook text; instead, I used a real video from YouTube about a hobby. After watching, the student did not just summarize the grammar. She had to think critically and talk about the good and bad points of the hobby. By answering questions like "What is good about this hobby?" and "What is the hard part of this hobby?", she used words like fun, relaxing, healthy, expensive, and takes a long time to share her own thoughts. This shows the CLT idea that we use language to do real tasks.
The most useful principle of CLT is personalization, which means connecting the lesson directly to the student's real life and family. When students talk about themselves, they want to speak much more. This idea was the most important part of Lesson Plan 3 in the activity "The Family Artist". Here, the student drew a simple family tree or chose real photos of her family from her phone. Then, presented her family photo gallery to me. She used her English skills to describe and compare her family's hobbies with her own, using sentences like: "This is my mother. Her hobby is cooking. It is different from my hobby."Â
When I look back at my decisions for these three lesson plans, I think they follow CLT principles well. One good decision was changing the Percentage of English Used slowly. In the first class, I used 50% English and 50% Bahasa Indonesia so the 9th-grade student would feel safe and not scared. In the second and third classes, I increased it to 60% English and 40% Bahasa Indonesia.This matches CLT theory because teachers should use more English as the student becomes more confident and fluent.
However, when I compare my plans with CLT theory about feedback in a one-on-one class, I see one area I need to fix. In a private online class, the teacher only looks at one student. In my plans, I forgot to write down exactly when and how I would correct mistakes. In CLT, a teacher should not interrupt a student while they are speaking in the Production stage because it stops their fluency. Instead, the teacher should write down the mistakes and talk about them at the end of the class.
So, to make my lesson plans better, I want to add a small section at the end of the class called "Delayed Error Correction Session". In this session, I will look at two or three grammar or pronunciation mistakes that the student made during the class. I will explain them in a kind and friendly way so I do not interrupt her fluency when she is speaking in the main activities. This revision will make my lesson plans more balanced for both fluency and accuracy in a private online class.