Reviewed by Chris Richards
How do you plan your lessons? That is more than just a rhetorical question designed to grab your attention. It’s the question I asked myself when I received my review copy of this book: How do I plan my lessons?
Before writing this review, I looked at the Teacher’s Planner on the desk in my classroom with fresh eyes and tried to adopt an outsider’s perspective of what I had planned for the previous week. For some lessons, I had written no more than a page or chapter number, for others there was a reference to numbered PowerPoint slides. I did have one lesson space with a reminder to define a key term.
This doesn’t seem like planning, but clearly I had planned as I knew what to do when the lessons happened. It’s a shame I don’t still have my Teacher’s Planners from previous years to see how they compared; I think the earliest would provide a sharp contrast with how I approach planning now.
So, just what is lesson planning; or lesson design, as Scott Thornbury calls it? With this publication, Thornbury brings his substantial knowledge and experience to the issue with a practical guide, rooted in theory and research. He aims the book “not just at novice teachers or teachers in training, but also at experienced teachers” (p ix). With fifteen years in the classroom, I suppose I fall into the latter category and I can definitely say that the book spoke to me. Perhaps I can even call myself an expert teacher based on my lesson planning style: Thornbury notes that “[e]xpert teachers are much more efficient at planning [than novices], often making only brief notes” (p24).
On the decision to talk about ‘lesson design’, rather than the more common ‘lesson planning’, he states that research has demonstrated that “teachers’ proactive planning decisions share many similarities with those of other professionals engaged in complex and fluid design processes” (p ix). Thinking about lessons as designed rather than planned also brings us comfort, he suggests, that we need not feel threatened by artificial intelligence (AI) because we bring something to lesson design that an AI-generated plan never can: the human.
The book’s 66 essentials are organised into 6 sections: ‘The big picture’, ‘The lesson plan’, ‘Planning different types of lessons’, ‘Lesson implementation’, ‘Beyond the single lesson’, and ‘Testing and evaluation’. Each of the 66 mini-chapters spans a double-page and begins with the main idea in a one- or two-sentence summary. That is then expanded in a concise yet satisfying explanation, ending with any relevant references. In the first essential — which discusses the difference between curriculum, syllabus, and lesson — Thornbury introduces us to a fictional teacher (Ana) who makes many appearances throughout the book to exemplify the situations we find ourselves in. Thus, Ana helps to make some of the more abstract ideas and concepts more tangible, especially for the less experienced teacher.
Unsurprisingly, among the many topics covered, both online resources and AI make appearances in the book. As a teacher who, while no luddite, is more at home with paper and pencil in the classroom, I read these two chapters with great interest. Even more so, because after seeing a presentation at TESOL Spain in March, I’ve finally understood how I can leverage AI to help me, and that with my expertise crafting the prompts and evaluating its output, AI has the potential to be a great teacher’s assistant. Thornbury shares some example prompts for getting AI to help with the planning of a lesson, especially the “more time-consuming tasks” (p62), and talks about the process of interacting with the AI tool you have chosen to modify its responses and develop the bespoke materials exactly as you want them. Thornbury notes that “it’s probably not a good idea to relinquish all control of the planning process to AI” (p62) – an assertion with which I’m minded to agree.
One chapter, or idea, that stood out to me was number 61: retrospective planning. This section opens by observing that the book stresses the fact that “teaching is a delicate balance between the planned and the spontaneous” (p126). This is something that becomes second nature to teachers as they gain experience in their profession: learning when to let go and learning when to stick to the plan. Retrospective planning, Thornbury suggests, is providing the learners with a “summary or re-cap of the lesson” and he gives five benefits of this practice (p126). He also notes that digital tools would be very helpful to the teacher interested in doing this.
While the volume concentrates mostly on lesson design, Thornbury also makes various observations about the state of ELT today. For example, while discussing lesson design based on coursebooks he notes that “[d]ue to the phenomenal success of certain coursebook series, the grammar syllabus tends to be replicated, with little variation, from one series to another” (p19). In pointing the reader towards further reading, I was also reminded of Grammar in ELT and ELT Materials (Burton, 2023). Another dilemma that he touches on is that of institutional or stakeholder demands and expectations. There is not enough space in the book to thoroughly explore these issues nor is it relevant material for this particular volume. To my mind, however, these little signposts are useful as a way of introducing readers, who might be unfamiliar with them, to some of the ‘issues’ of our field.
Like the other books in this series, this really is a handbook. Indeed, it is not significantly larger than my hand and is a lightweight paperback. It is sufficiently compact so as to be an easy reference on the shelf of any teacher. The contents and index pages mean that more experienced teachers can locate ideas quickly, while students or early career teachers can easily look up points that they might wish to focus on in their teaching development or for use in assignments. Furthermore, within each chapter, the reader is guided to other relevant chapters, allowing one to cross-reference ideas that might go together. The appendix contains three succinct lists: websites to check readability; pedagogical grammars; and online corpus sites. This page alone is invaluable!
Overall, this contribution will be useful to “novice teachers[,] teachers in training, but also […] experienced teachers” (p ix), just as Thornbury intends. In addition, Directors of Studies might find it useful as a source of ideas to structure CPD either for individual teachers or for their teams. I thoroughly recommend the book and would suggest a first read from cover to cover and then keeping it nearby to dip into.
66 Essentials of Lesson Design can be purchased here.
Biography
Chris Richards (PGCE, CELTA, MEd) teaches English in Madrid. He has taught high school English language and literature as well as working in the ELT classroom; he is also an experienced Director of Studies. His key areas of interest include teacher development, teacher identity/agency and teachers’ experiences in the classroom.
