The Teaching Cycle

LESSON 3

The work of a teacher does not start and end in teaching per se. The teaching process is not a linear activity
that starts with planning and ends with testing. Instead, it is a cycle of repeating stages until the students acquire
an understanding of the targeted concepts and skills. You may think of the teaching cycle as a spring – you go
through the same process over and over again, but each time with a more informed objective and a better
understanding of what it means to learn and teach English.

There are many models of the teaching cycle that various educators have developed over the years. However,
all models boil down to six common stages:

1. Identify objectives
2. Plan instruction
3. Implement plan
4. Check for understanding
5. Reflect on teaching
6. Assess learning and reflect on results.

The cycle that involves these stages is illustrated below.

1. Identify Objectives
What knowledge and/or skills do the students need to learn? You must be guided by the content
standards, performance standards, and the learning competencies that are found in the curriculum guide.

2. Plan Instruction
What strategies must be implemented for the students to achieve the objectives targeted in the
previous stage? In planning instruction, it is important that you have mastered the content of the lesson that you
are about to teach. It is also beneficial to be familiar with your students – what they know, how they learn, etc.

3. Implement Plan
This is the stage where you conduct the learning activities that you have prepared during the planning
stage. A word of advice – even though you have carefully and delicately planned for the lesson, you must be
flexible with the possible changes that you need to accommodate.

4. Check for Understanding

Teaching is about helping students learn. During the implementation of the lesson plan, you must
every now and then check whether the students have understood what you have covered so far. Facial
reactions and verbal cues help in assessing whether or not the students can move on to another concept or
skill. If not, you might need to give a more elaborate explanation, more examples, or whatever you think is
needed based on the students’ reactions.
5. Reflect on teaching
You must evaluate every teaching period that you finished. Were the objectives achieved? Were the
implemented strategies effective? How can instruction be improved? Your answers to the last two questions will
give you an insight on how to improve instruction the next time you teach the same lesson. If your answer is no,
i.e, the objectives were not met, then you need to plan again. What do you need to do differently in order to
achieve the objectives?

6. Assess learning and reflect on the results

This stage gives you a concrete measure of what the students have learned. In English, teachers are
more free to conduct different assessment types. However, authentic assessments are highly encouraged.

After assessment and reflection, you will once again identify the next learning goals and so the cycle
continues.

The following is a narrative of how a teacher might experience the teaching cycle.
1. Identify objectives
Teacher Joy identified “identifying proper nouns in sentences” as the goal of her next
lesson.
2. Plan Instruction
Teacher Joy thought it is best to apply a constructivist approach to help her students learn
ways on identifying proper nouns. She planned a lesson which incorporates “Naming”
strategy.
3. Implement Plan
The class went on smoothly. The activities that Teacher Joy prepared were successfully
done by her students.
4. Check for Understanding
To make sure that her students understood the lesson, Teacher Joy gave a five-item
exercise as an exit pass.
5. Reflect on teaching
Based on the exit pass, Teacher Joy found out that many of the students have difficulty
identifying proper nouns of places. So, she decided to do a find-your-error activity the next
day for the students to realize their mistakes. She also planned to give a short drill on
naming places.
6. Assessment and reflect on the results
Teacher Joy, later on, gave an identification quiz. Ninety percent of the students passed.
She planned to give remedial exercises to those who failed. This teaching cycle taught
Teacher Joy that students can discover concepts on their own. However, they must still be
guided by a teacher because misconceptions may arise.
LESSON 4: THINGS TO CONSIDER IN PLANNING INSTRUCTION IN ENGLISH IN THE ELEMENTARY
GRADES

In education, planning refers to the designing and preparation of learning activities for students. In lesson
planning, the teachers thoughtfully contemplate about the lesson objectives, the activities that will meet these
objectives, the activities that will meet these objectives, the sequence of those activities, the materials needed,
how long each activity might take, how the class would be managed during those activities, and the evaluation
method to assess how far the objectives were met.

There are three important elements in lesson planning that you need to consider – content, objectives, students,
learning environment, and availability of resources.

1. Content
Research the subject matter that you will be teaching. You should consult the curriculum and teaching
guides published by DepEd. Aside from books, you can also visit websites which will give you
information relevant to your subject area. You should master the contents of your lesson before you
teach it. Remember, you cannot give what you do not have. Moreover, you would not want to teach
wrong contents to the students. It is easier to learn that to unlearn; it is difficult to take back wrong
contents that have already been taught. You have a big responsibility as a teacher – master your
content.

2. Objectives
Before you begin planning, you need to know what specific knowledge and skills you want your
students to develop during the lesson or unit. Teachers often focus too much on knowledge, forgetting
about developing skills which in the long term are more important than knowing mere facts. So, in
planning your instruction, always consider both knowledge and skills.

3. Students
Get to know your students – where they came from, what their interests are, what they already know,
their learning style, attention span, special needs, etc. These will all help you determine your students’
needs. Remember that you need to prepare your lessons with all your students in mind and that your
main goal should be to meet their needs and offer them enabling environments to learn their preferred
way. Knowing your students will also help you build rapport with them which is important if you want
your students to be freely sharing their ideas with you and their classmates.

Another important consideration that needs serious attention in teaching, is the students’ mindset. You
may have all things considered – lesson mastery, focused objectives, and comprehensive
understanding of students – and yet still find that the lesson is not coming through the students. This
may be because the students have closed their doors toward English. Many school children have
come to believe that English is difficult especially if they will be asked to speak or construct sentences
in English, or something boring especially if they will read long essays/stories. This is called fixed
 mindset. Students with fixed mindset include influence from adults who dislike English, previous unlike
experience in English class, and others. Your goal as a teacher is to develop students with growth
mindset. Students with growth mindsets believe that they can be better at English. They know that
their efforts are not wasted and that they can learn even in their failures. Many studies have proven
that students who have a growth mindset perform better in school than those who have a fixed mindset.
So, in planning your lesson, you must consider how to encourage growth mindset in class.

4. Learning Environment
Aside from the physical environment where the learning takes place, it is also important to consider
the social and emotional learning environment of the class. You need to make sure that you promote
environment where students are motivated and are supportive of each other’s growth. It is extra
challenging for teachers to ensure a good learning environment during the distance learning like what
we are having now, that’s why, teachers should be more strategic on making the learning environment
challenging yet emotionally and mentally supportive.
The students must feel safe to express their thinking, without fear of being embarrassed because of
mistakes especially in grammar. Most importantly, you must create an atmosphere where students are
open to learning through the activities you prepared and interactions with their classmates.

5. Availability of resources
Take into consideration the instructional materials that you will be needing before you write your lesson
plan. Is a chalkboard available? Is internet available? If not, can you improvise? Are there specific
manipulatives that you need? Where can you get them? Can you make them instead? Do you need
technology resources? Have you checked whether your devices are compatible with what are available
in school and/or in the locality? These are some of the questions that you can reflect on.

LESSON 5: INSTRUCTIONAL PLANNING MODELS

Now that you have learned the things to consider when planning instruction, you are ready to create one
yourself. Teachers usually plan lessons following a specific model. In this lesson, you will learn about the two
most commonly used instructional planning model in the Philippines and their common features.

1. ADIDAS stands for Activity, Discussion, Input, Deepening, Activity, and Summary.

Activity. The lesson begins with an activity that will later facilitate a meaningful discussion about the
topic of the session. In other words, the activity introduces the topic to the students. This activity must
be motivating and engaging to catch the attention of the students.

Discussion. The lesson proceeds with the processing of the activity. In this part, the students, as
facilitated by the teacher, talks about their experiences during the activity. Here, the questioning skills
of the teacher is important because he/she must be able to direct the discussion toward the targeted
lesson.
 Input. In a traditional classroom, the Input is where the teacher lectures. However, in a constructivist
classroom, this is the part where the students would share the concepts that they learned based on
the activity and the discussion. Nevertheless, no matter which learning theory is applied in the lesson,
this is the part where the concepts are clearly established.

Deepening. Here, the teacher asks questions that will engage the students to critical and creative
thinking. Real-life situations or problems may be given. The purpose is to give the students the
opportunity to deepen their understanding of the concepts that they have just learned.

Activity. In English, this is the part where the students verify what they have just learned, basically by
analyzing or constructing texts, and/or some oral activities. Depending on the need, the students may
be engaged in guided practice and/or individual practice.

Synthesis. Here, the students are given the opportunity to express what they have learned by verbally
giving a summary of what transpired in class and what they have learned. The students may also be
given a short assessment to give the teacher feedback on what they have learned.

2. Five Es – Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, and Evaluate

Engage. This part activates the students’ prior knowledge and engages them into new concepts by
doing short activities. The aim of this part is to arouse the students’ curiosity.

Explore. In this part, the students are exposed to different experiences that will facilitate the discovery
of new concepts. Explore may involve observation exercises, simulations, or manipulations of
instructional materials. The goal here is for the students to discover something new.

Explain. Here, the students explain what they have experienced in Explore. The role of the teacher is
to facilitate the discussion that should lead to students seeing patterns that will help them to describe
the new concept in their own words.

Elaborate. The Elaborate part of the lesson allows students to expand their understanding of the
concept by applying the concept that they have learned.

Evaluate. The last part lets the teacher and the students evaluate their learning. Though giving short
exercises are usually the mode of evaluation, the teacher can be creative by implementing other
evaluation activities like performances.

3. 4As – Activity, Analysis, Abstraction, Application

Activity. Learning Experience. Through a learning activity, learners experience and acquire new
knowledge and skills.
 Analysis. Linking new knowledge and skills to existing experience. Learners need time to process or
analyze their experiences. New knowledge and skills have to be linked to what they already know and
can do. They have to think about how they can use their new knowledge and skills.

Abstraction. Demonstrating/generalizing new skills. Through processing or analyzing their new

experiences and linking them with existing experiences, learners begin to demonstrate new
understandings and apply new skills. This is a process of generalization or abstraction.

Application. Practical application of new knowledge and skills. The final stage in the learning model is
the practical application and trying out of new skills and learning. Successful application leads to
learners beginning a new activity and beginning a new 4A cycle.

H. Sharma. Constructivist Approach for Teaching English: Making Sense of Paradigm Shift from the Traditional
Approach. 2016
DepEd ALS-EST Handbook for Implementers