The use of a reflective lesson plan in your the teaching envriroment

In this reflection, I shall discuss what is a reflective lesson plan and the gap between the micro and macro dimensions of teaching by Richards (1990) in my real context. First, I will provide a brief definition of what is reflective practice by Lyons (Ed.) (in press). I shall also opine on how could it be useful a reflective lesson plan. And lastly, I will state my concluding thoughts.
If society is constantly changing due to the transformation of knowledge is required for it, the need to transform the models and ways of thinking, about Lantz (1999) notes that to achieve this you need to form a citizen with a set basic skills, among which include: ability to review, active and collaborative, ability to criticize and create, and produce intellectually, among others. Teacher’s duty.
The teacher’s task is complicated, however we must renew. What is mention in this paper is an effective tool for achieve it.
Preliminary reflective practice is defined by Lyons (Ed.) (in press):
Reflective practice is a way in which teachers interrogate their teaching practice, asking questions about how they might be refined to meet the needs of students and their effectiveness putting into practice. The development of reflection is considered not simply as change, but as the evolution and integration of more complex ways of engaging in a critical examination of one 's teaching practices.
In my real context I would say that pre-service english teachers have to practice a process of reflection in order to enrich their learning and teaching, it is necessary to look for different strategies in order to become better english teacher. I said this because in the place where I hired many persons function as teachers, they don 't have any preparation only know the use of english language, so for them it would be very useful to develop their teaching putting into practice the process of reflection.
Some teachers may find difficult to start reflecting, that was my case. At the beginning the word ‘reflection’ scared me, in some cases is so hard to go deep and face that we may have errors, that was my fear. However it can be also helpful to make an introspection.
I analyze the use of reflective lesson plan as an effective tool for the development of my teaching classes, starting from saying that a reflective lesson plan is a lesson plan on which reflective diary entries or notes are made (Ho, 1995). And consists in making lesson series that are a number of lesson which are taught to more that one class in the same week. Referring me to my work, I teach the same level to three different groups and I have had the experience that I plan my lessons but something does not work as I would like or the students don 't understand the activity, on such cases I make adjustments in my lessons, doing or trying to make different activities with the other groups; but I had never dawned on the fact that was reflection, and this process of reflective practice is helpful because the lesson adjustments automatically forces to reflect. When the teacher makes adjustments the lesson is reconstructed, the problem is identified and the solution is solved (Ho, 1995). All the new ideas are putting into practice with the next group.
With the reflective process is how a teacher can learn from experience. Talking of me, reflective can help me to improve the way I teach. I always focus in micro approach (Richards, 1990) looking only on what I do in class, what methodology is better to use for what purposes, what strategies and activities are more appropriate for what age, stuff like that. Although just focus on this took me to a place where all my classes were mechanic, I was doing the same again and again. Until this point I wasn 't conscious about it, maybe it could be the big problem of why my students many times get bored.
Now I know that also is important to take into consideration the beliefs and conclusions of what I think in my and in the students development during the class, I have to consider the macro approach (Richards, 1990). Both will complement my classes in an effective way.
While these are, in theory, effective ways to help teachers reflect, they are also time consuming (Ho, 1995). Not everything can be glory. I can see an aspect that probably wouldn 't help me to reflect, ‘The time’. In order to make the reflective process is necessary to do some notes while you are applying your lessons but in the place that I work, maybe it would be impossible. I manage groups from around 40 students each. Another negative aspect is that I am never able to sit down, there is a teacher that is responsible for the group so she is always sitting on the desk observing me, how could I write notes? What I do, is just remember in my head the problems observed in the class and try to apply different activities in the other. Nevertheless sometimes I forgot and repeat the same mistake in the other classes. Indeed if I want to save time, I may consider modifying the way of record the information; instead of using notes I could handle a device and record voice notes using key words, the important thing is the reflective process I should go through in order to have different ways to improve my teaching. The most important is that as teachers we already tend to talk about our teaching practice, probably to another colleague, we might tell someone that ‘My lesson went well’ or ‘My students didn 't seem to understand’. However, without spent focusing on what has happened, we may jump to conclusions about why things are happening.
Finally I will conclude by saying that the reflective process will yield a result that can help to decide to do something in a different way, or what is the best way. That is what professional development is all about. Reflective on each lesson plan will save me time when planning in the future. It will also help me to become a more mindful teacher.
References:
Ho, B. 1999. ‘Using lesson plans as a means of reflection’. ELT Journal 49/1: 66-71.
Lantz, A. 1999. ‘Breaking information barriers through informational literacy’. Linkoping University.
Lee, I. 1997. ‘Preparing pre-service English teachers for reflective practice’. ELT Journal 61/4: 321-329.
Lyons, N. (Ed.) (in press). With Portfolio in Hand: Portfolios in Teaching and Teacher Education. New York: Teachers College Press.
Richards, J. C. 1990. ‘The dilemma of teacher education in second language teaching’ in J.C. Richards and D. Nunan (eds.). Second Language Teacher Education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

References: Ho, B. 1999. ‘Using lesson plans as a means of reflection’. ELT Journal 49/1: 66-71. Lantz, A. 1999. ‘Breaking information barriers through informational literacy’. Linkoping University. Lee, I. 1997. ‘Preparing pre-service English teachers for reflective practice’. ELT Journal 61/4: 321-329. Lyons, N. (Ed.) (in press). With Portfolio in Hand: Portfolios in Teaching and Teacher Education. New York: Teachers College Press. Richards, J. C. 1990. ‘The dilemma of teacher education in second language teaching’ in J.C. Richards and D. Nunan (eds.). Second Language Teacher Education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.