MINI PLAN

THE IMPORTANCE OF SUBMITTING MINI PLAN BEFORE TEACHING ENGLISH AS FOREIGN LANGUAGE AT INTENSIVE ENGLISH COURSE BEKASI BRANCHES

Abdulloh
STIBA –IEC Bekasi
abdullahgraha@yahoo.com

ABSTRACT

This study aimed to determine the importance implementation of lesson plan” Mini Plan” to improve the competence of the perspective teacher of English at one of the English schools, IEC in Bekasi. The competence in this study referred to the competence of preparing lesson plan and implementing classroom practice using mini lesson plan . This research conducted on population of 30 teachers and sample of 7 teachers of English clasess in IEC Bekasi. This study was descriptive study. This study tells us the condition before the implementation of submitting mini plan and after that implementation.The result shows that the readyness, professioanalism, achievement of the teachers before teaching, and the students retention in class are increased.

Keywords: Effectiveness, Lesson Plan,Mini Plan, Perspective Teacher,
students retention.
A. INTRODUCTION
1. Background
Teaching preparation always required by almost all teachers, instructors, lecturers or all educators in almost all subjects either for experienced or inexperienced educators. Teaching preparation consists of activities of planning the syllabus, designing the lesson plan, designing the material, the method of delivering the lesson, and the evaluation. Research shows that teachers who have less preparation will show the low performance in the class, while those who prepare well before, come 15 to 30 minutes before the class, prepare many things like pictures, cards, and all teaching and supported materials show higher performance in the class. The retention of students is better than those who have no preparation.
Many teachers who feel that they have longer time of teaching experience ( senior) , especially in English school or English course are reluctant to prepare lesson before their teaching. They feel and assume that their planning of teaching is in their minds or heads. They don’t need to write the preparation. They come to the school and directly go to the class. They come and look for the book in the teacher’s shelf and go to the class if they come to the course or school almost time to start the class. Such condition happened for long time before the new regulation or policy of submitting or writing the lesson plan implemented. It happened in IEC for the decades.
The condition and the culture among teachers influenced much. Senior teachers who rejected to submit the lesson plan, became the virus to the new and young teachers who will still develop their skill of teaching. The school management then applied the new first rule or regulation of writing the lesson plan” mini plan” before teaching. Many young and diligent teachers obeyed the rule. They wrote the lesson plan and submitted to the principal or school manager. During the implementation many young and diligent teachers saw many senior teachers didn’t make or write the lesson plan. Finally the senior became the virus to the young ones, and they stopped writing the lesson plan. The school rule and school regulation of making lesson plan disobeyed by many or almost all teachers. They said that there would be no influence in their performance if they don’t submit the lesson plan.
Seeing and observing such condition, school management tried to implement the new second rule, now the component of mini plan included in teaching record or teachers’ salary. The component includes total session times rate, mini plan, attendance, bonus pe rstudent who pays the school fee. The component of lesson or mini plan is big in each session. If one day there are three sessions, teachers should submit three mini plans before their teaching. In the beginning, teachers feel burden to write and submit their mini plan before teaching. They should come 15 to 30 minutes before class. They sit down to write the mini plan in teachers’ room. Management provide printed small lesson plan / mini plan, teachers just write their plan in short operation sentences. The teacher’s room looks very conducive, junior and senior teachers prepare the mini plan. Management will not punish teachers who don’t submit the mini plan but the system will deduce or punish them. If they don’t submit the mini plan, recording system will reduce the teaching fee automatically. Finally either junior or senior teachers obey the rules, and no rejection from teachers because it becomes the system.

2. Objective.
The objectives of the paper are : to show the importance and effectiveness of making lesson plan “ mini plan” before teaching, to show the significant influence of mini plan to the teachers’ performance, and to prove that submitting mini plan will fruit much to the class retention. The rule or regulation of submitting mini plan will show positive culture among the teachers in any condition and this rule already includes in the system of recording of teaching . And now, it becomes the system.

3. Theoritical Framework
3.1. Pre-Planning Activity
Before we start making a lesson plan Jeremy Harmer (2003: 308) proposes to consider some components such as:
1) Students’s Language level.
2) Students’ educational and cultural background.
3) Students’ motivation level.
4) Students’s learning style.
Those accomponents are quite helpful in Pre-planning activities. Teachers will have complete guidance what to do, where to start, and how to do it. By knowing all components, it will ease teachers to plan the lesson

3.2 Lesson Planning
The above components are very important components before writing the lesson plan. Jeremy Harmer (2003:308) adds “ lesson planning is the art of combining a number of different elements into a coherent whole so that a lesson an identity which students can recognise, work within, and react to- whatever metaphor teachers may use to visualise and create identity. “ The elements should be combined are:
1) Activities.
2) Skills.
3) Language
4) Content.

3.3. Mini Plan
If we hear lesson plan we will imagine some long written step of teaching from very beginning to the end of the lesson. Start from the subject, length of time, general objective, specific objective, the beginning of the lesson (pre activity), whilst activity, post activity. We plan one and half hours of teaching but we have to prepare it more than that number of time. That’s why lesson plan will burden teachers and they always avoid to do it.
Then the format and content of the lesson plan simplified into shorter form and content, and we change the name of lesson plan into “ mini plan”. It is simple, operational and teachers feel easier to prepare. Here are the following format of short lesson plan or mini plan.

3.4. Why Mini Plan
If we compare the lesson plan with mini plan, we will conclude that mini plan is customized to the teachers. By submitting the mini plan, teachers and school will get many benefits such as:
1. Teachers will not come late to the class.
They will come earlier15 to 30 minutes before the class. Teachers will come to class punctually. If they come in time they will not submit the mini plan but they still won’t come late to class.
2. Teachers will be well prepared.
Before teaching teachers prepare with the material or the book, check the journal of teaching, the last unit or topic they taught last meeting. The creative and active teachers will prepare much more activities such as preparing the pictures, card, and some other supporting materials.
3. If they are well prepared, the class will be alive, interesting, enjoyable, effective, and efficient.
4. If the class enjoayable, efficient, and effective, the objective of teaching will be achieved.
5. If the objective of teaching achieved the students performance will be achieved.
6. If the atmosphere of the class good, the retention of the class will be good.
7. If teachers submit the mini plan, it will be calculated each mini plan with the significant fee based on the level or grade of the teachers. The more senior the teacher, the more fee they will have.
3.4. Teachers’ Role.
When mini plan is made or submitted we can’t forget the role of person behind it, a teacher. Teacher has very important role before and after the teaching learning process. Volkan Cicek in his journal quotes Marzano statement about the role of teacher. Marzano (2003:1) says that “ research reveals that the teacher is probably the single most important factor affecting students achievement in a study with 60,000 students”.
Teacher who has succes in achieving learning is an effective teacher. (Wong 2009:1) describes effective teachers in his book “ How to be an Effective Teacher” as follows:
1. An effective teacher has positive expectation for student’s success, and lesson plan reflects such expectations.
2. An effective teacher knows how to design lessons for mastery , which is reflected in lesson plan.
3. An effective teacher is an extremely good classroom manager; which is possible via good time management during class time and that is possible only by effective implementation of a good lesson plan.
From the three descriptions of an effective teacher all realated with lesson plan. It can
be summarized that an effective teacher is a teacher who has a good lesson plan in his or her teaching.
4. Methodology
This study used in this paper is decriptive research method that describes the importance of preparing lesson plan, simplifies lesson plan into mini plan prepared and submitted by teachers of English classes in Intensive English Course premises practically and theoritically . The population of reasearch consists of six branches of IEC or consist of 30 English teachers. with one branch of IEC as the sample of research consist of five English teachers.

B. RESULT AND DISCUSSION
This study doesn’t aim at proving the relationship and the effect of lesson Planning on teachers’ performance , but it aims at aims at telling the importantnce of making lesson plan before teaching, modifying or simplifying lesson plan into mini plan, presenting the general outline and knowledge of lesson plan, and presenting the format of mini plan. It also used descriptive methodoly in the analysing the importance and the benefit of making and preparing the mini plan, teachers’ performance after making mini plan, and comparing the retention of the class before and after making the mini plan. The writer still has big intention to continue the reasearh using different research methodology to prove and to find out the relationship or effect of lesson plan on teachers’ performance, that is by using quantitative reasearch method.
In general the writer can conclude that lesson plan ‘ mini plan is one of the effective ways in teaching English classes. The students’s perception, the positive attitude from teachers, students learning motivation is increased. Those all can be proved easily by observing class retention data. Here is the data taken from 7 sample teachers of population of 30 English teachers .

Class Retention in three levels : 9-12 months Before Mini Plan Implemented
No. Teacher Students’ number in the beginning of Level
, Level Students’ number at the end of Level for 3 Levels Retention Percentage
1. A 9 ,Adult Elementary 2 5 -4, >> 55%
2. B 8, Adult Elementary 1 4 -4, >> 50%
3. C 12, Children Class, BO3 6 -6. >> 50%
4. D 14, Children Class, BO4 6 -8, >> 43%
5. E 8, Adult, Intermediate 2 4 -4, >> 50%
6. F 12, Children Class BO1 5 -7, >> 42%
7. G 15,Children Class BO2 6 -9, >> 40%

Class Retention in three levels : 9 -12 months After Mini Plan Implemented
No. Teacher Students’ number in the beginning of Level Students’ number at the end of Level for 3 Levels Retention Percentage
1. A 10 ,Adult Elementary 1 8 -2, >> 80%
2. B 9, Adult Elementary 2 7 -4, >> 77%
3. C 13, Children Class, BO1 10 -6. >> 76%
4. D 14, Children Class, BO2 12 -8, >> 88%
5. E 10, Adult, Intermediate 1 7 -4, >> 70%
6. F 10, Children Class BO3 8 -7, >> 80%
7. G 12,Children Class BO5 9 -9, >> 75%

C. CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
1. Conclusion.
Observing some journals of presentation, experiment done in classes or real practical classes, it is true and proved that lesson plan or mini plan is an effective way for improving teaching learning quality. It also improves spirit and healthy competition among teachers, increases teachers’ discipline for coming and preparing the lesson, keeps class or students retention. At last teaching learning process promotes students learning. Many activities done by teachers before class. Starting from pre-lesson planing, choosing the topic, browsing the materials, reading and selecting materials, preparing the supprted materilas, and manging the class well.
2. Suggestions.
There must be follow up research of preparing the lesson palan or mini plan with different methodology to prove the effectivenes realationship and effect of mini plan toward the teachers’ teaching performance. Some journals of presentation say so, that nowdays only few research of presentation done in college classes. The writer invites other writers to complete this study for further research thoroughly. Since this paper also presents how important of planning the mini plan, the writer suggest some teachers in english schools or courses apply it to make class retention good, at the end the schools or courses will grow well. Lesson planning or mini plan is already available in college with very complete and detail in the forms of syllabus or course outline. All lecturers in college already apply this for their classes, not only English but also all subjects.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Cicek, Volkan.(2013). Effective Use of Lesson Plans to enhance Education. International Journal of Economy, Management and Social Sciences, 2 (6) June 2013, Pges: 334-341
Harmer, Jeremy. The Practice of English Language Teaching, 3th edition,USA: Pearson Longman, 2003.
King, J. (2002). Preparing EFL learners for oral presentations. Journal of Humanistic Studies, 4, 401-418. Retrieved August 20, 2012.
Marzano, R.J,: Marzano, J.S. Pickering, D.J. (2003) Classroom Management That Works: Reasearch -Based Strategies for Every Teachers, association for Supervision & Curriculum development Publications, I
Nesar, Ali Jamali (2014). The important of Lesson Plan on educational Achievement of iranian EFL Teachers’ Attitude. Internatioanl Journal of foreign Language Teaching and Research- Volume3, Issue 5, Spring 2014.
Wong, H.K.: R.T. (2009). The first Day of School: How to be an Effective Teacher, Harry K. Wong Publication, 12, 81, 87.