What do I mean by planning？

　　The title of this book is Planning Lessons and Courses so I'd like todefine right away what I mean by it. By 'planning'， I mean what mostworking teachers do when they say they're planning their lessons andcourses. Thus I take planning to include the following： considering thestudents， thinking of the content， materials and activities that couldgo into a course or lesson， jotting these down， having a quiet ponder，cutting things out of magazines and anything else that you feel will helpyou to teach well and the students to learn a lot， i.e. to ensure our lessonsand courses are good. I do NOT mean the writing of pages of notes withheadings such as 'Aims' and 'Anticipated problems' to be given in to anobserver before they watch you teach.

　　I also take it as given that plans are just plans. They're not legallybinding. We don't have to stick to them come hell or high water. Theyare to help us shape the space， time and learning we share with students.We can depart from them or stick to them as we， the students and thecircumstances seem to need.

　　What do I mean by a "good' lesson or course？

　　I've said above that planning is something we do to ensure our lessonsand courses are good ones. But what is 'good'？

　　When busy and tired， we often regard the variables of our classes(such as the type of class， the prescribed syllabus， the schedule) as con-straints blocking the achievement of a 'good' lesson or course. 'If only...，' we think. 'If only my class were smaller or I had more resources orI had more time to plan. Then I could teach really well.'

　　We have perhaps too a view of other people's classes， small ones or bigones or homogeneous ones， as being 'normal' and our own as beingexceptional or inferior in some way. We might hear laughter through aclassroom wall or watch a teacher preparing bits of paper for an inter-esting activity and we may feel， 'Gosh！ I wish I could do that！' We mayassume that 'good' lies outside our own work， outside ourselves.

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