Steps to a 4MAT Lesson Plan

There are many models for writing lesson plans. This is just one of them.  However, what makes a good lesson plan is that it helps teachers to transition smoothly from one related topic or activity to the next.  One part of the plan should lead into the next, building upon itself so that each activity helps students to accomplish the next learning goal.  Usually this follows a pattern known as Presentation-Practice-Production (PPP).  The 4MAT lesson plan helps teachers follow this pattern effectively.

FIRST:

·         Create a Title.  Design a short title for your lesson that will help you remember what the lesson was about so you can go back to it later.

·         Develop a Goal for your lesson.  A good definition of a lesson goal is this:  “What you want your students to do that they could not do before they had the class.”  Example: “Students will be able to identify the past progressive tense in a paragraph and create their own sentences using past progressive.”

NEXT:

Step One:  Develop the Motivation:  Motivation gets students excited for, engaged in and willing to learn the topic.

·         If students know the WHY behind what they are learning and how they are learning it, they will understand the material faster and be more willing to participate. 

·         People learn more effectively and RETAIN what they have learned longer when it is connected to what they already know.  This is known as activating background knowledge.  Research proves that new knowledge is compared with existing knowledge in our brains.  Therefore, helping students to see what they already know about the topic of the lesson, will:

o    help them store the new knowledge more quickly

o   Help them to remember the new information longer (because it will be part of an existing cognitive system).

Step Two:  The Presentation/Information segment might be a lecture, a reading, a power point presentation, a model of how to carry out a specific procedure, a video or audio clip demonstrating how the lesson topic occurs, or it could (esp. in language learning) be a dialogue that represents a language feature.  The presentation will often be followed by explanation, models, or conceptual tools so that students can be explicitly clear on the rules and principles of what they experienced in the presentation.  This is the main part of your lesson.  It is where you teach something new to the students.  It is the most important.

Step Three: The Practice step provides an opportunity for students to practice the information that was just presented.  Typically the “Practice” phase is more mechanical than the “Application”.  It is more about practicing form (for example, repeating those new words so that they come out of your mouth correctly and fluently), and developing other sub-skills needed to engage in the activity.  Practice allows students to try out some of the concepts, ideas, rules, and formulae that they learned in Presentation/Information.

Step Four:  Ideally, Application is going out in the real world and doing whatever it was that was covered in the lesson plan.  However, this is often impossible, especially when learning a foreign language. Therefore, usually in-class application is more like a representation of the real world experience.  In English classes, application typically occurs through role plays or simulations where two or more of the students role-play a situation without a fully developed dialogue script.  (This is NOT a memorized dialogue.)  Typically they will be given a relevant situation and begin, unrehearsed, using the language they were practicing earlier in the lesson to resolve the situation.

LAST:

Debriefing is about making sure students can answer the question: “What did you learn in school today?”  Debriefing is a review/summary that creates a “conceptual basket” so that students can carry the essential elements of what they learned out of the classroom with them.  Debriefing may feel similar to the Motivation stage.  It completes the flow of your smooth lesson plan.

Debriefing does not have to be complicated.  Sample essential questions are—

·     “What did you learn that you didn’t know before (or what can you do that you couldn’t do before)?

·     “What was easy (what made sense/what did you understand well?)  What was confusing, what didn’t make sense?”

·     “Do you think you could go out and (do the lesson application) on your own now?”

·     “What parts of the lesson would you like to have some more instruction (or practice) on?”

NOW:  Debrief with yourself.  What went well?  What didn’t?  What would you have done differently?  What will you need to go over again next class period?