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Introduction

Preparing lessons, revising them, reflecting on them is substantial in the process of a growing professional awareness. Being professional also includes the know-how of managing resources and learning from our experience. Creating order in our own resources and being able to retrieve information needs a good system. This know-how need not be invented by each individual teacher/trainee. It can be shared and used. Communicating and sharing our experience should not require a special effort or extra time in our busy, daily life. Teachers learn from each other by exchanging material, views and results. They are willing to do so, but as they are short of time, the exchange may not take too long at a time, although frequent exchanges are welcome. Resources should be readily accessible and immediately available. What is more, the device itself should help us structure our creative output. Finally, only when a device is considered a daily help will it be enthousiastically shared and recommended. Usefulness, userfriendliness, readiness and enthousiasm can be mediated by a Web device. A ready access through the Web can establish contacts, both nationally and internationally, and can provide links to other existing material. To that end, the TINO project has incorporated a lesson plan development and consultation device : TINO Lesson plans. It is developed for and customized to the different partners : Belgium (Flanders), Denmark, Greece and The Netherlands. Within the TINO site, a bulletin board provides a discussion platform.
We hope that these electronic plans will facilitate communication within the profession and enhance quality. Even extra muros, a FL teacher should not have the feeling of handing on the torch of knowledge on his/her own. Exchange in the profession, also for the 'smaller languages' should now be possible by having access to each others' productions. In this article the principle of the lesson plans is explained and examples are given.

ELECTRONIC LESSON PLANS

Being prepared is a skill that is not acquired overnight. Trainees need to learn how to optimize their own lesson plans and thus become professional within their fields. Teachers should have optimal tools. To achieve good results, good research as to the contents, a good planning and good reflection is necessary. A basic checklist is a first help. Furthermore, contrary to what is most common in practice, lesson plans may not be a lone ranger's affair. The quality of lesson plans improves when they are shared, also and esp. at the preparatory stage. Finally, as a number of events are recurrent, teaching professionals also have to acquire the know how to manage their own resources. It is a skill trainees will need as they will be drowned as young teachers by the huge number of lessons they will want to prepare well.

Preparing lessons is a dynamic process. The teacher is the filter of information in view of her learners and their needs. She designs, adopts, adapts and also revises, manages and exchanges. This pool of knowledge and experience need neither be acquired nor stored in a static way. It can be coached, shared and retrieved dynamically in an electronic way. It can be developed over time, making use of modern text processing and exchange techniques. Trainees, trainers and teachers can share a common pool. To that end the electronic lesson databank was inserted in the TINO site.

The Lesson Plans is a management system of lessons. The basis is simple : a template, which is an organized checklist, helps the writer (W) to develop a lesson. There is a query system. Hence some fields are obligatory. The entries are common didactic concepts. The content is up to the writer. Length, fonts, lay out are free. (W) can draft and export (print and send). When the lesson is ready, the version, with attachment, is directly sent on to the TINO webmaster who can still further edit if necessary. This webmaster validates the lesson for access by Tino visitors.

As an example, let us have a look at some of the items in the query. Both the user and the (W) can make use of pull down menus. E.g. in the entry 'stage', the (W) indicates whether the subject matter is new (introduction), known (practice and analysis) or needs to be refined (remediation) for a specific group. That group is already defined earlier target group, as an actual class/group for with whom this was tried out was described.
Combinations may be requested by users. Eg. Combined search of stage and level on a specific theme. Eg. A user may request an introductory lesson at an advanced level on 'living'. Finally, as to 'type', it is such that most language lessons include more only one of the items in the entry 'type'. However, it is important to indicate the core goal of the lesson: reading, listening, speaking, writing etc. As a time indication is available as well, lessons might also only take half an hour instead of a full period and thus lesson plans for half periods might be provided.

Example of the query
Stage:	Introduction
	Practice and Analysis
	Remediation
Level:	Beginners
	Intermediate
	Advanced
Type:	Reading
	Listening
	Speaking
	Writing
	Structures
	Vocabulary
	Culture
	Literature

As such, the Internet is used as an instrument for teachers to facilitate a wider access to each others' material. Moreover, such a template provides a common ground and language to easily swap information. Trainees have to make their way in the domain by learning how to use the 'teacher's talk' of their field in the target language (Dutch, Danish and Greek). All the terms are put in proper categories they can browse through. Every entry has an open frame, to be completed by (W) complete. She adds content to the fields and planning as she has conceived it. Furthermore, the instrument allows for reflection, either in the form itself (entry : reflection) or else in the discussion platform of TINO. By enabling these plans, we believe teachers can easily show what they do, not only talk about it. In the words of F. Heyworth (1998) quality in teaching is saying what you do, but also do what you are saying.

How does the storing and retrieval system work ? We refer to the examples in the TINO site (see http address) and the examples in the appendix. First (W) has to complete the obligatory fields of 'target language', 'type', 'categories', 'levels', 'themes', 'phase', 'subject', and the personals (name etc) (see appendix 1) These entries automatically place the information in the bank. Thus, the database device provides for automatic storage but also for handy retrieval. Upon merely clicking within boxes, the desired lesson is shown from the set on the basis of the given combination. The system provides for three different languages (Danish, Dutch and Greek), eight types (four skills, structures, vocab, culture and literature), four categories (part of a lesson or series of lessons, part of a project, a training lesson, part of a multimedia courseware). There are eighteen themes (an adapted version of the European Council Threshold Level), three stages (introduction, practice and analysis, remediation) and three levels (beginners, intermediate and advanced). In the personal blocs further explicitation and differentiation is available. For further technical details, we refer to appendix 2.

TINO visitors can explore the database of available lessons at any time and hence draw upon available, proven material. In this respect, the databank becomes a shared bank of lesson plans among professionals and newcomers in the field. The retrieval system is operational for the three languages separately at different levels. It is the TINO visitor who is the first user of this teaching material : he/she decides what should be entered in the public domain and he/she consults what is in the public domain. The webmaster will accept, edit and validate. Users can work off-line when the template is downloaded. A help device is available online. The help function is available on line in the lesson plan section.

We hope this FL lesson bank which is intended as a help for extra muros teachers at all levels and for various learners will grow into a full-fledged electronic databank of lesson plans for use by teachers and trainees and thus both stimulate and facilitate communication within the profession. Further fine-tuning is envisaged by the partner universities.

Appendix 1: query on the items within the entries

Appendix 2: Technical details

Bibliography

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