The phase of lesson planning in which the teacher revises and helps students…

Concept: A lesson plan is not one undivided block of teaching. It is a fixed sequence of phases, and every phase is defined by the single function it performs. In the Herbartian scheme followed in Indian teacher education the sequence runs preparation, presentation, comparison and association, generalisation, application, and recapitulation. Naming a phase therefore means matching the function described to the phase whose defining purpose that function is.

Application: The function described in the stem is looking back over matter that has already been delivered, going over it again and drawing the main points out of the learners. No fresh content is introduced and no new objective is set; the class simply returns to what was taught. That backward-looking, consolidating function belongs to the closing phase of the plan, summarization/recapitulation, which is exactly why it is placed after the teaching is over and not before it.

Contrast the four phases by the function each one owns:

• Preparation: opens the lesson. Previous knowledge is tested, interest is aroused and the aim is announced, all before any new matter is taught.

• Presentation: delivers the lesson. New subject matter appears for the first time and is developed step by step with explanation, illustration and teaching aids.

• Summarization/Recapitulation: closes the lesson. The matter just taught is gone over again and its main points are recalled, so that the learning is consolidated.

• Evaluation and Feedback: measures the lesson. Tests, assignments and observation show how far the stated objectives were attained, and corrective comments go back to the learners.

Cross-check: Lay the four functions on the lesson's timeline: readiness comes first, new matter next, consolidation of that matter after it has been taught, and measurement of attainment separately. Only one of the four looks backwards over content already delivered rather than forwards to new content or outwards to a score, and that is recapitulation. So the phase asked for is summarization/recapitulation.