LESSON PLANNING: HOW TO

The Front Page

Main Aim
Your main aim is the most important part of your lesson plan. This is what you want the
students to be able to do, or do better, at the end of the lesson that they couldn't do at the
beginning. Think of your lesson in terms of you, the teacher, taking your students on a journey.
Your main aim is your destination. You should only have one main aim (or possibly two in a
long lesson).

Express your main aims in terms of STUDENT OUTCOMES (what the students will do in the
lesson – often stated in terms of the final communicative activity in the lesson), not teacher
actions.

Examples of main aims are:

● Grammar
○ By the end of the lesson, the Ss will be able to use the TL (affirmative, negative and
question forms of the past simple) in the context of talking about weekends.

● Vocabulary
o By the end of the lesson, the Ss will be able to use the TL (lexical items related to
sports) in order to discuss their preferences in the context of sports.

● Functional Language
o By the end of the lesson the Ss will be able to use the TL (expressions for making
personal arrangements) in the context of making plans for the weekend with a friend.

● Writing
o By the end of the lesson, Ss will be better able to write a letter of complaint in the
context of hotel services.

● Speaking (if there is one speaking task and other stages are preparation)
o By the end of the lesson, the Ss will be better able to share a story of a disastrous
holiday.

● Speaking (if there are multiple speaking tasks)

o By the end of the lesson, the Ss will have further developed their oral fluency in the
context of discussing places to visit on holiday.

● Receptive Skills (Listening)

 o By the end of the lesson, the Ss will have further developed their sub-skills of
listening for gist and specific information in the context of relationships.

Subsidiary Aims

As well as your main aim, you might also have some subsidiary aims. These are aims that are
not the main focus of the lesson, but are aims that you hope will be achieved along the way on
the journey to your main aim.

Examples of subsidiary aims are:

● To introduce the Ss to the vocabulary that is blocking for the reading for detail task

● To practice students’ skills of reading / listening for gist / specific information (if, for example,
you are presenting language through a text or presenting a model for writing/speaking)

● To improve students' awareness of intonation in polite utterances (if, for example, you're
teaching some functional language in a speaking lesson).

● To practice oral fluency (if, for example, speaking is the productive follow-up to a
reading/listening lesson)

● To practice writing fluency (if, for example, the writing is the productive follow-up to a
reading / listening lesson).

NOTE: You don't have to have any subsidiary aim; it depends on your lesson. Leave this box
blank if you haven't got one.

Assumptions

These are the things relating to your lesson that you feel you can safely assume your students
will know. For example:

● The students will be familiar with past participles of the verbs used in the lesson.

● The students will be familiar with the present simple active (if, for example, you are
teaching the passive).
 ● The students will be familiar with meaning, pronunciation and form of the present perfect
simple (if, for example, you are following on from another teacher who is going to
present the language).

● The students will have a basic knowledge of the political systems in their own countries.

● The students will know the vocabulary included in the text (if you’re doing a reading /
listening lesson).

Personal Aims
These are aims that relate to you as a teacher, rather than the lesson itself, and will help you
focus on your own personal development. These should be copied from your tutor’s feedback
in the action points section of previous lesson plan(s).

They could include such things as:

● To sit down more

● To make sure I include all the students

● To stop talking so much

● To give clearer instructions

● To check instructions

● To monitor more effectively

● To maintain a good pace

● To correct more during drilling

Aids and Materials

These are the things you need to do the lesson; e.g. course book, workbook, flashcards, CD,
map of the world, cue-cards for controlled practice, handouts, dictionaries, etc. Listing them on
the front of your plan will help you make sure you've got everything ready, and will be useful
when you look back at the lesson after the course. Make sure you provide the source of all
materials on your cover sheet (including page and exercise numbers) as well as on the
handouts you give to students – remember copyrighting is a Cambridge requirement.

Anticipated Problems and Solutions re: Classroom Management (CM)

Note: this section is NOT meant for problems/solutions related to target language. Those issues
should be included on your language analysis. In this section, consider the following areas:
 Skills
When anticipating problems during skills work, consider the content of the text, the degree of
difficulty, your students' different abilities, the length of the text and any cultural problems the
text or topic might produce. For productive skills (speaking and writing) you will need to
consider whether the students have the appropriate language to do the task, whether they'll be
interested in the topic, problems with grouping your students, whether the students will have
enough ideas to contribute etc. Again, once you have thought of your problems, work out your
solutions.

Tasks
If you are setting up a complex task, you may need to anticipate problems due to lack of student
understanding and decide what you will do should they arise. You may have a task which
requires pairs but it is possible you will have an odd number of students. There may be some
students who shouldn’t be paired together for some reason. Ss may arrive late – if you’re on
first, it might be an idea to start with a warmer/lead-in which is not too important for the main
part of the lesson.
THE BODY

Stages
Each lesson needs to be broken down into stages. You can have as many stages as you like,
depending on the lesson.

Examples of stages are:

● Lead-in

● Pre-teaching blocking vocabulary

● Presentation / Clarification

● Controlled practice

● Freer (or semi-controlled) practice

● Feedback

● Detailed listening / listening for detailed understanding

● Language feedback / delayed correction

● Productive follow-up (speaking)

Stage aims
The stage aim is the answer to the question, “Why am I having Ss do this?“ Each stage must
have an aim. This aim must in some way help the students achieve the main aim on the front
of the plan.
 Examples of possible stage aims are:

● To generate interest in the topic

● To provide clarification of meaning/form/pronunciation of the target language

● To practice listening for gist

● To provide practice of the TL in a controlled way (written or sometimes oral)

● To provide freer (oral) practice of the target language

● To provide feedback on task achievement

Procedure
This is the what and how of each stage. Your procedure says exactly what you are going to do
in the class to achieve that particular stage aim. You don't need to write every single word you
are going to say, although you might like to script your instructions, particularly at low levels.

Things you need to consider putting in your procedure are:

● Model sentences (sentences you are planning to use to highlight meaning / form /
pronunciation).

● Concept questions (questions to check if students have the correct meaning of new
language) – these could, alternatively, be on your LA sheet.

● Your board work - what’s it going to look like? This could, alternatively, be on your
board plan.

● Instructions (particularly at low levels).

● Vocabulary you are planning to pre-teach for skills work.

● How you are going to highlight potential problems (e.g. which words you’re going to
drill, how you’re going to highlight form on the board).
Timings and Interaction Patterns
You also need to estimate the time you think each stage will take. Try to be realistic here –
very few stages take two minutes! This will help you to time your lesson as a whole.

Finally, think about the interaction pattern of the class for each stage. This will help raise your
awareness to the amount of S-S communication your lesson does/does not include.

Suggested interaction pattern symbols are:

● T-Ss = Instructions and T-led presentation

● S = Individual work

● S-S = Pair work/Pair checking

● Ss-Ss = Group work (for trios/groups of four/any groups) and mingle

● OC = Open Class = Feedback stages

Language Analysis
All lessons from TP3-TP8 you have to provide an LA sheet with your lesson plan.

If you teach Grammar, use the Grammar LA template.

If you teach Vocabulary or Functions, use the LA Template for Vocabulary and Functions.

If you teach Reading or Listening, use the Vocabulary LA template for 3 blocking words.

If you teach Functional language, or Speaking, do LA for Functions. If you teach Writing,
analyse either vocabulary, functional language, or grammar as is required for your lesson.

We expect you to have LA for every lesson starting from TP 3. If you don’t know what
kind of LA you should do, ask the trainer.