Catedra de Limba şi Literatura engleză

EFL Methodology

LESSON PLANNING
The success with which a teacher conducts a lesson is often
thought to depend on the effectiveness with which the lesson was
planned. (Richards 1998: 103)
If the time you spend with the pupils in the classroom is to be used effectively, you
need to plan carefully each lesson, taking account of how pupils learn, the requirements of
the curriculum, the most appropriate techniques and resources available as well as the
evaluation of previous lessons. Three levels of planning are particularly relevant to work in
the classroom: the scheme of work, which outlines a long term activity, timetabling
(planning and sequencing a series of lessons), and the lesson plan for each individual
lesson.
Many of your decisions intended to promote learning in the classroom will be based
on your answer to the question: “How do I plan my lessons to promote as much learning as
possible?” Planning includes all the decisions you make before working directly with the
pupils. Most teachers have in advance some idea of any lesson they are about to teach: of
what they will try to cover and how. Fewer teachers prepare their lessons in detail.
However, you are encouraged to write a wide range of lesson plans. Even though you may
later on choose to plan your lessons more skeletally, the exercise of thorough and
disciplined planning will provide you with an insight into your teaching and will make your
lessons more effective.
During the planning phase, you will make decisions about goals, activities, resources,
timing, pupils’ grouping, and other aspects of the lesson.
Objectives
By the end of this lecture you will:
• have a good idea of what needs to be included in a lesson plan
• explain what is meant by the terms: aims, objectives, outcomes, progression,
differentiation
• be able to formulate main and subsidiary lesson aims for various types of
lessons
• distinguish aims from activities
• use a suitable lesson plan layout.

Key Concepts: scheme of work, timetabling, pre-planning, planning, timetable

fit, assumed knowledge, anticipated problems, aims, objectives, outcomes,
progression, differentiation, timing, plan layout, lesson implementation, lesson plan
evaluation

Introduction to lesson planning

Planning is a key aspect of effective teaching. Lesson planning means “the daily
decisions a teacher makes for the successful outcome of the lesson” (Richards and
Renandya, 30). Before you teach a lesson it helps to be clear about what exactly you want
to do. A lot is going to happen on the spot in the class, but the better prepared you are, the

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more likely it is that you will be ready to cope with whatever happens. Lesson plans are
systematic records of the teacher’s thoughts about what will be covered in a lesson. A
lesson plan helps the teacher think about the lesson in advance and be prepared to resolve
problems, deal with difficulties, provide a structure for the lesson. According to Richards
(1998, 103), a lesson plan is like a map for the teacher to follow and a record of what has
been taught. If the content of the lesson is often decided elsewhere, how much you teach in
each lesson and how you teach it are the teacher’s own decision.
In this country, teachers are given clear guidelines about what to teach and the
goals for pupils’ learning within the subject. These goals are usually set out in government
produced documents, e.g. the National Curriculum, syllabuses, school documents and
syllabuses prepared by examination boards. You need to become familiar with the
curriculum requirements and the terminology relevant to your subject. However, before you
plan individual lessons, you need an overall picture of what learning is planned for the
pupils over a period of time. This overall plan is called a scheme of work and in this country
schemes of work cover a years’ work and the work for each term. Teachers engage in
yearly, term, unit, weekly, and daily lesson planning. Yearly and term planning usually
involve listing the objectives for a particular programme. A unit plan is a series of related
lessons around a specific theme, such as “Going shopping” (see also Timetabling).
Planning daily lessons is the result of a complex planning process that includes the yearly,
term, and unit plans. A daily lesson plan describes how you will organise the pupils’
learning in order to attain specific objectives, in other words, how your teaching behaviour
will result in pupil learning.
The scheme of work, the timetable, and the lesson plan
There are three main stages to planning for pupil learning:
1. preparing an outline of the work to be covered over a period – the scheme of
work;
2. planning and sequencing a whole series of lessons - timetabling;
3. planning each individual lesson – the lesson plan.
While the formats for the schemes of work and lesson plans in use may differ and
the level of detail may vary between different approaches, the purpose is the same – to
provide an outline of the work to be completed either over an extended period (scheme of
work – ‘planificarea anuală sau trimestrială’) or in the lesson (lesson plan) so that the
planned learning objectives and learning outcomes can be achieved. The best plans are the
ones which support you in your teaching so that your pupils learn what you intend them to
learn.
The scheme of work
This might also be called ‘programme of work’ or ‘unit of work’. It is a long-term plan
for the pupils’ learning. It sets out the long-term plans for learning and thus covers an
extended period of time – a year or a term. A scheme of work should be designed to build
on the learning which has gone before in order to ensure continuity of pupil learning.
Schemes of work should be designed to ensure that the knowledge, skills,
capabilities, understanding and attitudes of the pupils are developed over a particular
period in order to ensure progression in learning. ‘Progression’ means the planned
development of knowledge, skills, understanding or attitudes over time.
Usually on school experience you are given or at least shown a scheme of work. In
putting this together, the classroom teacher has considered a number of questions:
1. What are you trying to achieve? (Aims for the scheme of work and learning

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 objectives for particular lessons)
2. What has been taught before?
3. How much time is available to do this work?
4. What resources are available?
5. How is the work to be assessed?
6. (sometimes) How does this work fit with work pupils are doing in other subjects?
7. What is taught later?
8. Are there immovable slots? The scheme itself may be quite brief, but it will be
based on the above information.
Each of the areas in the scheme of work is discussed in turn:
1. What are you trying to achieve? The aims of a scheme of work are general
statements about the learning that should take place over a period. Learning objectives are
specific statements which set out what pupils are expected to learn from a particular lesson
in a way that allows you to identify if learning has occurred. Learning objectives are
prepared for each lesson (see lesson planning).
2. What has been taught before? This information should be available from
school documentation and from staff.
3. How much time is available to do this work? The number and length of
lessons devoted to a topic are decided by the department or school in which you are
working, or by yourself. Don’t forget that not all the lessons you expect to have are available
for teaching. Some time is taken up by such things as tests, revision, special events, etc.
4. What resources are available? Resources include material resources as well
as human resources and what is available depends on the school where you are working.
You need to find out the procedures for using resources in the school and what is available.
You may find there are resources outside the school to draw upon – parents, authorities,
private enterprises, etc.
5. How is the work to be assessed? Teaching, learning and assessment are
interlinked. Most of the work you are doing with pupils is teacher assessed although some
is externally assessed. A key purpose of teacher assessment is formative, assessment for
learning, - to check and guide pupils’ progress in relation to learning objectives. Teacher
assessment may also be summative – undertaken at the end of an extended period to
assess the level achieved. In any case, you should keep good records of the pupils’
progress (homework, classwork, test results) in your own record book as well as providing
these in the form required by the school.
6. How does this work fit in with work the pupils are doing in other subjects?
There are many areas of overlap where it is useful to discuss pupils’ work with other
colleagues, for instance the teachers of Romanian or other foreign language teachers.
7. What is to be taught later? Progression in pupil learning has to be planned
and a scheme of work is drawn up for this purpose. From the scheme of work you know
what work is to come and the contribution to pupil learning that each lesson is to make.
8. The immovable slots may filled up by events organised by the school, such as
tests, which may be given to you by the school’s administration.
Timetabling
Timetabling involves planning and sequencing a series of lessons. The fundamental
questions that you need to answer are:

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• What will I teach? What is the syllabus?
• How will the separate items be sequenced (what is the timetable)?
You need to consider a few more questions when you sequence a series of lessons.
Here are some:
1. How far ahead do I plan (in terms of lesson hours)?
2. What do I need to include in the timetable?
3. What factors do I need to consider when timetabling?
4. How do I see the role of the textbook in timetabling?
5. What problems can I anticipate and what solutions?
The syllabus provides a longer term overview. It lists the contents of a course and
puts the separate items in an order. In Romania there is a national syllabus for each
subject, but in other parts of the world the syllabus is given by the coursebook or decided
by the teacher.
Having a syllabus can be of great help as it sets out clearly what you as a teacher
are expected to cover with your class. It can be a burden too, if it is unrealistic for your
students in terms of what they need or are likely to achieve within a certain time.
Timetabling in practice
The day-to-day, week–to week decisions about how to interpret a syllabus into a
series of lessons are usually wholly or partly the teacher’s job. This process typically
involves you looking at the school syllabus or/and coursebook contents page and trying to
map out how you will cover the content in the time that is available, selecting items from the
syllabus and writing them into the appropriate spaces on a plan. Timetables are usually
written out in advance (at the beginning of the term). In most schools a head of the
department or school principal may provide you with a timetable format.
A time table enables other teachers to understand what work is being done in your
class. The information it provides may be especially important if another teacher shares
your class with you or takes over from you. The timetable should give others a clear idea of
what work was planned for a particular lesson and also show how that fits into the overall
shape of the week and the course.
Here are some practical guidelines for timetabling:
1. Analyse the contents of the textbook and fill in an analysis sheet.
2. Review and note down separately:
a) links with previous units’ work;
b) your perceptions of the pupils’ needs (in terms of language needs, skills, recycling
and remedial work).
3. Take a look at the next unit.
4. Using the information from 1 and 2 decide:
a) what to teach, and what to omit;
b) which material is useable for what (input and practice, skills and freer practice,
warmers and homework, etc.);
c) where you need to supplement with other material.
5. Allocate: a) input and skills, paying attention to the balance within and
between lessons; b) relevant bits of textbook; c) homework (including balance and variety).
6. Review and make changes as appropriate. Think about when you teach

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vocabulary and pronunciation, what and how often you recycle, when you introduce new
language receptively for later activation, when you set grammar preparation homework, etc.

Lesson Planning
Although planning is sometimes seen as a chore, lesson planning has enormous
advantages for both pupils and teachers. Here are a few of the (internal) advantages a
teacher may have from planning:
• it means anticipation, coherence, balance and clarity of purpose
• it helps you learn the subject matter better
• it makes lesson execution easier
• it makes the lesson run smoothly
• it allows for flexibility in lesson execution
• it saves time in the long run
• it looks professional
• it makes you understand that some things are more important than others
• it helps you teach more confidently
• it makes self-appraisal much easier.
The pupils will benefit from the decisions made by the teacher after considering their
backgrounds, interests, learning styles and abilities. The result of these decisions will be a
coherent, varied, well-targeted and well-shaped lesson, which will be appreciated by
your pupils.
Moreover, there are external reasons for planning lessons: teachers may be asked
to do this by the school principal or a supervisor or to guide a substitute teacher. A lesson
plan will also be a guide to anybody observing your teaching or reading about your
lessons:
• A lesson plan will help your observer or reader see how you have prepared for your
lesson and the factors you have taken into consideration.
• A lesson plan makes the task of commenting upon lessons much easier. It explains
why you are doing something at a particular point in a lesson, and it may locate and
identify any problems.
• A lesson plan is something concrete that can be referred to. This is useful either in
feedback with your inspector, observer and tutor or for your reader.

Think first!

What elements do you need to know before starting to plan for

an English lesson?

The lesson plan provides an outline of one lesson within a scheme of work. In
planning a lesson, you are working out the detail required to teach one aspect of the
scheme of work.
The following information is required to plan effectively:

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 1. Overall aim(s) of the scheme of work and the specific learning objectives of
the lesson. Defining learning objectives and associated learning outcomes which clarify
exactly what learning you hope will take place is a crucial skill for the effective teacher.
These help you to be clear about exactly what pupils should be achieving and help the
pupils understand what they should be doing. However, drawing up effective objectives and
specifying and planning for outcomes require considerable thought. Listing learning
objectives introduced by the phrase “By the end of this lesson, pupils will be able to … “
may help you to devise clear goals and to understand the difference between aims (general
statements), learning objectives (statements about specific goals, e.g. demonstrate an
understanding of an idiom) and learning outcomes (specific lesson outputs, e.g. the
accurate completion of an exercise with idioms).
Words that help you be precise are those such as state, describe, list, identify,
prioritise, solve, demonstrate and understanding of. These words force you to write
statements which can be tested. If you think your learning objectives are vague, ask
yourself whether objectives can be measured and if the learning outcomes make it clear
what the pupils must do to achieve the objectives. When you tell the pupils what learning
outcomes are expected from the lesson so they understand what is expected of them?
Objectives may be related to knowledge, concepts, skills, behaviours and attitudes.
2. Range of abilities of the pupils. A teacher needs to incorporate differentiation
into planning. This refers to the need to consider pupils’ individual abilities when work is
planned so that both the brightest pupils and those with lesser ability are challenged and
extended by the work. Differentiation can be achieved, for example, by outcome, i.e.
different types or qualities of work may be produced, or by task, i.e. different tasks may be
set for pupils of different abilities, or by teacher input.
Also, ask yourself whether they will enjoy the lesson and how they will benefit from
it. Plan for your pupils. If you do not know much about the class, try to find out as much as
possible about them before you decide what to teach. Bear in mind their level of language,
their background, their motivation and their learning styles.
3. Time available. In all lesson plans, you need to mention the (anticipated) time
spent on each activity, so that, during the lesson, you can see easily if it is necessary to
adapt the original plan to fit the time available.
4. Resources available (texts, tapes, pictures, exercises, role-cards, etc.). Before
planning, check what resources are available and how they can be reserved.
5. Classroom management (what you will say, how the seating will be arranged,
how much time each stage will take, etc.). This should be suitable to the topic and subject.
6. Teaching strategies and the learning situations. These should be set up as
appropriate to the work being covered. Modelling, explaining and questioning are three key
skills which you should work to improve. It is a good idea to write out questions in advance
which you may want to use to test the pupils’ grasp of the topic and which develop thinking.
Phrasing appropriate questions is a key skill for a teacher.
7. Assessment methods. Decide which ones to use in order to know whether
your learning objectives have been achieved.
8. What did the pupils know now? As your experience of the curriculum and of
pupils’ learning develops, you will find it easier to answer this question. You need to
consider what has been taught before as well as the experience outside school which
pupils might have had. It may be appropriate to do some form of testing or analysis of
knowledge, skills, attitudes and understanding or to have a discussion with pupils to
discover their prior experience and attitudes to the work in question. As a student teacher
you should seek advice from the staff who normally teach your classes.
Your lesson plan will reflect many of the important features of your lesson:

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• your understanding of aims (main and subsidiary)
• your awareness of the language
• your ability to anticipate problems
• the balance and variety of activities in the lesson
• the interaction patterns used
• whether or not whole stages of the lesson are missing
• the allocation of time to particular activities

Teacher’s knowledge of the pupils

Teacher’s knowledge of the syllabus

Language Language Subject and

Activities skills type content

Practical realities

The plan
Fig. 3.1 Lesson Planning
(after Harmer, J., 2001, The Practice of English Language Teaching, p. 310)

We therefore need to look at the construction of a lesson and at writing lesson plans
and consider what they should contain.

Writing a lesson plan

The lesson plan provides an outline of one lesson within a scheme of work. In
planning a lesson, you are working out the detail required to teach one aspect of the
scheme of work. Even though a lesson may have already been planned by the textbook
writer, the teacher still needs to relate that lesson to the needs of the specific class s/he
teaches, to the needs, wants, problems and interests of the pupils. During this process of
adaptation, the teacher transforms the content of the lesson and makes decisions that will
make the lesson successful. Not all these decisions will be included in the written lesson
plan. Many experienced teachers teach successful lessons based on brief notes or mental
plans. However, student teachers are expected to produce a detailed lesson plan for each
lesson taught, as an awareness-raising tool. Requiring you to sit down and think through
your aims and procedure very carefully may help you to become clearer about what works
and why. A lesson plan turns a potential lesson (such as a textbook lesson) into the basis
for an engaging and effective lesson. A lesson plan results from a number of thinking
processes and involves making decisions about what topics to study, what the pupils
should know or be able to do by the end of the lesson, what examples are needed, what
strategies can be used and how learning will be assessed.
The dominant model of lesson planning is Tyler’s rational-linear framework (1949).
This model has four sequential steps: (1) specify objectives; (2) select learning activities; (3)

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organise learning activities; (4) specify methods of evaluation.
Harmer (2001) says that in your lesson plan you will need to include four main
elements: activities, skills, language and content:
• Decide what the pupils will be doing in the classroom and how they will be grouped.
Think what kind of activity would fit them at any particular point in the lesson. Vary
and balance the activities so that each pupil gets a chance of finding the lesson
engaging and motivating.
• Decide which language skill(s) you need to develop in that lesson. Your choice may be
limited by the syllabus or the textbook. However, you still need to plan how the pupils
will work on the respective skill(s) and what sub-skills you want to develop.
• Decide what language (e.g. lexical items, grammar structures) you need to introduce
and practise.
The key question, probably, is “What are the aims of the lesson?” If you can answer
this – if you can be clear about what you hope your learners will have achieved by the end
of the lesson – then perhaps the other questions will become easier to answer.
Starting from the textbook, select the content. Keep in mind that the textbook is just
a guide and that you are free to replace what is given in the textbook with something else.
You are, after all, the class teacher who knows the pupils personally and can predict which
topics will be found interesting and which boring. Remember however, that the most
interesting topic will become boring if the task set for the pupils is uninteresting and that, on
the other hand, topics that are not particularly interesting can become very successful if you
assign a task that your pupils find engaging.
Harmer (1991) also includes the following elements in a lesson plan:
a. description of the class
b. recent work
c. objectives
d. contents (context, activity and class organisation, aids, language, possible
problems)
e. additional possibilities.
Lesson planning involves decisions about the pedagogical dimensions of the lesson,
but also decisions about the management of the class during the lesson: eliciting pupils’
attention, maintaining their engagement in the lesson, organising their interaction,
monitoring their learning.
Preliminary information
A lesson plan normally contains preliminary information under several headings.
Think first!

What preliminary information do you think is usually introduced

at the beginning of a lesson plan?

The preliminary information sheet is usually about 1 or 2 pages:

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 1. Timetable fit
2. Level
3. Time
4. Class profile
5. Aims (main and subsidiary)
6. Assumed knowledge and anticipated problems
7. Materials and aids
1. Timetable fit. This shows how your lesson fits into a sequence of lessons. Here
you need to show how this lesson relates to other lessons that have gone before and those
that will follow. State briefly what textbook you are using with the class, the work relevant to
the lesson that you have covered and give some indication of how the lesson will be
consolidated in future lessons.
2. Level. Here you state the level of the class: Beginner, Elementary, Lower or Upper
Intermediate, Advanced, or Proficient and the year of study.
3. Time. The usual length of a lesson is about 50 minutes.
4. Class profile. Make some brief general comments about the class as a whole
(atmosphere, etc) and mention any relevant points about individual students (age, particular
strengths or weaknesses, etc). This information is particularly useful if your reader, tutor or
inspector has not seen your lesson.
5. Aims (main aim/objective and subsidiary aims). For every lesson you teach,
and for each activity within that lesson, it is useful to be able to state what the aims are. An
aim is the description of a learning outcome, the destination where you want to take your
pupils (not the journey itself). It is important, therefore, to separate mentally the following
from the aims of the lesson:
(a) the material you use;
(b) the activities that will be done;
(c) the teaching point (the language skills or systems that the lesson will work on);
(d) the topics or contexts that will be used;
You cannot say, for instance, that your aim is “to do a role-play” since this is an
activity, not an aim. You need to specify what your aim for the activity (subsidiary aim) is
(e.g. “to consolidate vocabulary related to previous work in class” or “to recycle expressing
polite refusals”, or “to develop fluency in…” etc.)

In the following list of headings, say which is an aim and which is

an activity.
a) Develop the scan reading skill;
b) Dialogue building;
c) Headway p. 36;
d) Grammar revision: conditional clauses;
e) Jigsaw reading;
f) Further practice of /s/ vs. /z/ and /iz/ in plural endings;
g) Introduction of the language of disagreeing;
h) Warmer;
i) Elicit use of Present Perfect.
6. Assumed knowledge and anticipated problems. Thinking about your pupils
when you are planning is crucial. The assumptions and anticipated problems are the

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specific things, relevant to the aims of your lesson, which you anticipate your pupils may
either find easy or have problems with. This is an important part of your lesson plan since it
shows your ability to analyse language.
Specify briefly what relevant language you think your pupils already know
(vocabulary, structures, etc). If you intend to do some skill work, state the level of ability
your pupils have with that skill.
It is more difficult to make assumptions about levels of skill than about levels of
knowledge. If you have recently taken over a class, then you may need to test out the
pupils’ skills before you can make any safe assumptions.
Analyse anticipated problems under the following headings on your lesson plan: a)
meaning, b) form, c) phonology, and d) level of skill (e.g. present level of your pupils’ ability
in coping with listening tasks). Occasionally, you may need to add a fifth heading, e) socio-
cultural problems.
Here are some example statements of assumptions and anticipated problems:
• The pupils have good gist listening skills but are not very used to listening to
loudspeaker announcements.
• The pupils have come across most of the vocabulary before, but only in their reading.
• The pupils are familiar with the topic area; it was the subject of a discussion in a
previous lesson.
• The pupils have good higher processing skills but tend to make mistakes in
interpreting grammatical discourse markers.
Alternatively, you can analyse separately the pupils’ assumed knowledge and the
problems you anticipate when teaching that lesson.
7. Materials and aids. List any materials, references, tapes, pictures, board
drawings, diagrams, handouts, realia, etc. you intend to use. State also if the material is
your own or where you took it from (as this will be very useful when you teach the same
lesson again.)

Formulating aims
You are expected to offer a clear statement of aims before you start teaching a
lesson. This is a useful training discipline, forcing you to concentrate on deciding what
activities and procedures are most likely to lead to specific outcomes for the learners. This
is probably the most important part of your lesson plan since your lesson will ultimately be
judged in terms of your aims.
It is essential that the lesson aims are realistic, achievable, clearly specified and
directed towards an outcome that can be measured. Clear, well-written aims are the first
step in daily lesson planning. They state precisely what you want your pupils to learn; they
also help you guide the selection of the activities, the overall lesson focus and direction.
They also help you evaluate what the pupils have learned at the end of the lesson. If you
are unsure about the aims of your lesson, use this maxim: “What is it that my pupils should
be able to do by the end of the lesson that they couldn’t do at the beginning?”
The most important aim concerns intended student achievements: things that they
will have learned by the end of the lesson. You can deal with aims under two headings:
‘main/major’ and ‘subsidiary’. In a lesson of 50 minutes you will normally have two or three
main aims. These should encapsulate what the lesson is basically about. Aims refer to
either language development or skills improvement. In an English lesson, language-
oriented aims may be for instance the introduction and controlled oral practice of a certain
grammar structure, while a skill-oriented aim may be to improve the pupils’ listening skill or

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to increase the pupils’ confidence and ability to scan a text. Subsidiary aims will be derived
from the main aims (e.g. to give the pupils practice in selective listening, in anticipating
content, and in using guessing strategies to overcome lexical difficulties).
In an English class, the lesson aims will be mainly cognitive and affective. Generally
speaking, the cognitive aims are statements that describe the knowledge that the pupils
are expected to acquire or construct. Use in the formulation of these aims verbs like:
remember, understand, apply, analyse, evaluate and create. Apply these verbs to the four
main dimensions of knowledge: factual, conceptual, procedural and metacognitive, as you
will most probably want your pupils to do more than “remember” facts. In the 21st century,
your pupils will expect thinking, decision making and problem solving to be increasingly
emphasised in the classroom.
A number of aims that fit into the affective domain, which focus on attitudes, values
and on the development of the pupils’ personal and emotional growth, are also
recommended. Although much of the focus in the affective domain is implicit, sometimes
we need to concentrate on it deliberately. For example, in a lesson with reference to
multiculturalism, your aim may be to develop your pupils’ awareness of and appreciation of
another culture’s values and customs. Remember that attitudes, values and emotions
strongly affect learning, and when you plan and teach a lesson, you should keep in mind
factors like willingness to listen, open-mindedness, commitment to values and involvement.
If you have a clear objective (main aim) for a lesson, you can bear this in mind all the
way through the class. Knowing where you are going enables you to make moment-by-
moment decisions about different paths or options to take en route, while keeping the main
objective always clearly in front of you. Good lesson planning, and especially good
specifying of objectives does not restrict you, but in clarifying the end point you intend to
teach, sets you free to go towards that point in the most appropriate ways in class.
Remember that the lesson has limited aims (2 – 3), and that you shouldn’t try to achieve too
much.
Is “teaching the present perfect” a realistic aim for a lesson? How
about “doing a listening exercise”?

Try to formulate aims that are learner-centred, such as “to enable the pupils to use
the present perfect with a greater degree of accuracy”.
Distinguish between teaching aims and learning aims. You may have aims for
yourself in the lesson (teaching aims), such as “to improve the clarity of my instructions”.
These should be expressed in a separate section.
The following headings can help you specify aims for a reading or listening lesson:
text type, style and register, reading or listening style, specific language aim, specific skills
aim, and so on. Here are some examples of lesson aims:
• Text type, style and register:
 To provide practice in reading magazine articles in informal style.
 To present an ESP (medical) journal article, with formal style and marked register.
 To provide practice in listening to loudspeaker announcements.
 To provide practice in listening to formal speeches.

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• Reading or listening style:
 To test pupils’ intensive reading abilities
 To provide practice in skim listening
• Specific language aims
 To provide receptive practice of some discourse connectors (e.g. however,
although, though)
 To present ‘comment’ segments introduced by which (e.g. “I got there early,
which is why I had to wait so long”, etc.)
• Specific skills aim
 To help pupils use their background knowledge to make correct inferences
 To present a way of dealing with unfamiliar words by breaking them down into
parts
It is often desirable to kill two or more birds with one stone and set aims, thus:
 To provide practice in reading magazine articles in informal style and to help the
pupils use background knowledge to make correct inferences.
 To present discourse linkers such as however, although, though.

How could you formulate the above aims in a more learner-

centred way?

The language you use for stating aims is important. Action verbs are typically used
to identify the desired pupil behaviour. Vague verbs such as understand, appreciate, enjoy
or learn are avoided because these situations are difficult to quantify. Action verbs such as
identify, present, describe, explain, demonstrate, list, contrast or debate are clearer and the
situations easier to understand and evaluate. The best-known source for useful action
verbs is Bloom’s Taxonomy of Thinking Processes. Here are a few verbs taken from
Bloom’s taxonomy, together with the cognitive process involved:
Knowledge: tell, list, define, name, identify, state, remember, repeat;
Comprehension/understanding: transform, change, restate, describe, explain,
review, paraphrase, relate, generalise, infer;
Application: apply, practice, employ, use, demonstrate, illustrate, show, report;
Analysis: analyse, distinguish, examine, compare, contrast, survey, investigate,
separate, categorize, classify, organise;
Synthesis: compose, construct, design, modify, imagine, produce, propose
Evaluation: judge, decide, select, evaluate, critique, debate, verify, recommend,
assess.

Procedure
After writing the preliminary information, you must decide the activities and
procedures that you will use to ensure the successful attainment of the aims. Therefore, at
this stage you need to think through the purposes and structures of the activities, in other
words, the shape of the lesson. A generic lesson plan has five phases (Shrum and Glisan
1994):

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1. Perspective or opening. The teacher asks the pupils what was the previous activity
(what was previously learned)? Then the teacher gives a preview of the new lesson.
2. Stimulation. This phase prepares the pupils for the new activity. The teacher (a) poses
a question to get the pupils thinking about the coming activity; (b) helps the pupils to
relate the activity to their lives; (c) begins with an attention grabber: an anecdote, a
picture, or a song; and (d) uses the response to the attention grabber as a lead into the
activity.
3. Instruction/participation. This phase involves the teacher in presenting the activity,
checking for pupils’ understanding and encouraging active pupil involvement. Interaction
can be stimulated by pair and/or group work.
4. Closure. The teacher asks what the pupils have learned by asking questions such as
“What did you learn?” “how do you feel about these activities?” The teacher then gives a
preview about the possibilities for future lessons.
5. Follow-up. The teacher uses other activities to reinforce some concepts and even
introduce some new ones. The teacher gives the pupils opportunities to do independent
work and can set certain activities or tasks taken from the lesson as homework.
Of course, teachers can have variations on this generic model. As pupils gain
competence, they can take on a larger role in choosing the content and the structure of the
lesson. On the other hand, language lessons may be different from other lessons because
the concepts may need to be reinforced time and again using various procedures.
If the question “What do you want the pupils to learn and why?” needs to be
addressed before reaching the procedure part of the lesson plan, the following questions,
suggested by Farrell (in Richards and Renandya, 34) may be useful for you to answer
before starting to write the procedure part of the lesson plan:
• Are all the tasks necessary – worth doing and at the right level?
• What materials, aids, will you use, why and when?
• What type of interaction will you encourage – pair work or group work – and why?
• What instructions will you have to give and how will you give them (written, oral)? What
questions will you ask?
• How will you monitor pupil understanding during different stages of the lesson?
A good lesson plan should be clear and logical, and make the lesson
reconstructable (i.e. someone else should be able to teach it following your lesson plan).
You do not need to write a word-for-word script, but you need more than brief notes that
only you understand.
When teaching the lesson, you may wish to have a simpler working document for
yourself, which shows major stages, concept questions, types of interaction, timing, etc.
Some teachers like to use a series of cards that carry instructions and contain the main
points of a particular stage so that they can easily refer to them during the lesson.
Show how you will convey meaning and check understanding. Write concept
questions on your lesson plan, with the answers you expect. Remember that you may also
need to ask questions about style, register, connotation, etc. All this will demonstrate that
you have analysed the language you are teaching. On the lesson plan, show the form
clearly.
Where you anticipate pronunciation problems, show awareness of sounds, stress
and intonation. On the lesson plan, give the phonetic transcription of problematic words or
chunks of language and mark stress and intonation patterns. When teaching vocabulary,

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mark word stress on lexical items.
These will make clear why you are doing something at a particular point in your
lesson. They will also help your observer, tutor, inspector or reader to assess the
effectiveness of any part of the lesson and help you to clarify the distinction between aims
and activities.
In the list below, the left-hand column contains subsidiary aims which
were written by various teachers, but which may deserve closer scrutiny.
Analyse these aims and write your own comments in the right-hand
column.
Aims Your Comments
To develop the listening
skill
To practise the skill of
listening for detailed
information.
To practise gist listening.
To practise reading for
understanding.
To practise skimming a
long written text.
To practise scanning for
specific information

Showing the type of interaction for each stage and activity (e.g. T - S, S - S, in
groups, in pairs, etc.), will help you to assess if there is sufficient variety of focus in the
lesson.
Show the approximate amount of time you expect to spend on each stage or activity
in the lesson. Be realistic about this. A lot will depend on your experience and judgement.
Sometimes the timing can go wrong, so don’t be afraid of being flexible in the lesson.
Timing
The time you give to particular stages or activities is often a reflection of what you
perceive to be important in the lesson, so you will need to make appropriate decisions
about timing. Remember to allow for thinking time and keep in mind that the pupils’
concentration span on any activity is only about 20 - 30 minutes.
Giving an approximate timing can also help you to limit your aims, and it can help
you to learn from experience how long some kinds of activities can take. If you have ‘timing
problems’ with lessons, this may be due to several causes:
• poor understanding of aims
• confusion over what the main aims and subsidiary aims are
• unanticipated problems due to insufficient language analysis
• different learning rates among pupils
• the pupils’ unfamiliarity with the concepts used
• poor language grading
• insufficient or confusing instructions
• slow pace of the lesson, etc.
One possible solution to timing problems is to build flexible slots into the lesson

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plan, which can be used or dropped as necessary.
Include brief but clear class management instructions, e.g. for organising pair work,
group work, for the use of the textbook, etc.
Board work
Plan board work before the lesson so that it is clearly organised and legible. Show on
your lesson plan how you will make use of the board during the lesson. Board work will
include titles, rules, diagrams, example sentences, phonological features, i.e. anything that
the pupils will write down as a record of the lesson.
Remember to go round the classroom and check whether the pupils are copying
down accurately. Alternatively, a well designed handout (e.g. a grammar reference
handout) can be given to save time in the lesson. Board work can also be prepared before
the lesson on OHP transparencies.
Skills work
Show how you will prepare and interest the pupils in these activities. For instance,
say what questions you prepared to elicit contributions. Include pre-set questions for
reading or listening tasks and their expected answers. For listening activities, indicate the
number of times you intend to play the tape.
Homework
Make sure the homework task you set is meant to consolidate what has been
covered in the lesson and to check if learning has taken place.
To sum up the features of good lesson plan, this should have:
• clearly specified aims
• evidence of language analysis
• logical staging of the lesson
• clear and easy to read procedure.
The stages of the lesson should be clearly indicated on the plan. Being able to refer
to stages numerically makes the plan easier to read (e.g. 1.a, 3.b, etc.). The ending and
beginning of stages should also be made clear to the pupils during the lesson.

A final check of the lesson plan

Having done all the above, spend some time thinking:
• Is there sufficient variety? Look at the activities, focus, pace and interaction patterns.
• Could the pupils be more involved at each stage?
• What are the pupils’ asked to contribute at each stage? What are the pupils required
to do?
• What is your role at each stage (corrector, monitor, resource, participant)?

Layout of lesson plans

The layout style you adopt for the “Procedure” part of the lesson plan is a question of
individual taste. Here are some tips:
Give a heading to each stage. This will help you to plan logically staged lessons and
make it clear how the stages of the lesson develop, e.g.:
• presenting new language

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• getting across meaning
• highlighting form and pronunciation
• controlled practice
• less controlled practice
• freer practice / personalisation / creative stage
The heading also helps to ensure that important stages of the lesson are not left out
and that appropriate materials are prepared for the practice stages.
Your lesson plan layout can be linear or tabular (arranged in the form of a table).
Linear plans are written as any normal text would be, with headings and sub-headings.
If you choose to use a tabular layout, here are two versions of what it may look like:

Aims Time Interaction Aids Teacher Pupil

Patterns activity Activity

And the second one:

Step/ Time Tasks (teacher) Tasks Inter Aims

Stage (pupils) action (purpose)
1 5–10 Opening: introduction Listen T Arouse interest.
mins to the topic sport. T Ss Activate schema
activates schema for for sport.
sport.
Ss call out the
T asks Ss to help her
answer to the
write down as many
question as the
different kinds of sport
on the board within 3 T writes the
minutes. answers on the
board.
T asks Ss to rank their T writes the
favourite sports in answers.
order of importance
(from Farrell, 36)
The advantage of the tabular layout is that you have to think about what needs to
be written in each of the columns for each stage of the lesson. It is also easy to see if the
lesson is too teacher-centred. However, some people may find this layout difficult to follow.
Compromise layouts can also work quite well. Here is one format:
Notes /
Time Teacher activity Pupil activity equipment
needed
0 – 5 min Class enter and settle Coats and bags put
away
5 – 10 Homework discussed / recap of
min work so far / task set / new work
explained

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 10 – 25 Teacher supports groups / Pupils work in groups to
min individuals carry out the task

Evaluation: Were objectives achieved? What went well? What needs to be

addressed next time? How are individuals responding?
(from Capel, Leask and Turner, 2009: 84)
Here is a second one:

Stage Procedure Aim

Practice 1. Each pupil writes down three ways in • To give pupils written and
which s/he thinks they are different from spoken practice in
10 – 20 their partners. S/he does not show the expressing their opinions,
minutes partner what s/he has written. in agreeing and
2. Both pupils tell each other about the disagreeing.
Pair work differences and talk about where they • To encourage pupils to get
were right or wrong, then they talk about to know someone better.
the similarities.
(from Klippel F., Keep Talking, CUP, 1991)

This layout has several advantages. The name of the stage, the time and type of
interaction all fit into the Stage column, and there is plenty of space left for detail in the
Procedure column. Also, there is space in the Aim column to indicate the aim of particular
stages and activities in the lesson. The lesson plan is also easy to follow for your tutor,
reader, observer or inspector.

Implementing the lesson plan

Implementing the lesson plan is the most important and the most difficult phase of
the planning cycle as the reality of the class often takes over. Unplanned events may occur
which may hinder you from following the plan. After having spent so much time to produce
the lesson plan, you will feel inclined to follow it closely, for fear of failing to achieve any of
your stated aims. However, you should feel free to diverge from it when you have to deal
with any unanticipated events or difficulties that you may encounter. It is often the case that
you need to adjust or even change the original plan when the lesson is not going well. This
will show your willingness to respond to the classroom situation as it develops, and you will
be given credit for doing this.
Think first!

What reasons may teachers have to deviate from their lesson

plans?

It is not a good idea to stick to your lesson plan, regardless of what happens in the
classroom. Remember that the original plan was designed with specific intentions in mind
and based on your diagnosis of the learning needs of the pupils. However, you may need to

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make adjustments to the lesson at the implementation stage. Thomas Farrell (in Richards
and Renandya, 2002: 34) suggests there are two broad reasons for adjustments at the
implementation stage: (a) the lesson is going badly and the plan may not be likely to
produce the desired outcomes, and (b) something unexpected happens during an early part
of the lesson that necessitates improvisation (for instance interruptions due to loud noises,
visits, etc.).
• Sometimes teachers respond to issues raised by the pupils that they perceive to be
relevant for the other pupils;
• They may decide to discuss some unplanned event because they appreciate it to be
timely for the class;
• They may change the procedure as a means of promoting the progress of the lesson;
• They may depart from the original plan when they understand they haven’t
accommodated the pupils’ learning styles;
• They may eliminate some steps in the lesson plans in order to promote pupil
involvement, especially if the pupils are not responding;
• They may change the lesson plan to encourage quiet pupils to participate more and to
keep the more active students from dominating the class time.
If the lesson is going badly or not as planned, and immediate adjustments or
improvisations are necessary, a student teacher may not be able to either recognise there
is a problem, diagnose it, or think out the necessary adjustments quickly. This kind of
knowledge is built up with experience.
However, never be afraid to go back and clarify, reintroduce, check concepts again,
or stop the class and repeat your instructions. As a general rule: prepare thoroughly, but in
class, teach the learners, not the plan. This means that you should be prepared to
respond to the learners and adapt what you have planned as you go, even to the extent of
throwing the plan away if appropriate. The execution of a lesson involves a whole series of
decisions that you are called to make as the lesson progresses. You need to show
sensitivity to pupils and their difficulties and an ability to respond appropriately.
A carefully thought out plan enables you to think logically through the content of the
lesson before the lesson and prepare material and aids. It then informs your teaching in
class – whether you follow it completely or not. However, a teacher who is mainly
concerned with following a lesson plan to the letter is unlikely to be responding to what is
actually happening in class. On the other hand, if you do not follow your lesson plan, be
prepared to explain afterwards why you decided to diverge from it. Do not be afraid to show
flexibility, confidence and independence.
When implementing the lesson plan, try to monitor two important issues: variety and
pace. Variety of delivery and variety of activities will keep your pupils interested. Variety is
ensured not only by the activities themselves but also by changes in their tempo (from fast
to slow). The patterns of interaction also provide variety: individual tasks, pair work, group
work, whole class interaction. The level of difficulty of the activities (from easy to more
demanding) also contributes to variety and pupil involvement. Penny Ur (1996) suggests
that the harder activities should be placed earlier in the lesson and the quieter before the
lively ones.
Pace is linked to the speed at which the activities progress, and lesson timing. In
order for you to develop a sense of pace, Brown (1994) suggests a few guidelines:
1. Activities should not be too long or too short;
2. Various techniques for delivering the activities should “flow” together;
3. There should be clear transitions between each activity.

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 Avoid racing through different activities just because they have been written in the
lesson plan and always remember that you work for the benefit of the pupils.

Evaluating the plan

Although experienced teachers already have a sense of what goes on well and what
does not while they are teaching, after having implemented the lesson, everyone must
evaluate the success or the failure of a lesson. Ur (1996) says that it is important to think
after teaching a lesson and ask “whether it was a good one or not, and why” (p. 219). This
form of reflection is crucial for self-development. Even if “success” and “failure” are relative
terms, without evaluation the teacher has no way of assessing the success of the students
or the adjustments that need to be made. Evaluation is thus important as it provides the
opportunity to reflect on what has gone on in the lesson regarding the aims of the lesson,
the success of the tasks, the appropriateness of the materials and, consequently, what
changes need to be made in future lessons.
The main criterion of evaluation (Ur, 1996: 220) is pupil learning. Even though it is
difficult to judge how much learning has taken place, we can still make a good guess based
on our knowledge of the class, the type of activities the class was engaged in or on some
informal test activities that provide feedback on learning. Ur also offers (ibidem) a few
criteria for evaluating lesson effectiveness:
1. The class seemed to be learning the material well;
2. The learners were engaging with the foreign language throughout;
3. The learners were attentive all the time;
4. The learners enjoyed the lesson and were motivated;
5. The learners were active all throughout.
A few questions may also be helpful for you to reflect on after conducting a lesson
Farell, 35):
• What do you think the pupils actually learned?
• What tasks were most successful? Least successful? Why?
• Did you finish the lesson on time?
• What changes (if any) will you make in your teaching and why (not)?
Another source of feedback on the lesson success is the pupils themselves. You can
ask them questions at the end of the class, avoiding judgemental questions such as “Did
you enjoy the lesson” and telling them that you need assistance with future lesson planning.
Such questions can be:
• What do you think today’s lesson was about?
• What part was easy?
• What part was difficult?
• What changes would you suggest the teacher make?
To conclude, carefully thought-out lesson plans are likely to result in more efficient
use of instructional time and more successful teaching and learning opportunities.
Remember also that teachers make choices before, during and after each lesson.

Conclusions
Planning lessons is an operation that needs to take place before teaching can be

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effective, and it is entirely the teacher’s responsibility. However, as teachers have different
styles of teaching, their style of planning will also be different. You must always allow
yourself flexibility to plan your own way, keeping in mind the yearly, term and unit plans.
Also, allow yourself the flexibility of diverging from the lesson plan in response to the
actuality of the classroom, in order to maximise teaching and learning opportunities. And
yet, clearly thought-out lesson plans will maintain the attention of the students and increase
the likelihood that they will be interested in the lesson. A clear plan will also maximise time
and minimise confusion of what is expected of the students, thus making classroom
management easier (Farrell, idem, 37).
Here are some of the principles that a teacher should follow in planning:
• Take your pupils from dependence to independence.
• Build in your lesson plan, backward and forward links (revision, consolidation, skills
work, presentation, practice, etc.)
• Formulate aims clearly.
• Be realistic: do not attempt to cover more than you can in the time you have. Limit your
aims.
• Provide balance of input, skills work, controlled / freer / free practice activities.
• Provide variety of pace, focus, activity, intensity, interaction patterns.
• Ensure logical progression in the staging of activities.
• Make the plan layout clear and easily accessible.
• Provide enough detail to make the lesson reconstructable
• Include in the lesson ways of checking that your pupils have understood or can produce
something of what you have introduced or practised.

Further Reading
Capel, Susan, Leask, Marilyn and Turner, Tony, 2009, Learning to Teach in the Secondary
School: A Companion to School Experience, Routledge
Brown H. D., 1994. Teaching by Principles: An interactive approach to language pedagogy.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall Regents
Harmer, J., 2001. The Practice of English Language Teaching, Longman
Richards, Jack C. and Renandya Willy A., 2002. Methodology in Language Teaching.
Cambridge: CUP.
Scrivener, J. 1994. Learning Teaching. Heinemann.
Ur, Penny. 1996. A course in language teaching: Practice and Theory. Cambridge: CUP.

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