Recommendations For Preparing Lesson Plans: Part 1: Procedure To Prepare A Lesson Plan From A Topic

Recommendations for Preparing Lesson Plans
Updated: Nov 2010 by Warwick Thorn, Academic Manager, Teach International
This document is in three parts.
PART 1 Procedure to prepare a lesson plan from a topic…………………………….…. Page 2-16
PART 2 Procedure to prepare a lesson plan from a course book unit or part unit…..Page 17-25
PART 3 Reminders and help on how to teach your lesson……………………………….Page 26-37
Do not overlook this document, because there seems a lot of material. Depending on your practice
teaching arrangement, you only need to follow either Part 1 or Part 2 and then you can use Part 3
to hone your skills as you progress.
If you follow the step by step guidelines in Part 1 or 2 your lesson plans will come together with
minimal stress - one step at a time!
Teacher’s Grammar reference book
At this point in your training, you need a grammar reference book. If you do not yet have a grammar
book, you should buy one now! Visit a bookstore where there are ESOL resources for sale and ask
for teachers’ grammar reference books (University bookstores are a good place to start). There are
suggested Grammar reference books on page 124 of your TESOL manual. Have a look for one that
you feel helps you. Try:
 Practical English Usage (3rd Edition) by Michael Swan, OUP.
 Grammar for English Language Teachers: With exercises and a key by Martin Parrot. CUP. ISBN:
9780521477970
 A Practical English Grammar (4th Edition) by A.J. Thomson & A.V. Martinet, OUP. ISBN:
9780194313421
Simpler student’s grammar book
If you also need a simpler grammar book, useful for setting student homework and for your own
understanding of levels, try:
 Essential Grammar in Use Edition With Answers : A Self-Study Reference and Practice Book for
Elementary Students of English (Paperback) by Raymond Murphy, CUP.
AND  English Grammar In Use with Answers and CD ROM : A Self-study Reference and Practice
Book for Intermediate Students of English by Raymond Murphy, Cambridge. ISBN: 9780521532891
If you want something in between the above options, have a look at:
 Oxford Practice Grammar Basic, OUP.  Oxford Practice Grammar Intermediate, OUP.  Oxford
Practice Grammar Advanced, OUP.
PART 1: PROCEDURE TO PREPARE A LESSON PLAN FROM A TOPIC

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INTRODUCTION
This resource will help you prepare lesson plans for your practice teaching component and/or in the
early days of your teaching.
This document will use the established approach in terms of lesson stages that we introduced to
you during the in-class component. You will be shown how to construct a lesson plan starting with a
topic in mind, establish a communicative aim and context, and only then to establish a grammar or
linguistic aim.
The trick to gain confidence with your teaching is to plan well so you know what you are going to
teach and how. Then you can go over it in your mind and even act out how you will present and
demonstrate through the lesson. This document is to help you plan well.
In addition to this document, you will also benefit by reading and viewing the video in
http://www.teachinternational.com/downloads/PracticeTeaching.html and using some Starter
Lesson Plans for your first few lessons..
PROCESS TO UNDERSTAND THE CONSTRUCTION OF A LESSON PLAN

The process outlined below helps you construct a lesson plan starting from a topic and is focussed
on designing a lesson with a communicative speaking emphasis.
You will start by using a communicative aim as a primary aim and from a dialogue that you devise,
establish a grammar/linguistic aim. There are various other ways to construct lesson aims, but
you will see as you read through this document that using this approach enables you to be very
clear about the communication you want to see students demonstrate at the end of the lesson.
Using the communicative aim as a primary aim provides you with a method of discovering some
useful grammar/linguistic patterns that you can also teach, while allowing you to focus on what real
world communication you want you students to be able to do after they leave your lesson..
Following on from the steps below, there is a sample completed lesson plan provided.

LESSON PLANNING
STEP 1: Decide on your topic and start imagining a dialogue in that context
Imagine that you were given the lesson topic of “festivals”. Whatever topic you have or choose,
once you have decided on it, you can start imagining a dialogue in that context. It may help to
google the topic on the internet. Imaging people talking about festivals in their country. That would
be a common enough conversation, wouldn’t it?
You might think of talking about Australian festivals, but, no, don’t do that because you’ll be doing
all the talking.
Okay, so that is just some basic thinking on the topic for a likely common conversation that could be
of interest for the students.
STEP 2: Work out your communicative lesson aim

It is common to have two aims for one lesson. The first aim should be communicative and the
second being a grammar/linguistic aim.
For the topic “festivals” here is a Communicative aim: “Students will be able to talk about local
festivals in Australia and in their own countries”.
Notice how this aim is somewhat specific. It is more specific than “Students will be able to talk about
events”, which would not be specific enough and your lesson would likely wander. It is less specific
than “Students will be able to talk about South American festivals”, which would limit you being able
to apply the communication to an area of student interest.
This Communicative aim guides your ideas for the activities of your lesson, will be reflected in the
dialogue you come up with and in the free practice activity at the end of the lesson.
STEP 3: Work out a dialogue related to the communicative aim

From your Communicative aim you can come up with some kind of dialogue that represents the
communicative aim. This involves you imagining what people in the real world would be talking
about in the situation. For example, you can imagine people talking about festivals from different
countries. This fits with your communicative aim, right? Now, type out what that dialogue might look
like. It could look like this:
A: Do you know about the Brazilian Carnival?

B: Yes, they parade through downtown streets.
A: Do they wear any costumes?
B: Yes, really colourful ones.
A: Is there any dancing?
B: Yes, they like to dance and play music.
A: Is there any special meaning behind the Carnival?
B: Apparently they like to celebrate their culture and there is also a religious reason to say farewell to
the pleasures of the flesh.
We try and make this dialogue as natural as we can.

STEP 4: Work out your Grammar/linguistic aim
The second aim should cover dominant grammar/linguistic pattern of the language. To work this
out, look at the dialogue for some dominant language patterns or structure. Let’s underline where
we can see some grammar/linguistic patterns. The two most common dominant patterns are
grammatical and functional. There are more actually:
1st look for a grammar or functional phrases and decide on the most dominant
if you could not find a pattern
2nd look for idiomatic expressions
if you still cannot find a pattern
3rd look for vocabulary (usually in specialist contexts like banking)
4th look decide on a pronunciation pattern
Okay, so lets’ look for a grammar pattern or functional phrases and decide on the most dominant.
Actually in this case we can see either would work. Don’t confuse functional phrases with grammar
though. For your lesson decide on one, whichever seems more dominant or useful to you.
Grammatical focus Functional focus

A: Do you know about the Brazilian Carnival? A: Do you know about the Brazilian Carnival?
B: Yes, they parade through downtown streets. B: Yes, they parade through downtown streets.
A: Do they wear any costumes? A: What about costumes? Do they wear any?
B: Yes, really colourful ones. B: Yes, really colourful ones.
A: Is there any dancing? A: How about dancing? Do they dance?
B: Yes, they like to dance and (to) play music. B: Yes, they like to dance and (to) play music.
A: Is there any special meaning behind the A: Is there any special meaning behind the
Carnival? Carnival?
B: Apparently they like to celebrate their culture B: Apparently they like to celebrate their culture
and there is also a religious reason to say farewell and there is also as a religious reason to say
to the pleasures of the flesh. farewell to
Whatever we call the underlined text is what your grammar/linguistic aim is.
If you look for the pattern above in the index In the case above we have focussed more on
of your grammar reference book, you will find what we call “functional language” rather than
“like + infinitives”. Now, you can write your on any structured grammar. This is why we
grammar aim as that or a slight variation such call it a “Grammar/linguistic aim” - sometimes
as “like + infinitives (to there are clusters of phrases that clearly
dress/dance/march)”. perform a function or functions within the
language.
With functional phrases it is best to teach

clusters of phrases to students and what the
phrases are doing. Examples of functions
are:  Expressing preferences and
obligations,  Expressing feeling about a
situation,  Complaining and apologising with
questioning,  Describing other people and
professions,  Asking for and giving more
detailed personal information,  Describing
different professions,  Explaining habits, 
Describing past experiences. For teach of
these functions you can imagine a few
common phrases.
If we thought we would like to teach the

functional underlined parts above, we could
come up with a functionally focussed
Grammar/linguistic aim, such as: “Phrases
for asking for information (do you know…,
what about…, how about…, is there
any…)”. It helps to put just a few examples
of what you mean inside brackets.
If when you look at your dialogue, you cannot see any grammatical or functional patterns,
then look for
Idiomatic expressions – there may be a number of those, then Idiomatic expressions ( …,

…, …) can be your Grammar/linguistic aim.
If you sill cannot find a pattern then look for vocabulary. Some dialogues, because of the
context, will have a lot of new vocabulary. So then underline those, the Vocabulary (… , … ,
…) can be your Grammar/linguistic aim.
Idiomatic expressions or new vocabulary are just as legitimate as a grammar or functional

phrases. The point is to find a pattern and write it as your grammar/linguistic aim.
If you still cannot find a pattern, then you can always make an area of pronunciation the focus
of your Grammar/linguistic aim. For example see below PART 3>PRONUNCIATION WORK.
A grammar/linguistic aim could just as legitimately be: Pronunciation (Weak Forms), or
Pronunciation (consonant clusters) or Pronunciation (connected speech) or
Pronunciation (word stress) or Pronunciation (sentence stress) or Pronunciation (body
language)
Summary
Look at your created dialogue, to underline a pattern
1st look for a grammar or functional phrases and decide on the most dominant
if you could not find a pattern
2nd look for idiomatic expressions
3rd look for vocabulary
4th look decide on a pronunciation pattern
There are examples of these different types of aims below under

PART 4 Starter Lesson Plans.
Let’s revise. In summary, you have used the following order:

STEP 2: Work out your Communicative aim

STEP 5: Pre-teaching vocabulary work
Consider what vocabulary the students may struggle with and pre-teach it at the beginning of your
Target Language stage.
The vocabulary to focus on is that which could cause confusion for the students. The idea is to
teach vocabulary before the point where you need to use it, so the students can generally make
sense of the general script. In-fact before any activity at any part of your lesson check if there is any
vocabulary that will confuse and pre-teach it. After that, begin the activity.
Let’s look at our dialogue and list some words that may need to be pre-taught. For example:
Pre-teach: Carnival, parade, downtown streets, costumes, special meaning, apparently, celebrate their
culture, religious reason, pleasures of the flesh.

B: Apparently they like to celebrate their culture and there is also a religious reason to say farewell to

STEP 6: Work out Form and Use (Rule) of the Target Language (language you have
underlined)
Oh, dear, yes. Not only do you highlight some Target Language, by underlining, you do
actually need to understand it. You can achieve this using grammar reference books and
also using the internet to find out about the grammar. You might be confused at first, but
once you think it through, you will realise that you do intuitively understand it. At the end of
this process you will decide on a minimal summary of what we call the FORM and USE to put
on the board during the Target Language stage of the Lesson. Okay, it does seem a bit
unfair - you might spend even up to an hour working it out and then in the lesson cover it in
a few minutes. Form is the way words are constructed and word order. USE explains how
and when we use it.
Grammar Reference books always have headings, then they list the FORM, then they list
USES. So, as long as you can find the grammar point in your book you will find information
on the FORM and USE. But there will be a lot of information on each. In the case of Use there
are often a number of USES that are listed. You don’t teach it all – just select a little of the
FORM to cover in your lesson and one of the USES.
TIP: Don’t try and guess this, or you will get it wrong and the students will know it! Use
grammar books and the internet until you are clear.
Here we show some form and meaning that you could select from your grammar book for
your grammar point.
If you chose a functional focus the grammar book will not help you. In that case you drop
your phrases into substitution tables, name the table and add similar examples. Doing this
serves the same purpose – to make clear the FORM (word order) and USE (how and when we
use it).

Carnival? Carnival?
to the pleasures of the flesh. farewell to the pleasures of the flesh.
Grammar/linguistic aim: “Like + infinitives “Phrases for asking for information (do
(to dress/dance/march)”. you know/what about/how about/is there
any)”.
FORM FORM AND MEANING

Like + infinitive (to dress/dance/march)
To ask about knowledge
Do you know
MEANING
Have you heard about…
“they like to dance”
Have you ever seen anything about…
is close to “they like dancing”
To ask for more detail
the difference is:
What about costumes?
How about
“to dance” has more focus on the thing being done
in a specific context. In this case the specific To ask if something exists
context is the Brazilian Carnival Is there any
Is there a
“like dancing” expresses more the enjoyment, so
is better for talking more generally about your
personal likes.
NOTE: During the Target Language stage of your
NOTE: During the Target Language stage of your lesson this will go on the board and you can refer
lesson this will go on the board and you can refer to it, not in great depth, but enough to clarify the
to it, not in great depth, but enough to clarify the
FORM and USE of the underlined target FORM and USE of the underlined target
language. Don’t get too carried away. Don’t language. Don’t get too carried away. Don’t
include all the detail you will find. Just try and include all the detail you will find. Just try and
simplify your point as succinctly as possible. simplify your point as succinctly as possible.
Expect that students already know this and you Expect that students already know this and you
are just revising, because students usually have are just revising, because students usually have
an in depth understanding of grammar - more than an in depth understanding of grammar - more than
the teacher. Your role is just to show the link the teacher. Your role is just to show the link
where this target language is used in a context of where this target language is used in a context of
communication. communication.
STEP 7: Decide on some concept checking questions (CCQs) for the Target Language:
General CCQs (for the context) and Specific CCQs (for the underlined target language)
Now, you have the text on the board you need to ask some concept checking questions (CCQs) to
help with understanding. We are going to go from general to specific like a funnel.
General CCQs (for the context)
These are general questions to check the students understand the general situation/dialogue.
Naturally, they need to understand this first, before focussing on the specific meaning of any
underlined target language.
Here is our sample dialogue again.

B: Apparently they like to celebrate their culture and there is also a religious reason to say farewell to the
pleasures of the flesh.
Here are some example General CCQs for the context:
What is a carnival?
Here is a picture of a Brazilian Carnival. What can you see in it?
The meaning behind this carnival is in the last line. What does “celebrate” mean?
The meaning behind this carnival is in the last line. What does “farewell to the pleasures of the
flesh” mean?

Specific CCQs (for the underlined target language):
These will be possible, because of the prior work you have done to establish the USE.
Let’s work some Specific CCQs out for the grammatical and functional options, so you can
see the difference.

Carnival? Carnival?
to the pleasures of the flesh. farewell to the pleasures of the flesh.
FORM FORM AND MEANING
To ask about knowledge
MEANING Do you know
“they like to dance” Have you heard about…
is close to “they like dancing” Have you ever seen anything about…
the difference is: To ask for more detail

What about costumes?
How about
“to dance” has more focus on the thing being done
in a specific context. In this case the specific To ask if something exists
context is the Brazilian Carnival
Is there any
Is there a
“like dancing” expresses more the enjoyment, so
is better for talking more generally about your
personal likes.
Specific CCQs Specific CCQs

What do you think the difference between If you want to ask me if I know something
“like to dance” and “like dancing” is? about a carnival of festival in your country
what would you say?
One of them expresses more enjoyment. Expected answer:
Which one? Do you know..
Have you heard about…
Have you ever seen anything about…
TIP: At this point students may raise all sorts
of odd questions. Some of them you will Ask me if I know more about that?
know because the research you did when Expected answer:
working out the grammar and you can What about costumes?
answer the question. If a student asks you a How about…
tricky grammar question, you have two
choices: Ask me if something exists?
Expected answer:
a) ask them to give you an example in a Is there any…
sentence, then write that sentence on the Is there a…
board under the correct sentence from your TIP: At this point students may ask about other
dialogue. E.g., phrases. You can decide if they fit in the
substitution boxes or not.
1. … they like to dance …
2. … they like dance to … If the suggested phrases do not fit in the boxes,
you have two choices:
Then ask the student to tell you why 2 is not
correct. Often someone in the class can, and a) ask them to give you an example in a sentence,
if not it becomes apparent to you and you then write that sentence on the board E.g.,
can answer. In this case the answer is that,
in English we have a verb structure called the “Can you tell me about…”
infinitive where “to” goes before the verb.
Then ask the student to tell you why this does not
If you cannot answer it … fit in the boxes you already have. Often someone
in the class can, and if not it becomes apparent to
you and you can answer. In this case the answer
b) write it on the left side of the board. Tell is that, ‘Can’ is more often used as a request
the student you will check for a proper when you think the person has the ability or
answer because you want to tell them knowledge to give it to you. You might even add a
properly and there is not time right now in the new substitution table on the board. E.g.,
lesson. Tell them in your next lesson. Ask
some other teachers for the answer and tell To ask about knowledge where you are sure the
them next time you see them. person knows
Can you tell me about…
What happens in …
If you cannot answer it, go to …
b) Same is left column.
Tip:
Especially when you are in training it helps to pre-write your dialogue/context on paper.
Alternatively if you are early you can write it up on the board before the lesson.
If you have not had time to write up your dialogue and certainly as you gain experience you can
write up word and letter prompts and then elicit the dialogue content from the students. It
won’t take long to write it up like this – perhaps this can be done while the students are working on
a review activity just prior to the target language stage.
For example, you could write this on the board:

A: Do y__ k___ a______ t__ Brazilian C______?
B: Yes, they p______ through d_______ s______.
A: ___ ______ ____ a__ costumes?
B: Yes, really c________ o____.
A: Is t______ any d_______?
B: Yes, t___ like to d_____ and p_____ m_____.
A: I_ t____ any special meaning b______ the C_______?
B: Apparently t___ like to c________ their culture a___ t____ i_ a____ a religious r_______ to say
farewell t_ t__ pleasures o_ t__ f____.
You then elicit idea from the students for the gaps and fill it in as a class activity.
This can be a little tricky because you will need to deal with students alternative ideas at the same
time. Don’t try this for your first lesson, but by all means try it for later lessons. The idea here is to
encourage the students, as much as possible to give you what language they already know.
You should still put something on the FORM and USE on the board, in the same way as above and
ask General CCQs (for the context) and Specific CCQs (for the underlined target language).

STEP 8: Think of media to create context (pictures etc)
You can also add meaning and context by using media. In this case you might be able to download
some audio of the carnivals, or at least pictures. Once you have some media related to the topic it
can be used at any point in the lesson. It is always good to do a small search of media that could be
used in your lessons.
STEP 9: Decide what pronunciation drilling work to do on the Target Language

You should also drill the students in the pronunciation . There can be some variation from the
steps we showed you on the in-class component/course:
Level Pronunciation drilling method

Beginners/Elementary Drill the whole dialogue
Pre-intermediate Drill the whole dialogue
Intermediate
Rather than the whole text, select a number
of clauses or phrases to concentrate drilling
on how the words join together when said in a
natural rhythm.
Upper-Intermediate
How to drill? Be a conductor! The purpose of drilling students is to get them to follow along with the
sentence stress/rhythm. Have you ever seen a conductor jabbing the air for each note? No, they
are waving their wand with the beat and rhythm. Likewise, you should not point at each individual
word.
If you are right handed, wave your hand like a conductor when you model saying the sentence and
in just the same way while students are repeating. Remember Choral – Individual drilling? It is also
like a funnel:
It also helps a lot to add stress markers to your dialogue
To work these out, say the dialogue out loud to yourself a number of times, “naturally” while over-
gesturing the rhythm with your hands. As you do you will start to hear the rhythm of what you are
saying. Just put some dots on your lesson plan and on the dialogue on the board. This will help you
and the students to stick to the rhythm as you also conduct with your hand.
Another thing that can go wrong with drilling, is that the students start at different times. Again, you
need to conduct them on cue to start at a sentence at the same time. Try using your other hand to
signal a sentence cue in. Maybe you will do it naturally with your eyebrows. Maybe you will naturally
start saying the words when you are gesturing them to repeat.
Practice drilling in front of a mirror.
Finish drilling off with a pair’s practice of the dialogue.
STEP 10: Design a practice activity, or activities (controlled)
Take the dialogues text and turn it into either:

a) a gap fill activity using a handout.
b) a jigsaw with a student A and student B sheet, completed by back to back talking.
c) Cut up the dialogue into strips so pairs have one speaker each, then ask them to match up the
dialogue by reading them out (number the first two lines to get them going.
d) Cut up the dialogue and distribute. Get the class to make up the dialogue, with the teachers
guidance.
e) A running dictation, where the dialogue, or the A or B part is on a wall at the back of the class.
STEP 11: Practice activity (semi-controlled - free)
Now, you might think of another activity where the students can use the language in a freer way. So
far you have controlled the language the students have been using and for those you had pre-
designed the dialogue.
This semi-controlled – free activity should match the communicative aim. In our example the
communicative aim is: Students will be able to talk about local festivals in Australia and in their own
countries. To help you understand how to construct these activities make sure you look at the video
in http://www.teachinternational.com/downloads/PracticeTeaching.html. this file was also linked to
at the top of this document.
For semi-controlled – free activities you can design some prompt or role play cards that will enable
the students to do exactly what the communicative aim says. Don’t worry about thinking about the
Grammar/linguistic aim, because it will naturally flow out of the conversation.
For our example, you could have some cards with some more pictures of festivals, with some facts
about the festival on the other side of the picture. While an A student can see the picture and ask
questions about it, the B student can answer by constructing sentences from the facts on their side
of the card. In this case, you need to think of how the activity would work. There will need to be a
rule that the students have to face each other for the activity. Note any rules in your lesson plan.
You would demonstrate it with you being A and B or with you as A and a confident student as B.
Once you have demonstrated it, set them up to practice in pairs. You should still have the target
language on the board and remember you are hoping they will use some of the underlined text in
this activity. So, while you are demonstrating, keep an eye on the target language and even point
when you happen to use some of the target language. The students will do the same during the
activity and you will likely be very pleased with the result. The result is seeing your aims realised!
Your students using the new language in a real world context!
Once you set the activity in motion, you can facilitate by going around helping them by echo
correction if they make grammatical or pronunciation errors. An alternative is to go around writing
down some errors you hear. Then for the take up, write them on the board, working with the
students to correct the errors.

STEP 12: Possible extended reading or writing activity
NOTE: If you are teaching a one hour lesson, do not do this, because you won’t have time. Only do
this if you are taking a class for two or more hours.
You might build in extended reading and writing activities to your lessons.
For this lesson, you could have a reading activity from a magazine on festivals or perhaps an online
article, that you can copy and paste into a Word document with your exercise questions added. For
writing you could get students to write an email home to describe a festival or other event they have
experienced. These are just an example of ideas – you come up with your own.
Blending skills lessons include one or more of the macro skills of speaking, listening, reading and
writing. They can be built by:
a) connecting up the different models for skills lesson stages. E.g., a listening lesson follows on
from a speaking focussed lesson. Any combination can be constructed.
b) using shorter (listening or reading) activities for the review section.
For the sake of simplicity the following lesson plan stages should be used:
Speaking focussed lesson stages: Warmer, Review, Target Language (includes some
pronunciation work), Controlled - Free Practice activities, homework.
Listening focussed lesson stages: Pre-listening, listening, post-listening. The emphasis is on skill,
not a grammar/linguistic aim. Usually this pre, during and post sequence will be shorter than an
hour, perhaps integrated into the review, or in the activity stage of your lesson plan. This may be
preceded by a Target Language stage and the listening might include viewing of video or music.
Reading focussed lesson stages: Pre-reading, reading, post-reading. Emphasis is on skill, not a
grammar/linguistic aim. Usually this pre, during and post sequence will be shorter than an hour,
perhaps integrated into the review, or in the activity stage of your lesson plan. This may be
preceded by a Target Language stage and the reading might include summarised or full real world
texts such as from emails, letters, articles or magazine interviews.
Writing focussed lesson stages: Pre-writing, Target Language/ pre-writing (model, Language work,
guidelines), note taking (optional), writing1 (draft), writing2 (rewriting stage). The teacher may
correct the students writing outside of class (usually by using a writing correction key), writing3
(Final copy), post-writing (discussion). Usually, writing lessons will be two hours long or longer and
they are often split to allow for the teacher to do some marking.
Children's lesson stages: Warm up, Review, Vocabulary / context, Activity for vocabulary practice,
Target Language (first small block of language)(TL 1), Activity from TL 1, Target Language (second
added on small block of language)(TL2), Activity from TL 2, Reinforcement Activity to combine
practices of TL 1 and TL2, Homework. Basically, the sections are broken up into smaller chunks to
account for children's lower attention span. Also, children's lesson will have physical involvement
wherever possible.
STEP 13: Warmer

Now, think of a warmer for starting the lesson. In this example we are looking at festivals, so maybe
you could ask for volunteers to talk about festivals in their countries. Because you will have done
some research you would know the names of a few. Another idea could be to play some music from
festivals or carnivals and ask them to guess where the music is from.
STEP 14: Review and Homework

Review: If you taught the class before you could add a review into your lesson. Otherwise,
see part 3 of this document there are specific examples of how to include some pronunciation work
in addition to drilling (Page 29 -32).
If you are going to teach them again you could add a homework section. But if it is an extra class, it
may be too much to expect them to do homework – in that case set some really easy homework,
such as to have a similar conversation with someone during the week.

STEP 15: Write up your lesson plan and prepare any materials
Now that you have your lesson plan stages, (Warmer, Review, Target Language, Activities,
Homework) you should write up your lesson plan. Also you should prepare any resources, pictures
or cards for example, or dialogue that you will use for your lesson.
Let’s just revise the steps:
STEP 2: Work out your Communicative aim
STEP 5: Select a block of text for the Target Language stage of the lesson
STEP 6: Elicit the target language (possibly to a substitution table) for the Target Language
STEP 7: Decide on some concept checking questions (CCQs) for the Target Language: General
CCQs (for the context) and Specific CCQs (for the underlined target language)
STEP 8: Think of media to create context (pictures etc)
STEP 9: Decide what pronunciation drilling work to do on the Target Language
STEP 10: Design a practice activity, or activities (controlled)
STEP 11: Practice activity (semi-controlled - free)
STEP 12: Possible extended reading or writing activity
STEP 13: Warmer
STEP 14: Review and Homework
STEP 15: Write up your lesson plan and prepare any materials

SAMPLE COMPLETED LESSON PLAN
This sample lesson plan is expanded from the one on page 357 in your TESOL course manual.
This is because we are asking you to take into account a number of additional issues: The aims
section has been added so that you are asked to have a communicative as well as a
grammar/linguistic aim, the activity stages have been split to define controlled and semi-controlled
activities, a pre-teaching vocabulary section has been added, optional reading and writing sections
have been added, with notes on when to include them.
NOTE: Remember also that if you are teaching children the stages are broken up differently as per
page 358 of your TESOL course manual.
Lesson Plan
Teacher: ___________________ Date: ___________ Level: Pre-intermediate
Time: _________________ Room: ______ Age: Teens/Young

Adults/Adults
Topic/Theme: Festivals
Communicative aim:
Students will be able to talk about local carnivals and festivals in Australia and in their own
countries.
Linguistic/Grammar aim:
Like + infinitives (to dress/dance/march).
Stages Activities and notes Resources
Warmer Play some music from carnivals and ask them to guess where the recorded
5 minutes music is from. music,
player
Review From something you have taught them before or some
pronunciations.
Pre-teach vocab: Carnival, parade, downtown streets, costumes, Matching
special meaning, apparently, celebrate their culture, religious reason, meaning
pleasures of the flesh. with word
cards
Target  Carnivals pictures on whiteboard:
Language
(Drill-work)  Dialogue to board (add sentence stress dots, now or just before
drilling) 3 sets of
15 minutes pictures
Model
 General CCQs:
What is a carnival?
Here is a picture of a Brazilian Carnival. What can you see in it?
The meaning behind this carnival is in the last line. What does “celebrate” mean?
The meaning behind this carnival is in the last line. What does “farewell to the
pleasures of the flesh” mean?

CCQs specific:
Can we say, “they like dance?

Expected answer: NO
Can we say, “they like to dance?”
Expected answer: YES
Can we say, “they like dancing”
Expected answer: YES, actually.
Can anyone tell me the difference between
“they like to dance?” and “they like dancing” in this dialogue?
Expected answer: <maybe someone
answers correctly>
Explain the difference by reading out the difference as written under USE below.
USE (rule) to the board
USE
“they like to dance”
is close to “they like dancing”
the difference is:
“to dance” has more focus on the thing being done in a specific
context. In this case the specific context is the Brazilian Carnival
“like dancing” expresses more the enjoyment, so is better for talking

more generally about your personal likes.
FORM to the board:
FORM
Drill – Model, Choral, individual
 Drill part of the target language [just a part for pre-intermediate

level]. Choral – individual drilling.
B: Yes. And they like to dance and play music.
Pairs practice
Activities A: Do you know about the Brazilian Carnival? Two sets of

(Controlled) multiple
10 minutes B: Yes, really colourful ones. cards:
A: Is there any dancing? Question
B: Yes, they like to dance and play music. and Answer
cards on
B: Apparently they like to celebrate their culture and there is also a religious reason
to say farewell to different
the pleasures of the flesh. carnivals.
 Check answers correct in pairs, then as class.
Pre-teach Centrepiece, formal dress, flashy, betting, sweep stakes, attendance. Matching
vocab meaning
5 minutes with word
cards
Activities A: Do you know about the Australian Melbourne Cup Day? Two sets of
(Controlled) B: Yes, it is a horse race held in Melbourne and the centrepiece of the multiple
10 minutes Spring Carnival. cards:
A: How do people dress when they go to the race? Question
B: They wear formal dress with the women wearing colourful and flashy and Answer
hats.
A: Is there much betting?
cards on
B: Yes, around Australia, people run sweep stakes and there is a lot of different
celebrating. carnivals.
A: Is there any special history behind the Melbourne Cup?
B: It started in 1838 and in 1865 it became a public holiday in the state of
Victoria, with the biggest attendance being 120,000 people. The total
prize money is over four million dollars.
Activities  Students find information about carnivals and events, by asking
(Semi- questions. Cards with
controlled - Rule: Students back to back. Student’s answering can only answer more
Free) direct questions and offer hints. pictures of
15 minutes carnivals
 Take-up: Get questioning students to summarise to the class. form the
Echo correct language as needed. countries
where the
students are
from -
information
on the other
side of
pictures.
Source info
and pics
form the
Internet
Possible extended reading activity
Reading  Students to answer questions on article based on a magazine Magazine
15 minutes article on an Australian Carnival or Event. article on an
 Students to answer three main questions (skimming for gist) on Australian
topic. Carnival or
 Students to answer three questions on details of the text Event.
(scanning).
 Elicit opinions on meaning
Possible extended writing activity
Writing  Write about a festival or event in your own country or one that
30-45 you have attended in another country.
minutes
 Check students understand and each has topic.
 Help with planning
 5 minute time limit for first draft
 Look at drafts and help with ides and indicate areas for students
to correct.
Homework  Prepare for a class presentation on any carnival, festival or
event
Also refer to your TESOL manual:
Unit 6: Lesson Planning and Syllabus>How to make a great lesson.

Unit 2: English – An International Language>Lesson Plan Model.
Unit 9 Activities.

Want the above format? Copy and past this into a Word document. The Starter Lesson plans in
section 4 can also be selected and pasted into your own word document.
Lesson Plan
Teacher: Date: Level:
Time: Room: Age:
Topic/Theme:
Communicative aim:
CONCLUDING REMARKS
If you can check these off you are ready to teach:
 I have researched the topic.

 I have prepared my Lesson Plan.
 My aims are clear.
 My target language is clear.
 If it was my first lesson I have had some feedback on it and updated it as necessary.
 I have checked out the grammar in a grammar book or online and considered variations that
students might spring on me.
 Each stage is clear and I have the resources prepared for each stage, ordered so when I get to
the class I can locate the bits I need for each stage.
 I have worked out where I am going to do my practice teaching and how to get there with about
30 minutes lead time (time to meet/find any people involved + 15 minutes before hand to set up the
classroom.
 I have some professional looking clothes to wear.
You don’t really need luck, now, but good luck anyway ! If you feel nervous realise that as long as
you have checked off this list, it will be just fine. Teaching is a bit of an art, so there will always be
things that you can improve. That is the nature of it. After the lesson, reflect on what was positive
and what you can improve and realise that you are now teaching real ESOL students. Your TESOL
experience has begun .

PART 2: PROCEDURE TO PREPARE A LESSON PLAN FROM A
COURSE BOOK UNIT OR PART UNIT
Back to top
INTRODUCTION
This resource will help you prepare lesson plans by adapting and adding to course book units or part units.
To do this we need to explore the lesson aims to ensure your adaptations and/or additions are relevant and
meet the needs and interests of students.
When we do this, we will retain an emphasis on communicative aims. This is because we are considering the
communicative aim as more important than the grammar/linguistic aim. The idea of your language teaching is
to teach students to ‘use’ the language and that use is serve the students needs and interests.
Grammar/linguistic content, as with vocabulary and pronunciation is a building block to enable the students to
use English. Therefore the communicative aim should be the dominant aim.
Procedure:
Step 1. Decide what unit or part unit is being covered from the course book. NOTE: Often a unit will take
up to three hours, so when we are looking at delivering over an hour, we need to decide what part of the unit is
being covered. In this case we will agree to teach From English in Mind, Unit 7, p48-49:

Step 2. Note the different focus in the unit, or part unit in the margin of the text book, using pencil or post-it
notes. These will be: Speaking, Listening, Reading, Writing (to a model), Writing (creative), Vocabulary,
Pronunciation, Task based. NOTE: Often units provide headings, which make this clear, as below. Units often
cover a range of skills that are logically linked.

Step 3. Note lesson stages in the margin of the text book, using pencil or post-it notes. Because many
lessons are integrated skills lesson, there can be the full common range of stages. First, find the speaking
focussed stages, then check for vocabulary and pronunciation stages. Thirdly, look for listening, reading and
writing stages. Lastly, look for and any task based activity.
Focus Stages to note in the margin of the text book, using pencil or post-it notes.
All lessons warmer, review,
Speaking presentation, controlled practice, semi-controlled practice, free practice
Listening pre-listening, listening-gist, listening-detail, post listening
Reading pre-reading, reading-gist, reading-detail, post reading
Writing (to a model) model, language work, imitate model
Writing (creative) brainstorm, structuring ideas
Grammar Eliciting form, form, controlled practice, semi-controlled practice, free practice
Vocabulary pre-teaching vocab, vocab development
Pronunciation pronunciation
Task based Task based activity

Step 4. Write down the grammar/linguistic aim of the lesson or part lesson. The grammar is
usually outlined in the contents page, however, there may be a grammar items covered over the
unit. If you are teaching part of a unit work out which grammar is covered in that part and write it
down as your grammar aim.
Here is the information from the course book table of contents. This is the whole chapter, so unless
you are teaching the whole chapter only one some of these grammar and linguistic areas may be
covered in your section:
You can look at the course book pages:
So, here is your Linguistic/Grammar aim:
Linguistic/Grammar aim: Make & do + Present perfect passive + Future passive
If you like you can specify further, which could include some examples of the language:
Make & do (eg “…make room for…”) + Present perfect passive (Eg “…have been built…”) + Future passive (Eg
…will be built…)
OR it could require you to locate the particular use in your grammar reference book:
Make & do (in collocations) + Present perfect passive (past events with emphasis on subject) + Future passive
(future events with emphasis on subject)
Step 5. Write down the communicative aim of the lesson or part lesson. You can come up with a
communicative aim by primarily describing production. It is determined by how the students will be able to “use”
the language by the end of your lesson in order to achieve a communicative purpose.
Note: The linguistic and grammatical patterns provide hooks as users build and manipulate language to achieve their
communicative aims, so you won’t expect to find your communicative aim by looking at the grammar, vocabulary or
pronunciation areas. Look at the communication expressed by listening, speaking, reading, and writing. When we look at
these we see that listening and reading are receptive – ie we are receiving communication, and speaking and writing are
productive ie we are producing language. Sometimes communicative aims are found in the receptive skills, where they are
ends in themselves, but more often than not communicative aims are found in the productive skills of speaking and writing.
If we focus on the productive skills of speaking and writing, we can see that the Communicative aim is :
Communicative aim:
The students will be able to discuss changes that will be evident in the future (9 Speak, space exploration,
computers …)
If we also take into account the preceding receptive skills we can see two aims:
Communicative aims:
The students will be able to understand views expressed about proposed town planning (5 Listening)
+ The students will be able to discuss changes that will be evident in the future (9 Speak, space exploration,
computers …)
Step 6. Form an opinion of what could be added or adapted while focussing on the communicative aim.
Think about what might be boring, what their needs and interests are, what type of conversations, interactions,
or writing can you imagine the students enjoying or needing. When doing this think of it as a matter of
adaptation, rather than throwing out the course book material.
The following ideas are related to the communicative aim/s and therefore generally need to be devised by the teacher. In most cases
supplementary activity books are indexed by grammar point, which, though providing additional practice of the grammar structure, won’t
keep the lesson on task in terms of the communicative aim. By coming up with ideas focus on a communicative aim, you ensure students
language production is geared to real world use.
Firstly, you might adapt the content of activities:

For the “5 Listen” section, there could be an additional listening activity on expected town planning changes in
the city where the class is being held. To get that you may need to find out information which you can then
report to the class.
and /or
For the “9 Speak” section, the topics could be changed to be more relevant to the interests and motivations of
the students. For example, if the students are mid teens, the topics could be (your town, technology in our daily
lives, social networking via the internet).
Notice that these ideas are close enough to the original language focus and that we have not changed the skill.
Secondly, you might change the skill of the activity:

For the “8 Grammar: Future passive” section, you could turn the © Gap fill activity into a speaking activity. To
do this you might type each sentence, so you have an A4 landscape sheet of all the sentences, with the same
gap fills. Photocopy that and then cut the sentences in two, eg
The town authorities have announced that a new sports centre

 ……………… (build) over the next five years.
This could work with pairs of students having sets of half the sentences and the rule that they have to work out
the complete sentence by talking (not looking!). The course book can be closed and then the take up could be
by confirming the correct answers with the class to write into the course book.
Notice that this idea is close enough to the original language focus and that we have not changed the skill.
Thirdly, you might add a new activity:

At the end of the “5 Listen” or the “9 Speak” section, there could be a reading activity cut out of a local English
paper about some proposed town planning change. Dealing with it as a reading text the students could also
discuss their ideas of the proposed change. This discussion, then would be building confidence in line with the
productive Communicative aim.
Because, in this case we are adding something, the lesson will take longer and we might want to drop
something out which we don’t think is important. Possibly you could drop out the whole “7 Grammar” section.
Step 7. Form an opinion of what could be added or adapted while focussing on the
linguistic/grammar aim. There are a number of supplementary activity books which are indexed
by grammar point. If you feel any of the grammar points presented in the course book need further
work, you can explore reference these for interesting additions or adaptations of ideas.
Teach International has published two resources:
Treasure Trove of Tricks for TESOL Teachers (TTTTT), which offers a number of game activities
which can be indexed by grammar point and works across a number of levels.
Best Basic Book for Building Beginners (BBBBB), which suggests a number of game activities
which can indexed by grammar point and works for lower level classes.
Step 8. Design your adapted or new activities. Go ahead and design the resources for your
changes. It can be that you have been too creative and in reality need to thin down your ideas,
simply because of the work required. In some cases resources are photocopiable and in other
cases you will need to develop the resources yourself.

Step 10. Write up your lesson plan. Use the following format. Refer to the completed example, in
PART 1 of this document. Remember that although you have the course book to rely on, writing up
your lesson plan will consolidate in your thinking “how” you will deliver the lesson.
KEY: Black font is taken from the course book. Red text is from the lesson stages that were
worked out. The purple text is added to enhance Ss understanding of the grammar rules.
Blue are activities, that are either adapted or added, as per discussion above.
Lesson Plan
Teacher: ___________________ Date: ___________ Level: Intermediate
Time: _________________ Room: ______ Age: Teens/Young Adults
Topic/Theme: (English in Mind, Unit 7) discussing pending changes for the future - Town
planning and other topics
Communicative aim:
The students will be able to understand views expressed about proposed town planning (5
Listening)
+ The students will be able to discuss changes that will be evident in the future (9 Speak,
space exploration, computers …)
Make & do (in collocations) + Present perfect passive (past events with emphasis on subject)
+ Future passive (future events with emphasis on subject)
Warmer Pretend that a decision has been made to have the
Olympics in their city. Get them to ask questions
5 minutes about how what will happen. Answer with Present
perfect passive for what has been done so far and
Future passive for what will be done.
Review ONLY NEEDED IF TAUGHT THEM BEFORE
Pre-listening a) Listen to Samantha and Phil and decide who likes CD and CD
“5 Listen” and dislikes the plan player 5.a
15 minutes P48
For the “5 Listen” section, there could be an
additional listening activity on expected town planning Have interviewed
changes in the city where the class is being held. To someone to get
get that you may need to find out information which information
you can then report to the class.
Listening – gist b) gist questions about Samantha listening to a crowd CD and CD
SKIMMING player 5.b
p48
Listening – detail c) detail questions of Phil talking to crowd CD and CD
SCANNING player 5.c
p48
Post-listening Ss in pairs to decide who they agree with. Take-up P48
EVALUATING
5 minutes Don’t think I will add the idea from above.
Vocabulary Make and Do. Course book CD

development and CD player
“6 Vocab” a) Completing sentences from CD audio. p48
10 minutes
Do first two with whole class. At end do pairs check - class
take up.
b) Make and Do matched to in collocations. First one

together – individually – facilitate – take up.
Presentation Present Perfect Passive Course book p49

“7 Grammar”

Pre-listening 7a. As per book – do as class.
Form
Rule: try and elicit answer.
Ie We form the present perfect passive with the present
perfect form of the verb “to have” + the “past participle.
CCQs:
Do we know who did these things?
What is important – what has been done, or who did it?
Have these things happened in the past or are they
happening now? A = past
Controlled b) Complete the sentences, as per book. First two as Course book p49
practice class, then in pairs. Pairs check. Take-up.
Eliciting form a) Course book p50

“8 Grammar” For the “8 Grammar: Future passive” section, you
could turn the © Gap fill activity into a speaking Sentences cut up
activity. To do this you might type each sentence, so for A&B pairwork
you have an A4 landscape sheet of all the sentences, – one set for each
with the same gap fills. Photocopy that and then cut pair.
the sentences in two, eg
The tow The town authorities have announced that

a new sports centre
 ……………… (build) over the next five years.
This could work with pairs of students having sets of
half the sentences and the rule that they have to work
out the complete sentence by talking (not looking!).
The course book can be closed and then the take up
Form could be by confirming the correct answers with the
class to write into the course book.
CCQs:
Have these things been done in the past? No, future.
Do we know who is doing these things? No
Do we care who is doing these things? No
Are we sure these things are going to happen? Yes
Are we more likely to see this grammar in written or
spoken English? Written
ALTERNATIVES
What else could we “say” about a future event? “A lot
of really nice trees in the park are going to be cut
down”. OR “They’re going to cut down a lot of really
nice trees in the park”
b) Elicit rule ie
We will form the future passive with “will” or “shall” +
“be” + “the past participle”
CCQs:
Do we know who will do these things?
What is important – what will be done, or who will do it?
Have these things happened in the past or are they
happening now? A = neither – the future
Controlled As per course book. First, ask what sorry is about. Course book p50
practice Then do first close together, the rest in pairs. Then
pairs check. For take-up check all answers with class.
Semi-controlled For the “9 Speak” section, the topics could be Course book p50
practice changed to be more relevant to the interests and
“9 Speak” motivations of the students. For example, if the
students are mid teens, the topics could be (your
town, technology in our daily lives, social networking
via the internet). Have sample sentences on board
and demonstrate starting a discussion using the
tense.
Homework Based on the Olympic idea introduced in the warmer,

write 2 sentences on what has been made so far to
have the Olympics in their city.
Eg
The swimming pool has been build next to our
school.
Then 2 sentences on what will happen before the
opening.
Eg
The athletics track will be build in the central park

PART 3: REMINDERS AND HELP ON HOW TO TEACH YOUR LESSON
Back to top
| MARKING CRITERIA | ABOUT WHAT YOU ARE TEACHING | LESSON AIMS | SELECTING MATERIAL SUITABLE FOR THE CLASS
LEVEL | PRESENTING TARGET LANGUAGE AND SUBSTITUTION TABLES | DEMONSTRATING ACTIVITIES | GOAL AND RULES OF
ACTIVITIES | EXTENDED READING OR WRITING ACTIVITY | IMAGINE THE LESSON | TWEAK YOUR ACTIVITIES FOR A LISTENING
AND SPEAKING EMPHASIS | THE WHITEBOARD | WEB RESOURCES FOR IDEAS | PRONUNCIATION WORK |
MARKING CRITERIA
Back to PART 3: REMINDERS AND HELP ON HOW TO TEACH YOUR LESSON
Consider how your lesson covers the marking criteria that you will be evaluated against for
your formal observation:
Were you “Well Prepared and Organised (lesson plan, resources, etc)”?
• Appropriate lesson plan used (adults or children)
• Suitable objectives for the level and age of learners
• Aids and materials appropriate and well organised
• Lesson and materials appropriate for the age and cultural background of learners
How was your “Overall Classroom/Lesson Management”?

• Developed positive rapport with students
• Used pair and group work effectively
• Facilitation of activities
• Appropriate use of materials and whiteboard
Was it a “Student-Centred Classroom/Lesson”?

• Included interactive activities
• Appropriate ratio of student/teacher talk time (goal 80/20)
• Activities demonstrated not explained
• Target language clearly and effectively presented
• Used positive reinforcement
How were your “Presentation Skills”?

• Gave clear instructions
• Used non-verbal communication effectively
• Speech was appropriately graded
• Spoke with a clear voice at a suitable pace
• Lesson was well paced
For your next lesson, focus on any areas you feel you were not in control of and take into account
the following points.
ABOUT WHAT YOU ARE TEACHING

The need for a communicative emphasis is particularly important for your practice teaching
arrangement. If you are teaching at a language school the students will likely have been studying
for some time before your lesson. They will be tired, and even more so, they will need to be ‘using’
the language or you will lose their attention. So it is more what you are getting them to do than
about your teaching. If in your first lesson you spent more time than you planned explaining and
presenting the target language, it may be because you got caught up trying to help them
understand everything. In this case accept the challenge of getting through the target language
section in swift time, so you don’t lose time providing the practice the students want.
Let me also try and make a very basic point as clear as possible about what you are teaching.
Although lessons have topics you are not actually teaching the topic. In the explanations for the
lesson above students are going to be talking about festivals, but they are not really learning about
festivals –not directly, anyway. They are learning about talking about festivals and/or they are
learning the English they would use if they were participating in a festival. It is the utterances and
structures of languages, interactions and dialogues you are teaching. Yes, they will learn something
about festivals, but you should consider that as peripheral learning. Don’t get sidetracked into
discussion on the context, apart from where it helps understand the meaning.
LESSON AIMS
For the purposes of preparing your lesson plans for practice teaching we started by using a
Communicative aim and followed with a Grammar/linguistic aim. There are various other ways to
construct lesson aims, but you can see that using this approach enables us to be very clear about
the communication we want to see students demonstrate at the end of the lesson. Using this aim as
a primary aim provides us with a method of discovering some useful grammar/linguistic patterns
that we can also teach.
The purpose of lesson aims is to identify and state what you want the students to be able to do at
the end of a lesson. Whether they are called aims, objectives or outcomes this purpose is the same.
SELECTING MATERIAL SUITABLE FOR THE CLASS LEVEL

Trainee teachers find it difficult to know how to teach to the level of the students and that also
affects how you are thinking of using materials and the selection of your linguistic/grammar aim.
This is why we have provided some starter lesson plans in the last section of this document. These
will start you off at the right level.
As a guide for what the levels mean, refer to your TESOL course manual “Unit 4 – Levels” and also
we can or have provided a file on ESOL Class Levels and Practice Teaching.doc.
PRESENTING TARGET LANGUAGE AND SUBSTITUTION TABLES

In addition to the instructions in Part 1 of this document, you can think more specifically on how you
can present your Target Language. We have looked at how you can provide a pre-prepared
dialogue, perhaps with some words missing and how you can elicit the text. Then we looked at how
to ask concept checking questions to check students understand the meaning and form. You should
always stick to this eliciting and concept checking procedure, but there are other ways to present
target language than a dialogue.

One other commonly used method for eliciting the target language called a substitution table. Here
is an example:
In the Brazilian Carnival, parade They dress in costumes. They like to dance and to celebrate their culture and
people through play music there is also as a religious
downtown reason to say farewell to
streets. the pleasures of the flesh.
Here you break up a sentence or sentences into tables where some of the tables can be
substituted. The process allows you to analyse the language patterns, as much as it helps the
students to see the patterns. Check the students understand the meaning of your model text and
elicit other options that can go in the boxes. As they give you what they know, you consolidate it by
making changes so that it is correct language.
If you are observing or in an assistant teacher role you will notice a section of the course
book/lesson focuses on new language. Consider the context in which it is presented and how the
meaning is clarified. Perhaps you will teach this segment and can adapt the way the course book
presents new/target language, such as for a context more immediate to the students’ interests.
Here is another way of eliciting the patterns into a table at a higher level:
Festivals in South America Festivals in China Festivals in Australia

E.g. ”In the … festival people … E.g. ”In the … festival people … E.g. ”In the … festival people …
They dress in … They like to … . They dress in … They like to … . They dress in … They like to … .
because … “ because … “ because … “
One of the problems of eliciting language is that you don’t know what they are going to offer you.
They might give you text just like you want it, it might be on the subject but doesn’t quite fit the
dialogue, or it may be off the subject.
TIP: If they give you language that is ON the subject BUT not what you wanted to elicit/get,
you write it in a separate area of the board with a heading “Alternative”.
TIP: If they give you language that is OFF the subject, BUT you don’t want to discount it
write it on the left side of the board, with a comment like “That’s good, but has a different
meaning/would be used in another context, we can look at that more later.”

Although we have talked a lot about the target language section and it is important, work on getting
through this section as fast as possible. Usually with practice teaching classes students are hoping
to practise their English as much as possible. They know they need some teaching but want to get
into practising as soon as possible. The danger is that you will labour the target language section in
endeavouring to teach them really well. So, plan it well and move as swiftly through it as you can.
Don’t get caught up explaining everything and by doing so trading away the rest of your lesson
time.
DEMONSTRATING ACTIVITIES
You will remember in the in-class component we emphasised that you should always model an
activity before you ask a student to do it. We demonstrated this many times by pretending to be
student A, changing position and then pretending to be student B. This demonstrated exactly to the
students what you want them to do, so all that is left in terms of instruction is to say “Go!” If you do
not do this it will be slow and cumbersome getting activities going. You will be wondering what has
gone wrong, and a student will pipe up with the question “what do you want us to do?” and you will
falter with further explanations that confuse students and the pace of the lesson will drop badly.
Even in your normal life you know that when you are learning tasks, if you can see an example of
someone working through the task, it is so much easier to understand what they want you to do
than if it is just explained to you. With ESOL students it is even more difficult for them to understand
verbal instructions without a demonstrated example.
It gets even worse if you try and rephrase your instruction. Rephrasing is what you often do with
native speakers. When we explain things and the other person doesn’t seem to understand we
rephrase – explain it differently and that sometimes solves the misunderstanding. For ESOL
students rephrasing is very confusing – don’t do it. When you have problems explaining something
go back to demonstrating what you want and or repeat your instructions word for word.
TIP: You might have classroom size limitations for vigorous game activities, so consider this
when you are planning game activities.
If you are observing or in an assistant teacher role you will notice a section of the course
book/lesson will be focussed on a controlled practice activity. Consider the way that is done and
whether you can think of other ways you could do it. Perhaps you will teach this segment and can
adapt the way the course book manages controlled activities so that it is more applicable to
students.
Another way, or an additional controlled activity, could be to have pre-prepared sets of question and
answer cards and run the same sort of activity in teams. In this case you need to set the goal of the
activity. In this case the goal is for the question side to collect the answers and the most answers
wins. You need to set any rules so in this case the question and answer sides cannot look at the
cards of the other side. Get the students seated for the activity, demonstrate the first one and then
say, “go”. Don’t forget the take-up at the end. This is just an example of an idea – you come up with
your own.
You need to think of how the activity would work. To make it conversational you might have a
picture on one side and the information on the other side. There will need to be a rule that the
students have to face each other for the activity.
Once an activity is in motion you will facilitate by going around helping them if they make big errors.
Don’t interrupt the activity by getting into teaching or discussion during this time. If they ask you
questions as you come around the pairs, either answer it quickly or say you will look at it after the
activity.
One of the good things you can do during activities is echo correct, where you repeat softly
corrected language, straight after you hear the error. The student concerned will repeat what you
said. You have to be concentrating on what the students are saying in order to nip in straight after

they have said the error. You want the timing to work as if they were self correcting themselves
without cutting off the flow of the dialogue.
GOAL AND RULES OF ACTIVITIES

When you want students to do an activity you need to be clear what the goal is, so that you can
organise it and so that they communicate to achieve the goal. For example, an activity in a
restaurant might be to order three courses, an activity for talking about festivals might be to find out
three facts about each festival.
You might need a rule. For example if you have an A and B pairwork conversation activity which
uses cars with question prompts on one side and facts on the other, you need a rule that the pairs
have to sit facing each other.
EXTENDED READING OR WRITING ACTIVITY

Generally, to keep your lesson as communicative as possible, DON’T build in extended reading and
writing activities to your lessons. However, if you are teaching a class as mentored by a teacher
and they want you to do it, do so. Also if you are teaching longer teaching slots such as a 2 hour
slot, it will more likely be appropriate to extend the learning with a reading or writing activity. For this
lesson, you could have a reading activity from a magazine on festivals or perhaps an online article,
that you can copy and past into a Word document with your exercise questions added. For writing
you could get students to write an email home to describe an event they have experienced. These
are just an example of ideas – you come up with your own.
For more information on these topics, refer to your Course Manual. Reading is Unit 12 and Writing
(please pay particular attention to the Evaluating stage) is in Unit 13.
IMAGINE THE LESSON

You should have thought about how to demonstrate the activities in the lesson. Go through the
lesson from top to bottom working out, if you haven’t already, how you will introduce, elicit,
demonstrate, facilitate, and take-up each stage. Know how you will introduce any materials and
how many photocopies you should have handy. Doing this will also solve the question of pace - it
avoids you getting sidetracked or bogged down in explanations.
Your lesson should achieve its aims by following clear stages, involving communicative
methodologies and being interesting for the students.
TWEAK YOUR ACTIVITIES FOR A LISTENING AND SPEAKING

EMPHASIS
You may well have a good lesson staged correctly, suitable target language and a good range of
activities, but sometimes trainees still need to do some tweaking to focus activities so they provide
for student practice and involvement. By tweaking your activities to maximise listening and speaking
you can achieve this. The following examples don’t link as one lesson, but show how you can tweak
different activities at different stages of a lesson
Tweaking a warmer

Imagine you have a warmer handout with on-topic discussion questions and lines for students to
write answers. To tweak this activity for listening and speaking you could re-design your handout
into an A and B handout, so handout A has questions 1, 3, 5 and handout B has questions 2, 4, 6.
This will require students to listen for the question from their partners before they are able to record
answers. You can check answers as a facilitator and in a take-up you can elicit some written
answers to the board.
Tweaking Target language

Imagine you have a handout of six sentences where students, individually, have to identify a correct
grammar form in sentences. Imagine one sentence is “Lucy ____________ sell her car next week.”
To tweak this activity for listening and speaking you could have question cards, such as “Lucy, what
are you planning to do this weekend?” which you ask various students. As they answer, you can
consolidate the language by writing the answers on the board.
Tweaking a controlled practice

Imagine you have a matching exercise on personality traits matched to things people might say
from a personality perspective. You might be planning that they match these in pairs on a table top.
To tweak this activity for listening and speaking you could require them to do it without showing the
matching cards to each other person. In this way they will have to read out what is on their cards to
do the match. When they think they have a match they can put their hand up for you to check and if
okay, they can then put them on the desk in front of them.
Tweaking a semi-controlled activity

Imagine you have planned an activity where you want students to work out how to burglar proof a
home and you thought of getting them to make notes on pictures you have provided. To tweak this
activity for listening and speaking you could be the writer with the students making suggestions.
You facilitate it by setting the start of the sentence the students offer to the board, such as:
“How about …”, ”Why don’t you…”, ”We could …”, ”My suggestion is to …”
Tweaking a free practice activity

Have students redo a role play with a slight change in the situation. For example if you had a
cocktail activity where students had to collect information of festivals or events students had
experienced, you could vary it by getting half the class to perform a festival, while the other half call
out what they see happening.

THE WHITEBOARD
How are you using the White Board? It is good to be organised about where you put things on the
board. Remember your students will write down what you put on the board, so if you are organised,
their books will also be orderly, for the purposes of revision.
Try this:
Whiteboard
When you Some teachers write the lesson aim here
give
homework,
write it up New
here, or in Target language here. vocabulary
another place
Keep the target language on the board as long as here.
Other useful possible.
language that New
students
vocabulary
question or ALWAYS give students time to write down target language
raise, that is here.
before you rub it off.
related but
would be a
distraction to
address in the
lesson - you
might pick up
at a later
lesson.
An important point is to allow time for students to write down what is on the board before you rub it
off. Keep the target language on the board as long as possible.
Every teacher develops their own whiteboard management style. It is beneficial to be consistent
with placement so that students can more quickly refer to important information and you don’t
unintentionally erase valuable board work.
WEB RESOURCES FOR IDEAS

Here are a few web based resources for lesson plan ideas. DO NOT just print and use these
lessons as they are, but they may be useful for ideas.
http://www.homestead.com/prosites-eslflow/games1.html - Ice breaker and game ideas.
http://www.homestead.com/prosites-eslflow/ - Lesson ideas and links to other Teaching Lesson

Links
www.onestopenglish.com - see ‘Lesson Share’, ‘Skills – Speaking’ for conversation-based lessons,

amongst others. This website is excellent and you should explore it in depth.
http://esl.about.com/bllessonplans.htm - a good list of lessons for different areas
http://iteslj.org/questions/ - numerous questions based around different themes/subjects.
http://www.longman.com/opportunities/teachers/int/index.html - downloadable and photocopiable

worksheets based on the new Opportunities series. Obviously, the themes and grammar are
comparable with other textbooks at the same level (5 books from Beginner through to Advanced).
You need to sign up, although it is free.
http://www.oup.com/elt/catalogue/teachersites/headway/?cc=global - gives you access to lots of

resources to use with Headway books. You need to register but it’s free. Other resources are

available on the rest of the site.
PRONUNCIATION WORK
For pronunciation work we have suggested you drill the whole dialogue if the class is at a lower
level. If it is at a pre-intermediate level to drill four lines and if the level is higher to drill just a few
words or phrases.
There are a number of other pronunciation activities that you could also try. On the in-class course
you practised tongue twisters and minimal pairs. We also introduced how the placing of sentence
stress changed meaning, and we introduced the English phonemic symbols.
Here are some exercise types that practise different aspects of pronunciation. You would not try
more than one in any one lesson.
English phonemic symbols are quite difficult to pick up at the beginning but you should keep working
on it over time so as to become more proficient. In a lot of modern course books they are used and a
phonetic chart is in the back of the book as a reference.
Consonants
You can understand the sounds if you say the words out loud. When you write phonetic script on the
board you can put it between // with an example, e.g., /^/ up. If you look at an English dictionary you will
see the phonetic symbols ordered to describe the words written between //.

Teaching individual sounds
Minimal pairs
Take one pair of sounds where you think or realise the students will have trouble and put
together pairs of words where the only sounds that differ are the problematic sounds. Choral
drill the words with some individual checking and perhaps incorporate some of the activities
demonstrated in the in-class component (e.g.: clapping once for words on the left and twice for
those on the right). Practising minimal pairs can help students determine the often minute
differences in pronunciation between one word and another.
/I/ /I:/
ship sheep
ill eel
hit heat
live leave
As a compromise, if you have to think on your feet and can’t come up with pairs of words, try to
think of two lists of words that feature the sounds to be practised.
/I/ /I:/
sip sleep
tip me
lip tea
bit wreath
Weak Forms ( )
The vowel that is used in unstressed syllables most often is the schwa, as in ‘butter’,
‘margarine’, ‘bananas’, ‘lager’). This symbol (the schwa) is always used in unstressed
syllables. It is a very weak sound and very common.
To teach the schwa work out where it comes up in a sentence and drill the sentence, with
some individual checking:
Teaching consonant clusters

One of the things that native speakers of English take for granted is that they can use consonants
singularly or in combination with vowels (eg: catamaran) and also in groups or clusters (eg: sprints).
Clusters of two or three consonants are not uncommon and the longest cluster in English consists
of four consonant sounds: e.g. texts / t e k s t s/.
Many Asian languages such as Chinese and Japanese do not have consonant clusters at all and
have a strict combination of consonant + vowel, consonant + vowel, e.g.
ni hau ma? sayonara
CV CV CV CVCVCVCV
So to teach consonant clusters look at where they come up in your target language and do some
choral drilling, with some individual checking. For the ones underlined below, notice that when you
speak words are joined together.

To practice say the vowel before and after, then repeat in the word context. Isolating it like this
helps the students focus Eg,
ade throu parade through

owntown stre downtown streets.
ostu costumes

Teaching linking sounds – Connected Speech
When native speakers talk, they generally do not pause between each word, but move smoothly
from one word to the next. There are special ways of doing this. For example, consider that “not at
all” sounds like one word when you say it “notatall”. Actually it depends on the speed people speak as to
how many words they join together.
You can illustrate this on the board with part of a dialogue, as follows:
A: Do_you_know_about the_Brazilian_Carnival?
B: Yes, they_parade_through downtown_streets.
A: Do_they_wear any_costumes?
I have left some gaps, but if you speak more quickly, you would actually join phrases as one:
A: Do_you_know_about_the_Brazilian_Carnival?
B: Yes, they_parade_through_downtown_streets.
A: Do_they_wear_any_costumes?
A good way to practise is to illustrate it as above and then do some choral drilling, with some individual
checking.
Teaching word stress

One of the special features of English is that if we use words of two syllables or more, one of these
syllables will stand out more than the other. This is done by saying one syllable slightly louder, holding
the vowel a little longer, and pronouncing the consonants very clearly. These features combine to give
that syllable prominence or stress.
In ‘table’, ‘isn’t’, and ‘any’, the stress is at the beginning of the word.
In ‘photography’ and ‘economics’, the stress is in the middle of the word.
In ‘despite’ and ‘compare’, the stress is at the end of the word.


To teach word stress you could underline or put a dot above where the stress is, then do some choral
drilling, with some individual checking.
Teaching sentence stress

Normally the stress goes on the meaning word, so for:

You can imagine saying it in Pigeon English
A: know Brazilian Carnival?
B: parade downtown.
A: wear costumes?

To teach word stress you could put a dot above where the stress is, then do some choral drilling, with
some individual checking. Usually the stress can be taught with rhythm, so you can beat the timing with
your foot or demonstrate it like a conductor.
In English we stress the important words, which might be different from the Pigeon English approach.
You will remember the exercise in the in-class course on the sentence ”I didn’t buy you ten red roses”.
The meaning changes, depending on where the stress goes.
Speakers often decide that they want to give more or less prominence to a particular word. A word may
be given less weight because it has been said already, or it may be given more weight because the
speaker wants to highlight it. So think about this when you decide where the stress goes and relate it to
teaching about meaning.

Teaching intonation
Sentence stress and intonation work together to help speakers send the precise message they want to
send. Intonation is concerned with the way the voice changes pitch when we make utterances. It is
useful to teach how this happens at the end of a statement.
Her name's Ann This falling tone denotes a simple matter of fact statement
Her name's Ann? A rising tone has more meanings. It is usual for a question, but also can indicate
uncertainty surprise and disbelief or that he/she hasn't heard the first time and wishes for a repetition.
Really? The fall-rise tone is often used to express reservation or suspicion.
Teaching body language

You can also think about how body language gives expression and meaning to what we say and teach
students to use body language at points in a dialogue – open hands for questions, raised eyebrows for
surprise. Cultures vary in body language expressiveness, such as the difference between Japanese
and South American students. Since culture is part of language people will interpret non
expressiveness as unfriendly or uninterested, so it is a good thing to build into your quiver of
pronunciation exercises.
You will find that chipping away on pronunciation will over time lead to students that sound far more
natural than otherwise.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
As well as the checklist at the end of the first section here are some others that you should be able
to tick off:
 I am clear that I am teaching the communicative use of English, not any topic, which is peripheral
learning.
 I am not going to labour the Target language section.
 I have considered the tips and discussion in this document to the extent that they will be in the
back of my mind, during the lesson.
 I am clear that I can be confident to keep the pace of the lesson going, even though I might have
to go against my feelings to explain everything so they all understand.
 I can envisage how I am going to model each activity before I ask the students to do it.
 I am clear about goals and rules of activities and games.
 I am clear where I am going to write things on the whiteboard.
 I have worked in a few pronunciation activities into my lessons.
 I realise that in spite of my best efforts to prepare my lesson that in the actual lesson I may need
to adapt how I am doing it, and I have given myself permission for that situation.
 I feel enthusiastic about the topic.
 I feel enthusiastic about meeting the students and understand that they will be interested in
meeting me as a person.

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Recommendations for Preparing Lesson Plans

Updated: Nov 2010 by Warwick Thorn, Academic Manager, Teach International

This document is in three parts.

PART 1 Procedure to prepare a lesson plan from a topic…………………………….…. Page 2-16

PART 3 Reminders and help on how to teach your lesson……………………………….Page 26-37

Teacher’s Grammar reference book

 Practical English Usage (3rd Edition) by Michael Swan, OUP.

Simpler student’s grammar book

PART 1: PROCEDURE TO PREPARE A LESSON PLAN FROM A TOPIC

Teach International Pty Ltd © 2012 1

PROCESS TO UNDERSTAND THE CONSTRUCTION OF A LESSON PLAN

Teach International Pty Ltd © 2012 2

STEP 2: Work out your communicative lesson aim

STEP 3: Work out a dialogue related to the communicative aim

A: Do you know about the Brazilian Carnival?

We try and make this dialogue as natural as we can.

Teach International Pty Ltd © 2012 3

Grammatical focus Functional focus

With functional phrases it is best to teach

If we thought we would like to teach the

Idiomatic expressions – there may be a number of those, then Idiomatic expressions ( …,

Idiomatic expressions or new vocabulary are just as legitimate as a grammar or functional

There are examples of these different types of aims below under

Let’s revise. In summary, you have used the following order:

Teach International Pty Ltd © 2012 5

A: Do you know about the Brazilian Carnival?

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Grammatical focus Functional focus

FORM FORM AND MEANING

General CCQs (for the context)

Here is our sample dialogue again.

A: Do you know about the Brazilian Carnival?

Here are some example General CCQs for the context:

Teach International Pty Ltd © 2012 8

Grammatical focus Functional focus

the difference is: To ask for more detail

Specific CCQs Specific CCQs

If you cannot answer it, go to …

b) Same is left column.

For example, you could write this on the board:

Teach International Pty Ltd © 2012 10

STEP 9: Decide what pronunciation drilling work to do on the Target Language

Level Pronunciation drilling method

It also helps a lot to add stress markers to your dialogue

Finish drilling off with a pair’s practice of the dialogue.

STEP 10: Design a practice activity, or activities (controlled)

Take the dialogues text and turn it into either:

STEP 11: Practice activity (semi-controlled - free)

Teach International Pty Ltd © 2012 12

STEP 13: Warmer

STEP 14: Review and Homework

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Let’s just revise the steps:

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Teacher: ___________________ Date: ___________ Level: Pre-intermediate

Time: _________________ Room: ______ Age: Teens/Young

Teach International Pty Ltd © 2012 15

Can we say, “they like dance?

USE (rule) to the board

the difference is:

“like dancing” expresses more the enjoyment, so is better for talking

FORM to the board:

Drill – Model, Choral, individual

Teacher: _________ Date: _ Level: Pre-intermediate

Time: ___________ Room: Age: Teens/Young

Teacher: _________ Date: _ Level: Intermediate

Time: ___________ Room: Age: Teens/Young Adults