PLANNING A LESSON (AIMS 1)

Put these statements in order of importance

We write aims because:

a) our headmaster wants to see aims in our lesson plans.

b) students need to be told the focus of the lesson.

c) it helps us plan a logical lesson.

d) if we have an aim, it is easier to test our students achievement at

the end of the lesson.

e) it is useful for self-evaluation.

f) an observer can more easily judge our lesson.

g) it looks professional.

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 PLANNING A LESSON (AIMS 1)

Criteria of an Aim

1. Aims should not be too general. E.g. To improve students speaking ability.
2. Aims should not be too specific. E.g. To enable students to pronounce the
sound // in the word “thanks”
3. The aims of a lesson should be achievable in one lesson.
4. It should be relevant to the needs and abilities of the learners.
5. Aims should give us enough information to help plan a lesson.
6. There are different types of aims

Others……….

Identify whether the following aims are appropriate or not:

1. To make students speak English well.

2. To make students better able to use the simple present tense to talk
about habits in the context of daily school routines.

3. By the end of the lesson, the students will be better able to use the
words ‘looked’ and ‘walked.’

4. To develop students English ability to describe physical appearance

in a detailed way in the context of describing a friend.

5. To teach comparatives.

6. To provide practice of the use of 'for' and 'since' with the simple
present perfect when talking about the duration of a continuing
state or action.

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Why are the aims appropriate or inappropriate?

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2. __________________________________________
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3. __________________________________________
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4. __________________________________________
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5. __________________________________________
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6. __________________________________________
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 AIMS-SUB AIMS
Look at the following aims and sub aims. Which aims and sub aims relate to the following?

Vocabulary
Grammar
Function
Skill
Pronunciation

Lesson 1

Main aim
To practise the skill of speaking in the context of household problems and making a phone
call to book a service call.

Sub aims
 To practice the reading skill of scanning to quickly find required information.
 To raise awareness of how sentence stress and intonation can affect politeness

Lesson 2

Main aim
To provide learners with the opportunity to use phrases in informal, interactive conversation
that ask a speaker to provide more details, such as ‘what was so awful? What do you mean
by…? In what way? In what sense?

Sub aims
 Learners will practise giving opinions about films, e.g. it was appalling/gripping.
 Learners will have practice of listening for main ideas in authentic native-speaker
conversation.

Lesson 3

Main aim
To provide an opportunity for learners to practice the language of making, accepting and
refusing suggestions in short conversations while planning an adventure holiday.

Sub aims
 They will have practice of using a bi-lingual dictionary to check pronunciation
 To extend and revise the present continuous to talk about future arrangements.

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Possible answers (main aims-sub aims)
(Please note: the answers are open to discussion-as long as trainees present a reasonable
argument for their decision.

Lesson 1

To practise the skill of speaking in the context of household problems and making a phone
call to book a service call.
(Speaking –skills based aim or function- booking a service call)

To practice the reading skill of scanning to find required information.

(Reading–skills based aim)

To raise awareness of how sentence stress and intonation can affect politeness.
(Speaking–pronunciation based aim)

The main aim here gives the most information about the lesson. The sub aims refer to sub
skills practiced within in the lesson.

Lesson 2

To provide learners with the opportunity to use phrases in informal, interactive conversation
that ask a speaker to provide more details, such as ‘what was so awful? What do you mean
by…? In what way? In what sense?
(Vocabulary-based aim or function-asking a speaker to provide more details)

Learners will practise giving opinions about films, e.g. it was appalling/gripping.
(Speaking-skills based aim or function-giving opinions)

Learners will have practice of listening for main ideas in authentic native-speaker
conversation.
(Listening–skills based aim)

Note: It is harder to distinguish the main aim in this lesson because although the second aim
gives us the most detail about the lesson, the first aim gives us a context. In this case we
could also say there are two main aims.

Lesson 3

To provide an opportunity for learners to practice the language of making, accepting and
refusing suggestions in short conversations while planning an adventure holiday.
(Speaking-skills based aim or function-making suggestions)

They will have practice of using a bi-lingual dictionary to check pronunciation and develop
learner autonomy.
(Self-Study skills-skills based aim or pronunciation aim)

To extend and revise the present continuous to refer to future arrangements.

(Grammar based aim or function- making arrangements)

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Lesson Outlines – aims (Possible Answer)
Lesson 1:
I’m starting by showing a photograph of my new friend. Then I’m going to ask my students
to ask me questions about him. E.g. who s/he is, where s/he is from, where s/he lives,
etc. After that, I’d like them to draw a picture of a friend and do a similar question and
answer task but with their partner.
Aim:
- To provide an opportunity for the learners to practice asking and answering questions
about personal information in the third person (in the context of talking about a close
friend) (Grammar based aim)

Lesson 2:
I’m going to start by giving my class a reading task. The text is someone’s opinion about
their recent holiday in Bali. I found it on the internet. There are some things the person
enjoyed but also some things they didn’t like about Bali. I’m going to highlight the
language used to give opinions in the text. Then, I want the class to tell each other orally
what they thought about their last holiday.
Aims:
- To revise and extend students ability to use expressions related to likes and dislikes in
the context of talking about holidays. (Vocab based aim)
- To practice reading for main ideas in the context of a holiday in Bali. (Skills based aim-
reading)
- To provide an opportunity for learners to talk about their experiences on a recent
holiday using phrases to show how they felt about the trip. (Vocab based aim)
- To revise and extend the students ability to use the past tenses when talking about a
holiday experience. (Grammar based aim)

Lesson 3:
I’m going to give my students some flight and train timetables for Australia. Then I am
going to do some role-plays. One student has all the information and works at the tourist
information office and the other one asks questions and decides the best way to get to
their chosen destination.
- By the end of the lesson the students will be better able to use the present simple to
talk about schedules in the context of travel(Grammar based aim)
- By the end of the lesson the learners will be better able to use wh- questions to ask
about costs/duration/and services related to traveling by plane and train. E.g. How
much does it cost to fly from…to/How long is the flight? /Does the price include airport
tax? …….(Vocab based aim)

Lesson 4:
I have quite a challenging talk from the radio about climate change that I want my
students to listen to. I’m going to start by finding out what they know about climate
change and then when they listen they should compare their ideas with what they hear on
the radio.
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.

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 THE KING AND THE BABY
One day two women came before Solomon. One of them told him that
she and the other woman both lived in one house, and each had a very
young child. In the night the child belonging to the other woman died,
and its mother exchanged it for the living one, putting her own dead
child in her neighbor's bed as she lay sleeping, and taking the living
child to herself.
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In the morning, the mother of the living child discovered that the dead
child was not her child but the woman whose child was dead would not
give up the one that she had stolen. The two women stood there
before the king, each one contending that the living child was hers,
and that the dead child belonged to the other.
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Solomon asked for a sword, when it was brought, he told them to
divide the living child in two, and give half of him to each of the
women. The woman who had falsely claimed the child made no
objection to this decision. But the real mother could not bear it.
Rather than have her son killed, she was willing to lose him altogether
and she cried out not to harm the child and to give the child to the
other woman.

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The king saw at once which of them the child belonged and he said,
"Give her the living child, for she is its mother."
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All the people of Israel, when they heard of this judgment of Solomon,
knew that God had indeed given him wisdom to do justice among his
subjects and they held him in great awe and reverence.

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 LESSON STAGES

Class discuss some issues related to the story

Teacher dictates some words
Teacher checks the meaning of some of the dictated words
Teacher asks the students to look at the words and make predictions about what might
happen in the story.
In pairs students skim read the text and order a cut up version of the story.
Students read the story again more carefully to see if any of their predictions were
correct.
Students and teacher discuss the text in more detail/ answer more specific questions
about the text.
Students look at some grammar/vocabulary in the text.
Students retell/ role play the story

STAGE AIMS

To introduce the topic of the story to students to help them relate more easily to the
characters and action in the text
To focus attention on key words in order to prepare students for the prediction task
To check meaning of key words given so that the task can be achieved
To predict content of a text in order to prepare students mentally to read the text by creating
a version of the text first in their minds.
To work in groups in order to negotiate meaning.
Prepare students for the task and provide a reason for gist reading.
To focus on overall meaning / main ideas in the text
To help students engage deeper with the text
To test comprehension in a non-verbal way