Making Lesson Plans

1. The Purpose of Lesson Plans

Lesson planning is a valuable activity for English teachers. It prepares you for classes and
puts you in a position to be successful. Here are some specific reasons you should plan your
classes.

Ensures you meet curriculum expectations

One of the main goals of your lessons is to meet the expectations set out by the curriculum.
These expectations could be called learning goals, specifications, objectives, or
outcomes,  depending on the curriculum document. Whatever they are called, your job is to
teach them.

These are some examples you could see in a curriculum document:

 Use the simple past in writing

 Understand the main idea of a reading text
 Use visual aids in a presentation
 Give advice using modal verbs

When a course has several of these expectations, lesson planning helps you distribute them
and ensures you teach them all. Planning also helps you determine the order you cover the
expectations in the course. As an example, you may want to cover the present perfect
before you teach the present perfect continuous. Lesson planning allows you to build on
key concepts and create a progression of learning for your students.

Matches assessment and teaching

Lesson planning helps you match assessment with the language you are teaching. For
example, you may want to give a quiz when teaching verb tenses, but you use a
presentation when teaching pronunciation. Planning your lessons helps you find the right
assessment for the expectation you are covering. It also helps you vary the types of
assessment you use in class. If you do not plan, you may use the same types of assessment
too frequently.

Helps you predict issues

Preparation helps you predict possible problems you may have with your lesson. In the table
below, you can see some potential challenges and how lesson planning can help you avoid
them.
Shows what you don’t know
In addition to the potential issues with students or technology, you need to consider your
own challenges. Planning a lesson helps you see the language you do not fully understand.
This is especially important as a new teacher, when you teach grammar points for the first
time. Planning gives you time to learn the language and determine how you can teach it.

Gives you confidence

Confidence comes from being prepared. Planning prepares you for the objectives, language,
assessment, and potential problems you will see in the class. With this preparation, you can
focus on the most important part of the lesson: the students. A prepared teacher is a
confident teacher, which is perhaps the most important reason you should plan your
lessons.

1.1. Why Use Lesson Plans

It saves you time in the future
Although it takes time to create lesson plans, you only need to do it once. When you teach
the lesson again, you have your plan ready. This can save you time when planning future
lessons.

You can improve your lessons

By using the same lesson plan multiple times, you can improve it. Creating written lesson
plans gives you something to help you reflect on your teaching and refine your future
lessons. It is helpful to review your plans after the class finishes while the lesson is fresh in
your mind. This way, you can improve the areas you were not happy with. Your changes to
the lesson plan will improve the class the next time you teach it. Reflecting on your teaching
is one of the best ways you can improve, and a written lesson plan can help you do that.
You can share your lessons
Lesson plans can be shared among teachers. This is helpful for supply teachers, who can use
your lesson plan when you need to miss a class. Having a lesson plan for a supply teacher
helps them cover what you need done in class.

You can also share your lesson plans with other teachers in the same course. This fosters
collaboration among fellow teachers, and it helps you learn from others. You may also be
able to use other teachers’ lesson plans when you start a new course, which can save you
time.

It is a record of what you taught

You can also use lesson plans as a record of everything you taught in the course. This
becomes helpful when planning exams or assignments. You can review all your lesson plans
from the course to see what topics or language you should include on the final exam.

2. Using Lesson Plans

Your lesson plan is more than a series of steps you follow during class. It can help you in
many other ways. These are two crucial sections of the lesson plan that help you as a
teacher.

Materials
The lesson plan also includes materials you use in class. This gives you a list of resources
you need to prepare for the class so you do not forget anything. Lesson planning also helps
you vary your materials. When you take time to write down what you will use, you can start
to see which materials you may be using too frequently. Or, you can see materials you are
not using enough. Perhaps you use videos too often. Perhaps you do not use enough
readings. Using a lesson plan can help you include all the relevant resources for your
classes. 

Timing
Your lesson plan includes the time you budget for each activity (or stage). Yet, these times
can be flexible, and you may find you go under or over time frequently. When you are a new
teacher, it can be challenging to predict how much time an activity will take. However, as
you develop your skills, you will learn to budget the correct amount of time. 

2.1. Strategies for Making Lesson Plans

Your goal as a teacher should be to continue improving your planning. These strategies will
help you create effective lesson plans.

Focus on expectations
The purpose of your lesson is to meet curriculum expectations. As such, your lesson plans
should focus on expectations and show how you will achieve them. The steps of your plan
should all have the main goal, or outcome, in mind.
Build on previous lessons
Each lesson should build on the skills taught in the previous lesson. As you create your
lesson plans, start with the previous lesson to see where you should go next. You can also
use your lesson introduction as a bridge from the lesson before.

Create clear instructions

The instructions you write on your lesson plan should be clear and easy to understand. This
is especially important if you need to share your plan with administration or another
teacher. You should be specific enough so you know exactly what to do in class. For
example, you cannot simply say “teach the vocabulary words.” How will you teach it? What
are the steps? Be specific so you do not have to create a whole new plan once the class
begins. 

Here are some techniques you can use to help you make your lesson plans more detailed
and informative.

Be consistent
You will improve your lesson plans by using consistent language and structure. You will
likely have a template for creating your lessons. However, you need to fill that template in
consistently. For example, if you use a numbered list to show the steps of your lesson, do
not change to a bullet point list later. Or, if you refer to the student as “S”, then you should
always do that. Consistency makes your lesson plans easier to understand and use.
Plan for different interactions
A good lesson plan should have a variety of interactions. In a 1-to-1 class, you cannot
include student-to-student interaction, but you can still plan for different situations. Here
are some you should have in your lesson plans:

 Teacher explaining/presenting to student

 Student explaining/presenting to teacher
 Teacher and student having a conversation or conducting a role play
 Student working individually

You should try to use different interactions in one lesson, and make sure you vary the
pattern in which you use them. This keeps your lessons engaging for students.

Recycle activities
Using the same activities in multiple lessons saves you time. You want to build a collection
of activities you can use in different situations. For example, you may have a vocabulary
game you like to play. You can use this game with different vocabulary lessons. Or, perhaps
you have a conversation activity you like. You can add this into lessons on different topics.
Being able to reuse activities, games, role plays, and other parts of a lesson saves you time
and helps you teach with confidence.

Make your lessons engaging and fun

While it is important to focus on the curriculum expectations, you also need to plan for
some fun. Think about how you can make your lessons engaging, interesting, or exciting.
This could be a game, an exciting resource, or the use of media.

3. Sections of the Lesson Plan

You will find many different types of lesson plans depending on the school, class, subject,
students, teacher, or other variables. However, most lesson plans have similar sections.

3.1. General Information

You need to include the required administrative information on the lesson plan. These are
the most common sections you will find.

Lesson Name
Your lesson needs a title that shows the main idea. It could be something like these
examples:

 Places I Have Travelled

 My Favourite Sports
 My Family
A title gives your lesson a focus, and it is a nice way to introduce the lesson to your
students.

 “Today our lesson is places I have travelled. Let’s start with a question: where have
you traveled?”

Date
Include the date, class number, or day of the week. Often, your lesson plan will have an
empty box for the date, and you can fill it in each class.

Class/Level
Include the class name and the level. Depending on the program you are teaching, you may
have examples like these:

 CEFR Level A2 | Acadsoc Level 5

 English for Kids | Acadsoc Level 3

Materials
This is an important section because it ensures you do not forget any of the resources you
need. Here are some examples of what you could find in the materials section:

 Textbook page number

 Website link
 Physical resource (e.g. puppet, flag, flashcards, etc.)
 Homework link

3.2. The Objective

Every lesson has at least one objective, which you should display clearly on your lesson plan.
Depending on the lesson plan, this may also be called a goal or purpose. The objective
often includes the target language or skill your students need to learn. While this is often
taken from the curriculum document, that may not always be true. Follow these strategies
for writing effective objectives.

Make it directly related to the curriculum expectations

The objective of your lesson should include the outcomes from the curriculum document.
This ensures you are covering the expectations of the course.

Focus on what students should be able to do

Your objective should reflect what students will do with the language. Try to avoid using
verbs like “understand” or “learn”. Instead, use action verbs like “make”, “tell”, or “explain”.
As an example, instead of saying “learn the present perfect”, you could say “use the present
perfect.” This may seem like a small difference, but lesson plans that talk about how
students use the language help you focus on that goal in your teaching.
Focusing on how students use the language also makes the objective measurable. It is
challenging to assess what it means to “learn the simple past.” However, you can assess
something like “use the simple past to talk about the weekend.” This is another good reason
to focus your objective on how students use the language.

3.3. The Plan

The largest section of the lesson plan is where you write the specific steps you will take in
the class. You can find a variety of ways to organize these steps, but most lesson plans have
a beginning, middle, and end. On the lesson plan, you will likely see these three sections:

 Introduction/Warmup (start)
 Lesson Proper (during)
 Conclusion (end)

You should also include assessment in your lesson plan. Sometimes, this is included in the
stages of the lesson, or sometimes it is included at the end. Either way, you need to clearly
show how you will assess your students on the skill or language you are teaching. You
should also be specific when planning the assessment. Most lesson plans include a way to
show if the assessment is formative or summative.

3.4. Organization
Now that you have thought about the sections, take time to review these strategies for
organizing your lesson plans.

Use templates
All your lesson plans should look the same, so use the same template for each.  

Use digital lesson plans

It is much easier to create your lesson plans on the computer and then print them out if
needed. This way, you can easily make changes and use the lesson plan again in the future.
If you write your lesson plans on paper, you need to write out a new one every time you
teach the class. Save time and use a digital copy.
Find the best organization for you
While many schools will give you a template you are required to use, if you have the option,
create your own template that works for you. Teachers have different preferences for where
they want each section located on the lesson plan. Find the style that works for you.

An example lesson plan template taken from an Acadsoc's English for Kids course:

4. Stages of a Lesson
You can find a variety of different ways to organize an English lesson. However, most agree
that a lesson should have a beginning, middle, and end.

The beginning is your introduction to the lesson. Your middle is when students learn and
practice the language. The ending is the conclusion, where you recap and wrap up the
lesson.
4.1. Start of Lesson
Before your lesson, you want to start with a warmup and introduction. In this opening
section, you want to excite your student for the lesson and introduce the topic and learning
goals.

Warmup
Before you begin, think about how you can get your student’s attention. What will excite
them about this lesson? This will be different for every student, so you should have a variety
of warmup activities.

Here is a list of some common warmup activities with examples from a lesson about food
vocabulary.

Introduction
After you have engaged your student in the lesson, introduce the topic and create a desire
to learn. You can also introduce the learning goals for the lesson and discuss prior
knowledge of the topic.

When introducing the lesson and learning goals, focus on the topic of the lesson rather than
the language. Your students care more about how they will use the language than the
actual language itself. Think about the differences between these examples:
The second options are better because they focus on students and what they can do with
the language. Students do not take English classes because they want to use the present
perfect. They take classes to talk about their families, discuss places they have visited, or
order food in a restaurant. When you give your introduction, focus on how the students will
use the language.

4.2. During Lesson

Now that your warmup is complete, it is time to start the lesson. You will find numerous
opinions about how to structure the actual lesson. Some people believe in direct instruction
and guided practice. Others think students should start practicing and the teacher will
explain any missing concepts. Some people think there should be no direct instruction at all.

Rather than analyze the best ways to organize a lesson, you will look at the most common
structure in English language teaching: PPP. This stands for Present, Practice, Produce. 

Present
This is where you teach the new language concepts. You can use direct instruction, which
means you explicitly teach the material using lectures or demonstrations. Or, you can
use indirect instruction, where students see the language in use and must discover the
rules. Both are good choices, and you should use direct and indirect instruction in your
lessons.
Either way, the present portion of PPP is where students learn the language. This should also
include examples of the language, which you may find in videos, readings, songs, posters, or
a variety of other texts.

Practice
This is where students practice the language you have taught them. This is also called
the controlled practice section of the lesson, which means students are using the language
in artificial (controlled) ways. This could include several different exercises, like these
examples:

 Matching
 Fill-in-the-blank
 Multiple choice
 Creating example sentences

If it is a worksheet or ESL exercise, it is probably a controlled practice activity. The goal of

the practice section of PPP is to give students the chance to use the language in simple,
structured ways. They will expand on this in the produce section.

Produce
In the third step, students use the language in real-life situations. This is also called  free
practice because students use the language without any restrictions. This could be activities
like role plays, presentations, conversations, or any other situation where the students are
free to use any language they choose.

Try to create situations where students are likely to use the language you taught them, but
do not force it. As an example, if you are teaching sports vocabulary, you could have a
conversation about favorite sports. If you are teaching how to give advice, you could ask the
student to give you advice about different situations.

4.3. End of Lesson

Now that your students have practiced the language, it is time to close the lesson. Your
closing is a chance to summarize what you taught. Here are a few ideas for a good closing.

Engage students in the summary

Instead of telling them what they learned, ask them. You can use questions like these:

 What was the most important thing you learned today?

 What were the words you learned today?
 What was something new you learned today?
Give students a chance to reflect
Reflecting on their learning is an excellent way for students to remember your lesson. Try
questions like these:

 What was difficult?

 What did you already know?
 What do you need more practice with?
 How will you use this language in the future?

Preview the next lesson

Your conclusion is also a good time to discuss what comes next. This is especially important
if the next lesson is a continuation of the current lesson. You can give the students
homework or tell them what they will learn in the next lesson.

5. Reflection Exercise
Now that you know the sections of a lesson plan, you can try creating your own. Imagine
you need to teach a lesson about family vocabulary (aunt, uncle, grandfather, etc.). 

You should have the following sections:

 Lesson Name
 Date
 Level
 Materials
 Objective

 Warmup
 Lesson Stages (incl. activities, tasks)
 Conclusion
 Assessment