CAMBRIDGE English CELTA

Lesson Planning Guide

Cover Sheet

1. Main Aim
Your main aim is the most important pat of your lesson. This is what you want the learners to
be able to do, or do better, by the end of the lesson that they couldn’t do at the start. Think of
your lesson in terms of a journey. Your main aim is your destination. You should only have
one main aim (or two in a long lesson). Articulate your main aims in terms of what the
learners will do in the lesson, not as teacher behavior.

Examples of main aims include:

 Ls will be better able to use a lexical set related to social networking
 Ls will be better able to use expressions for making personal arrangements
 Ls will be better able to use functional exponents for giving advice
 Ls will be better able to use the structure ‘used to + infinitive’ in the context of
discussing anti-smoking laws
 Ls will be better able to use narrative tenses for recounting in the context of global
events
 Ls will have given a talk on the best places to visit in their country
 Ls will have developed their skills of reading for gist and specific information in the
context of a travel blog
 Ls will have developed their skills of listening for gist and specific information in the
context of a podcast interview with a Nobel Peace Prize winner
 Ls will have written an email of complaint using appropriate formality

2. Subsidiary Aims
You may have some subsidiary aims in addition to your main aim. These are aims that are
not the main focus in the lesson, but are aims you hope will be achieved along the journey to
your main aim.

Examples of subsidiary aims include:

 Ls will have reviewed previously encountered lexis on the topic of human rights
 Ls will have developed their skills of reading/listening for gist/specific information (if,
for example, your main aim is a new language point and you are presenting it via a
text).
 Ls will have developed their writing skills (if, for example, the writing is practice of a
language point.
 Ls will have raised awareness of intonation patterns (if, for example, you are teaching
some functional language)
 Ls will be familiar with a lexical set related to global issues (if, for example, you are
pre-teaching these items for a reading/listening text).

3. Personal Aims
These are aims that relate to you as a teacher, rather than the lesson itself, and will help you
to focus on your own personal development. Your TP tutor will highlight areas for you to work
on and specify these on your written feedback. Refer to these when you complete the
Personal Aims section on your plan.

Examples of Personal Aims include:

 To ensure I include all learners
 To reduce my teacher talking time
 To give clearer instructions
 To monitor more attentively
 To maintain an upbeat lesson pace
 To consistently pair check after individual activities
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Lesson Planning Guide

4. Assumptions
These are areas relating to your lesson that you assume that your learners will know, perhaps
because you have heard your learners using certain language or because a previous teacher
has covered an area. They may also be assumptions based on general information you know
about the learners. For example:
 The learners will have basic knowledge of the political systems in their own countries
 The learners will be familiar with past participles of the verbs used in the lesson
 The learners will be familiar with the meaning, form and pronunciation of the Present
Perfect Simple (if, for example, you are following on from another teacher who is
going to present the language)
 The learners will know some of the lexical items included in the lesson (but specify
which items you assume they know e.g. provide an exact list of the items)

5. Anticipated Problems and Solutions

You need to spend some time on this section. You should consider what challenges learners
might have in achieving the aims and how you will deal with these if they occur. You need to
develop a repertoire of techniques to enable you to attend to learners’ problems and ensure
lesson aims are achieved. These can be divided into 2 areas of focus:

a. Language
These can be problems of meaning, form, pronunciation and possibly appropriacy (remember
that not every language item causes all these problems for learners). This section must be
completed in detail. For example, learners will encounter form problems is insufficient. You
must specify what problems they will encounter with the form e.g. is it the question form,
infinitive with or without ‘to’, word order, spelling, third person ‘s’ etc. Clarifying language
means checking meaning, pronunciation and form (MPF). We focus on these things when the
main aim of the lesson is language but also at other stages e.g. pre-teaching vocabulary,
teaching useful language for a writing/speaking task. This means that you need to submit a
full analysis of the language you are teaching on paper as part of your lesson plan.

b. Skills
This depends on the skills focus you are teaching. For receptive skills (listening and reading),
you need to consider blocking lexis, the content of the text, the degree of difficulty, your
learners’ different abilities, the length of the text, any cultural issues the text or topic may
raise, etc. For productive skills (speaking and writing), you will need to consider whether the
learners have the necessary language to complete the task, whether they will be interested in
the topic, problems with grouping your learners, whether they will have sufficient ideas to
contribute etc. You will then need to consider the classroom-based solutions for these.

6. Resources and materials

These are the teaching aids you will need to prepare before you teach e.g. visuals, You Tube
clips, world maps, role cards, handouts, worksheets, dictionaries etc. Listing these on your
lesson plan ensures you have all materials ready to teach.

7. Procedural Detail
Once you have articulated your main aim, as well as the potential problems and solutions to
deal with these, the next step is to decide how you will reach the destination. Therefore, think
of your plan as a route map i.e. it informs you as to how to get there.

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Lesson Planning Guide

Stages
All lessons must be broken down into stages. You can have a number of stages depending
on the lesson type.
Examples of stages for a language lesson include:
 Lead in
 Discovery task *
 Focus on language –meaning/form and phonology
 Controlled practice –oral /written
 Freer (or less controlled) practice

Other labels for stages for a language lesson could be:

 Test
 Teach (where you clarify and highlight the language ie meaning/form and phonology)
 Test

Examples of stages for a skills lesson include

 Lead in
 Pre-check vocab
 Gist listening/reading
 Detailed listening/reading
 Post stage

Stage Aims
Each stage must have an aim e.g. a rationale for why you are doing this during the lesson.
This aim must enable learners to move forward to achieve the main aim. If it doesn’t, you will
need to reconsider the rationale behind the stage.

Examples of possible stage aims include:

 To generate learners’ interest in the topic of social media
 To provide learners with a written record of the language
 To present learners with the question form and the short answer
 To enable learners to produce the new lexis accurately
 To enable learners to listen for gist
 To enable learners to develop their oral fluency
 To enable learners to check their answers

Procedures
For each stage, you need to decide how you are going to achieve your aim, i.e. your
procedures. These state exactly what you are going to do in class to achieve the particular
stage aim. You don’t need to write verbatim what you intend to say, but you should script your
instructional language to ensure that is it chunked and checked.

Aspects to include in your procedures:

 Marker sentences e.g. sentences you are planning to use to highlight meaning, form
and pronunciation
 Concept checking questions (CCQs) e.g. questions to check whether learners have
the correct meaning of new language. Questions to avoid :
‘Do you understand?’
‘What does ….. mean?’
‘Do you know this word?’
‘Have you seen this word before?’
 Your board work. Plan what you want it to look like for your learners
 Questions to elicit from the learners and to generate their interest in the topic
 Lexis you are planning to pre-teach in skills lessons
 How you intend to highlight potential problems (items you are going to drill, how you
will highlight form on the board etc.).

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Lesson Planning Guide

Time and Interaction patterns

You must estimate the time you think each stage will take. Be realistic – very few stages take
two minutes. This will enable you to time your lesson as a whole and help you achieve your
aims. Make sure that your stage times add up to your allocated time.
By focusing on the interaction patterns, you will consider what the learners are doing during
the lesson and help you achieve a balance on the focus of the lesson. Use symbols such as
these to denote these patters:
 T – Ls (Teacher addressing the whole group)
 L (Learners working alone/independently)
 L – L (Learners working in pairs)
 Ls – Ls (Learners working in groups)

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Lesson Planning Guide

Match the lesson plan terminology with its definition

a. staging b. stage aims c. main aim d. interaction e. subsidiary aim

f. personalisation g. monitoring h. topic i. feedback j. procedure

k. eliciting l. personal aim m. pace

1. The main theme or subject matter that the lesson is based on – not the
language point

2. To make the activity relevant to learners and their lives

3. Each step of the lesson

4. What area of your teaching you are working on in the lesson

5. Checking what individual learners are able to do and helping them with
the task

6. Who is involved in each step of the lesson

7. Reporting back on different activities

8. The aspect you devote the most lesson time on – what you want learners
to leave with

9. Asking learners questions to gain responses rather than simply telling

them

10. Why you are doing each step of the lesson

11. Other important goals you intend your learners to develop during the
lesson

12. A step-by-step description of each part of the lesson

13. Ensuring the lesson doesn’t go too fast for learners or too slow to
maintain their interest

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Lesson Planning Guide

LESSON FRAMEWORKS
Think about what you are teaching and the appropriate lesson plan ‘shape’.
Be clear about what whether your lesson is a language focus lesson (lexis,
grammar or functions) or a skills focus lesson (reading, writing, listening or
speaking).

Text-Based Presentation of Language

The language is introduced through using a reading or listening briefly, but
this is not the main aim. The language is clarified (checking meaning, form
and pronunciation) before further practice.

Lead in / Building context To generate interest/engage learners in the

Reading or Listening task
Highlighting target
language
Clarifying / Focus on target
language
topic/theme/context of the text or listening
To introduce the target language via a text or listening
To highlight the target language by eliciting, a guiding
task/an underlining (noticing) task
To:
 clarify the meaning of the target language
 model and DRILL pronunciation of the target
language
 clarify form

Controlled practice To provide Ls with controlled oral/written practice of …

Free(r) practice To provide Ls with free (r) oral/written practice of ……..
Feedback To establish correct answers/ to deal with results of the
task for Ls
To provide Ls with feedback on use of the target
language – dealing with errors and problems

Test-Teach-Test presentation of language

The learners do a task at the start using the target language with no help from the
teacher (diagnostic help). The teacher monitors the task carefully to see what
problems the students have, and then clarifies (meaning, form and
pronunciation) as necessary e.g. any new language or items the learners had
problems with. For example, if there are 10 lexical items in the diagnostic task,
the teacher would not clarify every item. This is then followed by a second
practice task.

Lead in To generate Ls’ interest in the topic/theme of the

First test (diagnostic)
Teach (clarifying)
Second test (controlled
practice)
Free(r) practice
Feedback
lesson
To test Ls’ current understanding and identify gaps in
vocabulary/language
To clarify meaning, form and pronunciation of …
with emphasis on the vocabulary/language Ls did not
know or were unsure about
To provide Ls with controlled oral/written practice of ….
To provide Ls with free (r) oral/written practice of …
To establish correct answers/ to deal with results of the
task for Ls
To provide Ls with feedback on use of the target
language – dealing with errors and problems

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Lesson Planning Guide

Receptive Skills (Listening or Reading lesson)

The lesson can be divided into pre, while and post listening/reading stages.
The main aim will be usually be for learners to DEVELOP listening/reading for
gist and detail / specific information sub skills. Think about the necessity of
pre-teaching vocabulary and how natural this is. If you decide to pre-teach
potential blocking lexis from the text, be wary of spending too much time on
this stage, as this can have a ‘domino’ effect on the pace and timing within the
lesson.

Productive Skills (Speaking or Writing lesson)

The lesson can usually be divided into preparation for writing/speaking and
speaking/writing stages. It may be necessary to have a pre-teaching stage during
the lesson.
Lead in To activate Ls’ existing knowledge of the topic/To
generate Ls’ interest in the topic/theme of the lesson
Preparing to write/speak To generate/provide ideas/To provide an opportunity
for Ls to brainstorm ideas/prepare notes/think about
what they will say in the subsequent task (this may
involve Ls reading or listening to something similar to
what they will be producing e.g. to provide Ls with a
model for the task)
Useful ‘task’ / process To provide and clarify language Ls may find useful to
language complete the writing/speaking task. THIS IS NOT
TARGET LANGUAGE. This language is to help Ls to
perform the speaking/writing task well e.g. Ls don’t
have to use this language
Speaking/Writing task To develop Ls’ oral fluency through a ….. task/To
develop Ls’ writing skills sub skills in relation to
writing a (genre)…
Feedback To provide Ls with feedback on content,
results/outcomes and then deal with errors in task /
process language.

Lesson plans should be word processed. Remember to attach a copy of all

handouts/worksheets and activities, all of which must be referenced e.g. title
of book, surname(s) of author(s), year of publication, publisher e.g.:

New Cutting Edge Intermediate Student’s Book, Cunningham and Moor, 2007
Pearson Longman.

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Lesson Planning Guide

Writing lesson aims

Writing aims takes a lot of practice and that is why it is important to know why
you are doing something in the classroom and whether it’s the main aim of the
lesson or the stage aim of an activity. It is easy to teach a lesson full of
activities. If you don’t know what your aims are, you may well teach a series of
unrelated and possibly inappropriate activities. Having clear aims will enable
you to structure and organise your lesson plans.

Decide whether the following are main aims, stage aims or activities:

a. Ls will be better able to describe physical appearance using a lexical set of

adjectives

b. To provide Ls with a written record

c. Ls will have developed their ability to talk about their daily routines

d. To raise Ls’ interest in a newspaper article about social networking sites

e. Ls do a role play

f. To enable Ls to relax at the start of the lesson

g. To do pair work

h. To work on Ls’ spelling

i. Ls will have developed their reading for gist and specific information in a
blog about living in Edinburgh

j. Ls will have developed their listening for detail skills in the context of a
podcast about travelling in Burma

k. To play a bingo game

l. To provide Ls with feedback on an oral fluency task

m. Ls will have developed their ability to make small talk when on business

n. Ls will be better able to accept and refuse invitations via email

o. To clarify meaning of the target language

MAIN AIMS STAGE AIMS ACTIVITIES

a