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Planning a lesson step by step: some examples

You should have followed the general guide to planning before coming here.  But no matter.

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3 types of lesson

There are all sorts of lessons but they can, slightly loosely, be boiled down to three sorts.

Task 1: Think for a moment about the kinds of lessons you have experienced in your own life and make a short list of the sorts of lessons you encountered.  They don't need to be language lessons. Click here when you have a list of two or three.

1. Lessons that were intended to teach something new.
   Lessons like this involved, probably, a stage when knowledge was presented to you, you were expected to apply it and at the end you may have been asked to say what you had learnt.
   This is a presentation and practice lesson.
2. Lessons which were intended to improve some kind of skill.
   These were probably quite practical and involved you doing something rather than listening and writing things down.
   This is a skills lesson.
3. Lessons which were intended to revise and reinforce what you already knew.
   These lessons probably had a very short introduction which just told you what you were going to practise or do and then you got on with it and did it.
   This is, rather obviously, a revision lesson.

So, the first question to answer when you sit down to plan a lesson is: What sort of lesson is it?
The answer will determine how it is structured.

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Stages

presentation lessons

These will need three stages at least.  Here they are:

1. presenting the new language or skill
2. carefully practising the language or skill in a situation which avoids too much error.  In other words, this stage must be quite tightly controlled
3. using the new language or skill more freely and in a way which is personal and clearly relevant to the learners

Now you need to download an example of a plan of this sort.  Click here to do that.  The plan will open in an new tab so you can have it on screen or print it out (or even use it!).

	Task 2: Read through the plan to identify : When the language is presented When controlled practice happens When the learners use the language more freely
Click here when you have done that.

1. Stage 1 (15 minutes) is the presentation phase.
   Here the learners look at the pictures and try to identify the name of the activity.  If they can't, the teacher has to provide it (or the learners could use their dictionaries / ask each other etc.).
   Not that the teacher's job here is to supply and model language.  That's what presentation is all about.
2. Stage 2 (15 minutes) is very tightly controlled practice.
   All the learners have to do is change positive sentences to negative ones and vice versa.  They change, e.g., I like fishing to I don't like fishing or I like shopping to I hate shopping / I don't like shopping.
   The aim here is to get the learners to use the language accurately so the task is simple.  The teacher's role is to monitor and spot problems, helping people to get it right.
3. Stage 3 (15 minutes) is freer practice and gets the students moving around (often A Very Good Thing).
   Notice that the language is, again, personalised for the students.  They have to ask and answer questions in a way which is true for them.  Making language personal makes it memorable.
4. Stage 4 (15 minutes) is revision and a bit of fun.  If the lesson has overrun (it is planned for 60 minutes but could take longer and probably would with a large class) then this stage can be left until later and form the basis of a revision lesson.

This is an example of what is called a PPP lesson: Present – Practise – Produce.  It is probably the most commonly used plan in the profession.
The lesson staging can be used for many different purposes.  For example, it could easily be adapted to present and practise things you are allowed to do (I can ...) and things that are forbidden (We can't ... / mustn't ...).  All that's needed is some different pictures and a change to the worksheet.

skills lessons

	Task 3: Now download a skill lesson plan and do the same thing.  Read through the plan to identify : When the skill is presented When controlled practice happens When the learners use the language more freely
Click here when you have done that.

1. Stage 1 presents the target of the lesson by getting the learners to look at a model text and analyse it.
   If this were a speaking lesson, this might be done through the learners reading / watching / listening to a model dialogue or some other form of speaking.
2. Stage 2 focuses on the language the learners will need to complete the task.
   This is an important stage because it is very frustrating to be asked to complete a task for which you know you don't have the resources.
3. Stage 3 gets the learners to cooperate in brainstorming what they are going to write.
   This, too, is an important stage because it allows the learners a bit of time and space to get their ideas together.  We all perform better with a bit of preparation.
4. Stages 4 and 5 could be left to a later lesson.
   This is the productive stage and again asks the learners to cooperate to produce a result.  Note that the result is valued by, in this case, a poster presentation for everyone to read.  It could be done orally but this is a writing lesson so it's logical to pair it with reading.

revision lessons

Task 4: There's no example for this because, rather obviously, it depends on what you are revising.  For the two lessons above, however, think for a moment about how you might revise the targets and then click here.

1. The personal likes and dislikes language could be recycled in a number of ways, including:
   1. getting the learners to carry out a survey of another group's likes and dislikes
   2. reading a text about someone's likes and dislikes and reporting back
   3. writing a letter / email setting out one's likes and dislikes
2. The report-writing lesson target could be revised by also:
   1. getting the learners to tell you / each other how a report is written
   2. getting the learners to write a report on something different
   3. getting the learners to present an oral report to the class with one topic for each group

The important thing is that language and skills lessons need to be revised.

There's no test in this area (there were enough already) but now you can go and plan a lesson!

There are some more examples of plans you can copy, use adapt or analyse in the teachers' section of this site.

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