Module: Lesson Planning
Introduction
At the core of elementary pedagogy lies the world of lesson plans. Teaching English,
like teaching any subject, requires lesson plans. The level of detail required for each
lesson plan is up to you, however it is essential to always have an idea of what you
want to achieve from each lesson and a plan for how you will achieve it before every
class. Furthermore, if you are teaching in a school, lesson plans are a great thing to
leave the school’s English teacher so that he/she can review the material that you
have covered once you’ve left, and even borrow a few of your ideas!
The purpose of a solid lesson plan is to ensure that our teaching efforts are matched
to specific learning objectives that are appropriate to the age group and level we are
teaching. Without lesson plans, our teaching can lose focus and veer away from the
original purpose of the lesson.
There are many different approaches to teaching English. However, most of these
plans tend to follow this standard lesson plan format:
1. Warm-up - Use a warm up to get the brain thinking in the right direction.
2. Revision of previous material.
3. Presentation - here you present the ‘take-home’ material of the lesson.
4. Controlled practice - Controlled practice enables the students to begin to
comprehend the material presentation and take ownership over that which is
new. It also allows you to see that the learning objectives are understood.
5. Retention - is any activity which you use to enable the students commit what
has been learned to memory.
6. Revision and Feedback - During the class, take note of common mistakes. Use
this material to inform your revision of the material at the end of class.
When presenting new material you can also use the “i-we-you” approach where the
teacher presents the material first, it is then repeated by everybody in the class and
then individually by each student.
Don’t forget that comprehension precedes production; understanding the material
which is presented is an essential first step to using it effectively.
It can also be useful to have an emergency lesson plan. This can be used if students
aren’t responding to the original plan or if you get through your original plan faster
than anticipated. This way, if the lesson isn’t going to plan, you can move to an
alternative and guarantee that there will be no wasted time with your students.
This lesson plan format is popular for many reasons:
1. Students have a number of chances to learn a concept through various
means;
2. Students have plenty of time to practice;
3. Teachers can give detailed instruction, or students can deduce structures and
learning points through practice;
4. The standard lesson plan format provides structure;
5. It provides for variation over the course of 60 - 90 minutes;
6. This lesson plan format moves from teacher centered to student centered
learning.
What can you do in each section?
Warm-up
Students might arrive late, tired, stressed or otherwise distracted to class. In order to
get their attention, it's best to open with a warm-up activity. The warm-up can be as
simple as telling a short story or asking students questions. The warm-up can also be a
more thought-out activity such as playing a song in the background, drawing an
elaborate picture on the board. Its often standard to start your lesson with "How are
you", though if you can it is great to tie your warm-up into the theme of the lesson.
Revision
Keep notes of what you do with each of your classes so that you can revise old
material from your previous class before you move on to new material.
Presentation
The presentation can take a variety of forms:
● Drawing on students' knowledge about a specific point (Socratic)
● Teacher centered explanation
● Short video
● Student presentation
The presentation should include the main "meat" of the lesson. For example: If you
are working on the vocabulary needed to describe farmyard animals, make the
presentation by providing the name of each animal you want your students to learn
alongside a picture of the animal. In a more advanced lesson, you may want to discuss
phrasal verbs - here you could present phrasal verbs in a text.
Practice
The practice section of the lesson provides students with the opportunity to gain
ownership over the material which has just been presented. Generally, practice
involves some type of exercise. Remember that an exercise doesn't necessarily mean
dry, rote learning, although this can be used as well. Practice should help the student
focus on the main task and provide them with feedback - either by the teacher or
other students - on both comprehension and pronunciation.
Going back to the animals lesson plan, examples at this stage would include
● Having the class practice pronunciation of new vocabulary presented.
● Getting the class to identify animals on a poster or individual sheets of paper
Retention
This section should aim to give students the opportunity to reinforce what they have
just learned it and to use it in a less controlled setting. This will usually involve some
kind of activity or game which allows the students to retain the information at a
deeper level in an engaging and stimulating way.
In our animal lesson plan we would consider:
● Animal bingo
● Fruit salad using animal names instead of fruit
● Duck, Duck, Goose, changing the names of the animals every few minutes
● Song: Old MacDonald
Feedback and review
Reviewing and feedback allows students to go over what they have done one final
time before they leave the class and to check their understanding of the lesson's
topic, while giving you the chance to correct recurrent or common mistakes that lots
of students were making (in particular pronunciation) during the class. Keep this
simple, comprehensive and inclusive of all students in the class. Don’t forget to start
your next class reviewing the material that you covered at your last class.
Sample Lesson plans
Daily activities - 50 minute class - 8-10 year olds
Warm-Up
Revision
Simon Says'
2
minutes
Fruit salad to review previous material
8
minutes
Introduce ten basic daily activities by allowing students to copy 10
Presentation the phrases into their copies
minutes
Practice
Provide actions for each of the phrases and get students to 10
repeat actions while saying the phrase aloud.
minutes
Retention
—Split class into groups. Each member of a team takes a turn to
“face-off”. Call out an action and the first team to do the 15
associated action gets a point.
minutes
Review
Quickly set out to review the pronunciation of all the activities 5
and focus on some key difficulties.
minutes
Hobbies and pastimes - 50 minutes - 10-12 year olds
Warm-Up
The class has to count to 20 but with their eyes closed and with 7
each student randomly calling out the next number. If two minutes
people say a number at the same time, go back to the start.
Great way to get a hyper class to calm down.
Revision
Fill in the blank game to review previous material
7
minutes
Present hobbies by writing them on the board and getting the 10
Presentation students to write them down.
minutes
Practice
Provide actions for each of the phrases and get students to 10
repeat actions while saying the phrase aloud.
minutes
Retention
Play charades. Give each student a hobby. They have to
remember the action which goes with it and the rest of the
class has to guess what it is. Can split the class up into groups
for added competitiveness and get them to write down (rather 15
than shout out) the correct answer.
minutes
Review
Quickly set out to review the pronunciation of all the activities 5
and focus on some key difficulties.
minutes
Over
to
you
Please prepare three separate lessons plans on three topics for the classroom described on
your program page. These lessons should include at least one which is focused on grammar
rather than vocabulary, such as learning negation, verb conjugations, or English pronouns.