UNIT 21: PLANNING AN

INDIVIDUAL LESSON OR A
SEQUENCE OR LESSONS
HOW DO WE PLAN AN INDIVIDUAL LESSON
OR A SEQUENCE OF LESSONS?
Aims, the ‘shape’ of the lesson (Bloom’s Taxonomy), most appropiate
techniques for learners.
Connections between aims and procedures, answers to the other
background components.
Available materials, length of lesson and the information about
learners.
Materials, tasks and activities (important to select them well)
Bloom Benjamin (1956)
A sequence of lessons is a number of related lessons that develop language knowledge
and/or language skills over a period of time.
Sequences may develop a single topic or language area, or topics or language areas that
are very close connected. Examples:

Structural sequence Integrated skills sequence Project work sequence

1 revisión: past 1 vocabulary development:
simple describing places
2 revisión: present (function: describing)
perfect 2 Reading: choosing a
3 contrast: past holiday
simple vs. present 3 writing: letter to a friend
perfect narrating holiday
experiences (function:
narrating)
1 Reading and listening
about free-time
activities
2 class survey and
research: sport and
entertainment
3 preparatin of a poster
display to show results
of survey abut free-
time activities
Key concepts
Planning an individual lesson
When planning an individual lesson, a number of questions are asked:
- What is my overall aim?
- Will the topic be interesting and motivating for my learners?
- What are the learning outcomes? (i.e. What do I want the students to have learned by the end of
the lesson?)
- Are the activities and teaching materials at the right level for all the learners?
- Have I planned enough for the time available? Do I need any extra material?
- Have I planned too Little or too much for the time available?
- Does each step (or stage) in the lesson help to achieve the aim? Are there any stages I can cut if
necessary?
- Do the steps/stages develop logically out of one another ( make learning easier?
- Have I thought about exactly how to start and end the lesson?
- Are there any aspects of the lesson which I should state as personal aims?
Procedure sections of lesson plans.
1.- a lesson plan introducing and practising new language
2.- a skills-based lesson.
What differences can be seen in the overall shape of the two types of lesson?
A scheme of work helps us:
- plan a sequence of lessons in the best way to cover the
shool syllabus or the units of a coursebook in the time
available.
- think about what we want to achieve and what materials
we might need
- include enough variety across our lessons
Examples of schemes of work:
 How detailed should schemes of work be?
-Not as detailed as lesson plans. Logical and learning-friendly progression and a good
balance of approaches and activities. This helps identify aims and make sure we
choose materials and procedures that match those aims.
-A very detailed scheme of work (example C) gives clear sense of direction, but often
difficult to predict how learners’ need develop, so may need to change the scheme.
-A very broad scheme (example A) leaves the teacher much freer to respond to
learners’ needs, but doesn’t give any reminders of aims or materials for individual
lessons.
- The most useful approach is one that includes some detail and gives the teacher a
sense of direction (example B), but leaves him/her free to add to it week by week to
make it into a series of lesson plans.
Key concepts and the language teaching classroom
Variety very important in a single lesson and in a sequence of lessons. Helps keep learners
interested and involved.
A list of things we can vary not only to make lessons interesting, but also to suit different learning
styles:
 Activity: Read these tips and tick the ones which are most important
for you:

• Learnersmay well require more frequent revision tan the coursebook provides. A
scheme of work is a good way to make sure that we recycle language (i.e. use if again)
and include regular revisión activities during a sequence of lessons.
•Coursebook units are often arranged around a specific topic (such as sport or
relationships), which may be a useful way of linking together a sequence of lessons.
This kind of sequence gives us the chance to develop particular áreas of vocabulary, but
learners may feel that the lessons are repetitive, so we need variety of texts and tasks.
•When planning lessons we may need to think about the needs of individual learners or
groups of learners, e.g. those that always finish first, those that can’t concéntrate for
long, etc. A coursebook can’t provide material and activities for needs that are specific
to our groups of learners. This means we may need to plan parts of the lesson that
adapt the coursebook or work with supplementary materials or activities.
Homework
Work in pairs. Complete the following:
- Follow-up activities
- Reflection (answer the questions)
- TKT Practice Task 21

Due date: July 22nd, 2021