CELTA Online Unit 6: Reference List 1

Front sheet
Main aims: This is the most important part of your lesson plan. This is what the students will be able
to do (or do better) by the end of the lesson. Express your main aims in terms of student outcomes
not teacher or student actions. For example:
To enable the students to write a formal letter of complaint in the context of poor service on an
airline.
To enable students to develop their fluency speaking skills in the context of discussing feelings and
opinions about food.
To enable students to develop their listening for detail skills by listening to a news broadcast.
To enable the students to understand and use ‘used to’ for past habits in the context of childhood
e.g. I used to spend the weekend with my family.
To enable students to better understand and use verb/noun collocations for daily routines, e.g. brush
your teeth, have a coffee.
To give students an opportunity to extend their understanding and use of expressions to do with
shopping exchanges, e.g. Can I try it on? Here you are. How much is it?

Sub aims: These are the subsidiary aims of the lesson. They are also written from the point of view
of the students and will detail what other skills or language will be developed in the lesson.
Jacqueline’s subsidiary aims for the mid-intermediate reading lesson you watched at the beginning
of this unit were: To enable students to practise their fluency speaking skills by exchanging opinions
and reactions to the newspaper article and To enable students to extend their lexical range in the
context of discussing their reactions to the newspaper story.

Personal aims: These are aims that relate to you developing as a teacher. These are included to help
improve your teaching skills and they are part of your professional development as a teacher. These
might include aims such as, to maintain a good pace or to give clearer instructions. Look at the action
points you receive in feedback from your tutor on your lessons in Teaching Practice for guidance as
to what to include.

Assumptions: These are what you assume the students already know or have already experienced.
Think about what you already know about the students. For example, I assume that the students will
be interested in the topic because they enjoy real life stories or I assume the students have seen the
past simple before because last week they used it to talk about events in the past.

Materials: These are all the resources you will be using in the lesson. These include electronic
materials (on a memory stick or a computer) as well as books or handouts which you will give to the
students. Remember one of the Cambridge CELTA requirements is that ALL your materials be
referenced to credit the author and the publisher. This is for copyright reasons and the
page/exercise numbers must be included if using materials from books. For example, English
Unlimited Elementary, Rea, Tilbury, Clementson & Hendra (Cambridge 2010) pp10 Ex2 & 3,
Cambridge.

Anticipated problems and solutions: These are vital to ensure your lesson is effective for students
and runs smoothly. Here you need to think about what problems students might have during the
lesson, such as issues with the materials or classroom management. For each problem you need to
provide an appropriate solution.