How to Plan a Lesson

By: Lucia Calabuig

Marcella Diluca
Damián Barbosa
 What is a Lesson?
• It will be a set of activities during the classroom time, each class will
mean a new step walked along a curriculum with the correct timing to
plan a lesson. Those lessons are practical, tangible units of effort that will
be the information of the rhythm of a course of study.
 Planning is a Thinking Skill
• Planning = imagining the lesson before it happens, it involves prediction,
anticipation, sequencing, organizing and simplifying.
• Prepare thoroughly. But in class, teach the learners, not the plan.
 How do people learn?
There are different stages that describe the process of leaning:
• Ignorance: The learner doesn’t know anything about the item.
• Exposure: The learner hears or reads examples of the item but doesn’t particularly notice it.
• Noticing: The learner begins to realize that there is a feature he/she doesn´t fully understand.
• Understanding: The learner starts to look more closely at the item and tries to work out the formation
rules and the meaning, possibly with the help of reference information, explanations or other help.
• Practice: The learner tries to use the item in his/her own speech or writing with errors.
• Active use: The learner integrates the item fully into his/her own language and uses it relatively with
minor errors.
 The Process of Learning
There is a difference between an authentic exposure or a restricted exposure;
• Authentic Exposure; It happens when the language is being used fairly naturally, for example;
- Reading books, magazines, articles.
- Listening to small talk and listening to recordings, radio.
- Watching English films or television channels.
• Restricted Exposure; It happens when the texts which the learner is in contact with are specially designed and
accessible for him/her, probably to draw attention to specific language points.
These texts will often;
- Be specially designed for learners, providing examples of target language items used in context
- Be simplified through the use of graded language
Likewise, we can differ between authentic output and restricted output.
• Authentic Output: It involves speaking or writing using the full range of
language that the students have at their disposal. Some examples might be
discussions, writing a postcard, negotiations, chatting in class.
• Restricted Output: It involves speaking or writing using less than the full
quantity of language they know, getting the chance to practice certain
items in a more controlled or simplified way. Some examples might be
drills, written gap-fill exercises, grammar practices activities, ‘repeat what
I say´.
 Format of a Lesson Plan
Formal plans often divide into three distinct sections;
• Background information about the class, the teacher, the materials and the overall aims of the lesson.
• Language analysis of items that will be worker on in class.
• A detailed chronological stage-by-stage description of the intended procedure for the lesson.
Most of them require;
- A clear statement of appropriate aims for the whole lesson
- A clear list of stages in the lesson, with a description of activities, their aims and timing
- A list of specific language items if the lesson includes language system work
 Lesson Aims
• It is important to state clearly which ones are them and the reason why that specific
aim was chosen. Questions like, what’s the point of doing it? What will the students
get out of it? Might be helpful. It will be important to separate mentally:
- The materials to be used
- The activities that will be done
- The teaching point (i.e., the language skills or systems that will be taught)
- The topics or contexts that will be used
- The aims of the lesson
 Achievement Aims
- They will require more thought.
- Aims are the result of the lesson from the learner’s perspective, phrases
like ‘By the ends of the lesson, the learners will be able to’ will be helpful.
According to Brown, while planning a lesson we have other elements, like;
• Goals, it is important to identify them in order to attempt to accomplish
them by the end of the class.
• Objectives;
- They are generally referred as what the students will do. It is essential to
state what the teacher wants to gain from his/her students after the lesson.
Some points to consider might be;
- Predetermine if the teacher is trying to accomplish them too much and
evaluate the students’ process after the lesson and preserve the unity of the
lesson.
 Enabling and Terminal Objectives
While stating an objective the teacher is expected to differ between a
terminal and an enabling objective. Terminal objectives will be the outcomes
of the instructional programme that will be measured and evaluated.
Enabling objectives will be the skills or knowledge needed to accomplish
the Terminal Objectives.
• Materials and equipment: A good planning must include being aware of
what will be needed for the classroom.
 Procedures

• As a general set of guidelines for planning it is necessary to include in the

plan;
1. An opening statement or activity as a warm-up
2. A set of activities and techniques in which you have considered
appropriate proportions of time for (whole – class work, small – group or
pair work, teacher or student talk)
3. Closure
 Evaluation

• It will determine whether the objectives have been accomplished or not,

but it doesn’t have to be a separated element from the class, like a quiz at
the end of it. We can consider it as an element that takes place throughout
the lesson, even if some forms may take more than a lesson, but without it
the teacher will not have a means of assessing the students’ success which
makes it even harder to make adjustments in the lesson plan.
 Guidelines on Lesson Planning
1. Assuming the familiarity of the teacher with the curriculum, the overall plan of the textbooks, look
over the textbook chapter.
2. Based on the teacher’s view of the curriculum and his/her view of the students’ language needs,
he/she will determine the topic and purpose of the lesson writing it down on ¨goals¨.
3. Considering the mentioned steps, the teacher is expected to write down one of three stated
terminal objectives for the lesson.
4. Select from the book the exercises to be used, changed, deleted and added based on the objectives
already stated.
5. Draft out a skeletal outline of what the lesson will look like
6. Plan every step the procedures that will carry out all techniques, mostly those that involve changes
and additions, state the purposes of each technique and or an activity as enabling objectives.
 Variety, sequencing, pacing, and timing.

- Good lessons include a wide variety of activities during the class,

keeping the students’ minds alert and their enthusiasm high.
- A logical organization of the activities will facilitate progressively the
accomplishment of ultimate goals.
- Correct timing will be essential for both points mentioned before.
 Individual Differences.
The lesson plan will aim for the majority of the students with the average ability range, but it must consider
those who are above or below that range. It is important to consider these steps:
• Design techniques that will include easy and difficult items.
• Ask about easier items to students below the average range and ask about the harder one to those who are
above it.
• Select wisely the members of each small group so that they will have a heterogeneous range of ability, or a
homogeneous one to encourage equal participation.
• Use the small group and pair group work time to give extra attention to those students above and below the
average range of ability.
Learner factors:
• Age, education, occupation, general purpose in taking English, entering proficiency level of the student.
• What are their specific language needs? Break those needs into as many specific subcategories as possible.