Lesson planning and use of resources for language teaching
Aims and objectives
A main aim states what learners will be able to do by the end of the lesson; subsidiary aims cover supporting language or skills work; personal aims are the teacher's own development targets. Objectives are more specific and observable than aims. Know the main syllabus types – structural, functional, lexical, skills-based, topic-based, task-based, and mixed – and how a coursebook reflects them.
Lesson shapes and staging
Be able to recognise common shapes: PPP (presentation, practice, production), TTT (test, teach, test), task-based (pre-task, task, planning and report, language focus), ARC (authentic, restricted, clarification) and ESA (engage, study, activate). Typical staging: lead-in or warmer, contextualisation and presentation, controlled practice, freer practice or production, review. Plans record stage aims, procedures, timing, interaction patterns, materials and anticipated problems with solutions.
Resources
Distinguish authentic materials (produced for a real communicative purpose, not written for learners) from created or adapted materials. Know coursebooks, realia, flashcards, the board, IWB, dictionaries, corpora, self-access centres and online resources, and the standard adaptation options: add, delete, adapt/modify, replace, reorder.
Traps
- An aim is not an activity: 'play a pelmanism game' is a procedure, not an aim.
- A warmer energises or settles a class; a lead-in creates context and interest in the target language. They are not interchangeable.
- 'Authentic' does not mean 'adapted for level'.
- A plan is a working document, not a script; flexibility and a contingency plan are credited, not penalised.
Rule of thumb
Write aims as learner behaviour plus context: By the end of the lesson, learners will be able to describe a past holiday using six irregular past forms. If your sentence begins 'To teach...', it is a teacher intention, not an aim.