Teaching Design and Lesson Planning
Domain 4 - Teaching design and lesson planning
This domain tests whether you can turn curriculum requirements and learner needs into coherent, assessable lessons. Strong answers show alignment among objectives, activities, materials and assessment.
Core design rules
- Needs analysis: Identify learners’ level, goals, prior knowledge, learning preferences and constraints before selecting content.
- Objectives: Write measurable objectives with an observable verb and conditions, e.g. “By the end of the lesson, learners can ask for and give simple directions using 往…走 and 在…拐弯 with a partner.”
- Backward design: Start from the desired result and evidence, then plan tasks. Avoid designing activities first and inventing objectives afterwards.
- Lesson architecture: Warm-up/diagnostic, presentation or input, controlled practice, freer communicative practice, feedback and summary. Include timing, grouping, materials and contingencies.
- Focus and difficulty: Distinguish 教学重点 (what must be learned) from 教学难点 (what learners will find hard, e.g. tone sandhi or 把).
- Assessment alignment: Include a quick formative check that matches the objective; homework should extend the same goal.
Worked example
A 45-minute A2 lesson objective: learners can ask and give directions. Plan: 5-minute picture warm-up eliciting 左/右/一直走; 10-minute input with a map and teacher modelling 往北走，在银行拐弯; 10-minute information-gap map task in pairs; 10-minute role-play “find the museum”; 7-minute feedback with two recasts; 3-minute exit ticket-each learner writes one direction. Reasoning: the map task supplies a genuine gap, the role-play approximates real use, and the exit ticket gives evidence for the objective. The plan does not add a culture slide unless it serves the direction task.
Traps
- Activities that are fun but do not serve the stated objective.
- Overlong teacher explanation (too much TTT) with little learner practice.
- No formative check, so the teacher cannot adjust.
- Adding cultural content as decoration rather than integrating it into the task.
- Ignoring timing and transitions; a plan that cannot fit the lesson.