Planning an Individual Lesson or a Sequence of Lessons
Planning works at two scales: a single lesson and a longer sequence built from a scheme of work or syllabus. Candidates must know how the two connect.
Long-term planning
A scheme of work maps content over weeks or a term: topics, language, skills, assessment points and recycling. A lesson plan is one small slice of it. Sequences need progression (work gets more demanding), recycling (earlier language returns), balance (skills, systems, interaction patterns) and variety (of activity type, pace and materials). Continuity means each lesson connects to the last; timetable fit concerns time of day, length and what precedes or follows.
Lesson shapes
Recognise common shapes: presentation–practice–production; test–teach–test; task-based (task, then language focus, then re-task). The shape tells you the logical order of stages and where checking goes.
Learner factors
Planning responds to level, age, needs, learning styles, motivation and differentiation - for example, providing a harder reading text for stronger learners.
Traps: describing a scheme of work as a lesson plan; forgetting that new language should be recycled in later lessons rather than only practised once; answering "variety" with only activity types when interaction patterns and materials also count; confusing a warmer or filler with a main stage.
Rule of thumb
Plan language so that presentation, controlled practice, freer practice and revision fall across different lessons in the sequence, not all in one. Anything presented today should reappear within the next two or three lessons.
Worked example
A teacher plans: Lesson 1 present and practise used to; Lesson 2 reading about childhood with used to in the text; Lesson 5 a short speaking task reusing it. Lesson 2 and 5 show recycling and progression within a sequence.