The Truth about EFL Lesson Planning

Most Teachers Don’t

That’s right, most experienced EFL teachers do not write a lesson plan for each and every class.

Now, revealing this secret is blasphemy of a major sort because every TEFL training course you might take is heavily based on writing and delivering a lesson plan.  If you don’t do that, what DO you do?

Why Lesson Planning for EFL?

Lesson planning is a major part of a training program primarily so that you can understand how to structure a lesson well.  Once you know how and understand the process involved, you don’t really need to formally develop a lesson plan for each class.  A few notes, and following a few good basic principles will do the job for you – and your students.

A TEFL Training course is a bit like college or high school where you learn the “proper” way to do something – that people in real life almost never do.  But . . . as you come to realize, there is a reason WHY those processes and procedures are heavily emphasized.  Because they reinforce the way things need to be done if you wish to be effective.

What’s it all about?  EFL Lesson Planning

What every teacher trainer is trying to communicate to you is that there is a specific way to effectively teach your students what they need to know.

First, teach them some target language.  This is, hopefully, language that they are either interested in or that is required for their job or success – thus increasing their interest and motivation in the lesson.  Part of this process should include eliciting input from your students to check what they already know and also to rouse their interest in the new material.

Next, give them some structured opportunities to practice the language you are teaching them.  Structured so that their practice is more likely to be successful and they can get things right – the first time.  Again increasing motivation. You might have several of these practices, each time reducing the amount of structure as students become more familiar and practiced with the target language.

The last step is production (if we are following a PPP methodology).  That means that your students take the language you have taught them and apply it to their job or daily circumstances and use the language to talk about themselves and their lives.  That is what keeps it interesting to them and motivates them to study what otherwise could be rather dry and boring.

Now – there is a lot more to this than just that – but realize when you study TEFL methods that the basic idea is how to be effective and if you get a good handle on methodology – you will arrive at that point.

TED’s Tips™ #1: Lesson plans?  Yes, do them until they are stuck in your mind as good method then you can just outline a good lesson from there on out.  But . . . don’t tell anyone that I told you that!

EFL Lesson Planning

Lesson Plans for ESL EFL

If we get past the mystery and mystique, a lesson plan is simply a step-by-step guide to what an EFL teacher plans to do in the classroom on a given day.

Lesson plans can scare rookie TEFL teachers but once you know what goes into one, no problem.

The more detailed the step-by-step directions of an EFL lesson plan, the better. Ideally, you could not go to work on a given day and another teacher could read your lesson plan and know exactly how to teach your class on that day.

And they could do it with minimum preparation as handouts and activity sheets would be attached and even boardwork planned out.

A really good and detailed lesson plan might even include specific gestures and cues used for various parts of the lesson. That’s how detailed your plan should be.

There are literally hundreds of types of lesson plans and no one format is used by all schools. Many schools have their own set format, others will let you use whatever format you like.

There is; however, some general agreement about what should be included in a good lesson plan and we will review those here.

Generally agreed components of a lesson plan include:

Day/Date:

Lesson Name: What will you call the lesson?

Class/Level: Age, topic, skill level, class name

Materials: List everything you need to teach this lesson. List every possible thing you will need to take to the classroom and/or obtain from the school to complete the lesson.

This list can help you make sure you don’t forget any handouts or special materials that you need to take to the class. I can’t tell you how many times I have had to walk back across a university campus to get a critical part of a lesson. Bad teacher!

Textbook/Course book name: From what book are you working or drawing the lesson from?

Unit—title—page number: Specifically where in that book?

Goal/Aim: What are we working toward today.

Describe the final result of the lesson in this format – The students will be able to (do what?)________.
Example: The students will be able to ask and answer questions about their hobbies and interests.

Grammar Structures Employed: (How are they formed?): Show the structures. Use a structure chart if needed.

Questions and Answers Relevant to your Lesson: To be asked during the warm-up to elicit from students what they may or may not know about the topic to be covered.

Read the page about English Teaching Methods to get a better idea about elicitation.

Lesson Begins Here

Warm-up: This includes a review (revision) of the previous lesson linked to this new lesson; questions and answers you have written above, used to elicit conversation using the new structures and function; to show examples of what your students will learn in this lesson.

In some countries and with some age groups this may come in the form of a specifically designed game.

Presentation (or ESA format or Ted’s GRO method):

Note the target language to be taught – and how you will teach it. Include how you will stimulate the student’s interest in the language and how you might elicit from the students the language you are planning to teach.

Include details as specific as when you might model structures and dialog and when you will require a repeated response (choral response) from the students. Include a structure chart for the grammar and/or the dialog you intend to teach.

Practice:

Include the specific activities and attach any handouts to the lesson plan. Include up to three practice activities sequencing them from most to least structured, slowly giving the students more freedom.

Production:

This is where students really learn and generalize a new language skill.

Allow/encourage the students to talk about themselves, their lives, or specific situations using their own information while focusing on the target language that was taught in the presentation and practiced in the previous activities.

Be sure to include exactly what you will ask the students to do and that you (as throughout the lesson) intend to monitor students and encourage and correct them as needed in their use of the target language.

Conclusion:

Discuss/recap what you have studied and learned during the lesson. In some countries and for some ages this will be followed by a game that uses the target language.

Easy enough?

TED’s Tips™ #1: Many experienced teachers, once they have methodology set in their mind, write only minimally structured lesson plans as they will have developed a set routine for how they approach each lesson.

New teachers should develop the habit though of rigidly following a detailed lesson plan they have written for at least the first six months to a year. This will require some real discipline, but it will pay off in terms of skill development over time.

TED’s Tips™ #2: Sit down after each class and take a few notes about what went great, what went wrong and how you might have done a better job. This will help you a lot in refining your skills. Even very experienced teachers put some serious thought into problems that occurred during class and how they might best be corrected.

TED’s Tips™ #3: Save every lesson plan you write. If you teach a certain book or certain topics repeatedly to students of similar levels (and you will), you’ll find you need only a little polish on the lesson drawing from your notes in Ted’s Tips #2.