Dr.

Jan Dormer
Jan.dormer@gmail.com

Effective Lesson Planning

Planning Simple but Effective Lessons for English Language Development

Triple A Lesson Planning:

1. Aims
2. Activities
3. Assessment

Aims
Every lesson plan for language acquisition begins by asking one question:
“What ______________and ________________ do I want students to learn, practice, and use?”
Aims can go by other names: _________________; _____________; _______________.
Example Aims Statements
• Students will use past tense forms when telling what they did last month.
• Students will create questions about past activities, using the structure “What did you do
on…?”
• Students will produce the /th/ (/ð/ and /θ/) sound.
Language lessons often have _____________ aims. For example, the aims above could go
together in a lesson in which students tell each other about their past activities.
Write 2-3 aims for one of your lessons:
1. _______________________________________________________________________
2. _______________________________________________________________________
3. _______________________________________________________________________

Activities
Student understanding of new words and structures will come as they _______ them—
not as teachers ______________ them. So, classroom activities need to be _________________.

Assessment
This is _____________ that the student has achieved the aims. In __________________
assessment, the teacher uses a classroom activity to check students’ achievement of the aims.

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 Dr. Jan Dormer
Jan.dormer@gmail.com

Components of Communicative Lessons:

• __________________________:
Language that students read or
hear, that is at their proficiency
level.

• __________________________:
Dialogue and interaction student-
student and teacher-student.

• __________________________:
Teacher responding to student language use to further ELD.

• __________________________: expectation that student speaking and writing will be at

their language level.

• ___________________________________________________: Language that builds

relationships, has real-world application, and is engaging for learners.

• ___________________________________________________: Absence of learner

stressors such as inappropriate tests, unrealistic demands by the teacher, and
embarrassment due to errors.

Which lesson component above do you want to focus on in the next lesson that you teach? What
will you try to do differently? _____________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
Specific areas of planning:
1. Pair and group tasks
2. Explanations
3. Scaffolding

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 Dr. Jan Dormer
Jan.dormer@gmail.com

Plan Pair and Group Tasks

Students need many activities in which they are interacting in pairs or small groups.
• ___________________ students for pair and group work.
• Clearly state what students should do. Prompts should be _________________.
Example Prompt
Tell each other three things that you like to do in your free time. Follow this
sequence:
§ Student 1: “What do you like to do in your free time?”
§ Student 2: “I like to….
§ Student 2: “What do you like to do in your free time?”
§ Student 1: “I like to…
Do this three times. Write down what your partner says.
• Clearly state how much _____________ students have; give less rather than more.
• Create _____________________ groups.
• Consider language ________________.
• Consider ___________ needs to speak.
• Build group _________________.

Imagine a pair or group task for one of your lessons. Write out the clear and specific directions
you will provide:
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________

Plan Short Explanations

Example:
A teacher notices that many of her students are omitting “–ed” endings when talking about past
events. She decides to take a 5-minute break from the communicative activities she has planned
to offer an explanation:

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 Dr. Jan Dormer
Jan.dormer@gmail.com

When we talk about the past, regular verbs have “–ed” on the end. I hear “I walk to
school yesterday.” Instead, say “I walked to
school yesterday.” [Teacher writes this
sentence on the board, underlining the “–ed”.]
In pairs, add the “–ed” to the verb, and say
these sentences:
• I (play) soccer last week.
• She (work) outside yesterday.
• He (look) up a word.

Write out a short explanation for one of these:

• When we use present perfect verb tense
• When simple verbs have an ‘s’ ending
• The difference between “too”, “so” and “very” (as in this sentence: “The wind is
too/so/very strong today.”)
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________

Plan for some scaffolds

Sentence frames and starters
Examples:
• _________________: Students are expected to talk about their family members. The teacher
writes on the board, “This ____ my ____.” and “These ____ my ____.”
• _________________: The teacher writes on the board: “My favorite pastime is _______.”

Alternative Texts
If students will be asked to read a challenging text, it can be helpful to provide the same textual
information at a ______________ English proficiency level first. Or, the text could be provided
in the _____________________________.

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 Dr. Jan Dormer
Jan.dormer@gmail.com

Example:
To introduce a novel that the teacher knows is written above some students’ proficiency
levels, she first provides students with the option of reading portions of the novel first in
easier English or in their native language.

Outlines
Example:
Students will be listening to a video-recorded lecture. Prior to the listening task, the
teacher provides an outline of the content of the lectures.

Visual supports
There are many kinds of visual supports, such as:
• _______________: Real items brought into the classroom.
• _______________: Photos or drawings brought in on paper, on a device, or projected on
a screen.
• _______________: Charts, tables, and other ways of visually organizing information.
Example:
A teacher provides this visual to illustrate the difference between a meal and a snack:

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 Dr. Jan Dormer
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Sample Lessons
Lesson for Beginning-Level Students: Family Tree
Aims
• Students will use family words (lower: brother, sister, father, mother; higher: niece, nephew, cousin, in-
laws) when asking and answering questions.
• Higher proficiency students will use possessives when asking and answering questions (E.g., “Who is
Jay’s wife?”, “Is Anna Sharon’s daughter?”)
Activities
Input
1. Show a nuclear family drawing or photo (preferably, your own family). Place word labels on each member
of the family, saying each word. Introduce all nuclear family words.
2. Say sentences about family relationships, writing them on the board. (E.g., “Rod is Jan’s husband.” “Jenna
is Jan’s daughter.”)
3. Ask questions about family relationships, writing them on the board. (E.g., “Who is Rod?”, “Who is
Jenna’s mom?”)
Interaction
4. Give student pairs a blank extended family tree (preferably of your own family), with family member’s
name on pieces of paper that fit in the blanks.
5. Elicit questions from students to learn where the names go. Students ask questions, such as “Who is Jay?”
and “Who is Jay’s wife?” Students continue asking questions until the family tree is complete.
Output
6. Give each pair a copy of the completed family tree (or have students take a picture of their completed
tree). Students remove the names from the tree and place them upside down on their desk. One student
turns over a name and asks a question (e.g., “Who is Jay?”). The other student makes a sentence about Jay,
referring to the completed family tree (e.g., “Jay is Jan’s brother.”).
7. Place students in small groups and instruct them to write the names of five family members on a piece of
paper to show their group. One student shows their paper, and each other student asks a question about one
of the names (e.g., “Who is Miori?”). The student answers each question (e.g., “Miori is my sister.”) and
then the next student takes their turn.
Assessment
• Have student names on a chart and listen as students engage in Step 7. Note whether students are using
family words with ease or if they still need more practice.
• Listen to the higher proficiency students as they engage in Step 7 to see if they are using possessives
accurately or if they need more feedback or practice.

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 Dr. Jan Dormer
Jan.dormer@gmail.com

Lesson for Intermediate-Level Students: Vacation Complainers1

Aim
• Students will produce sentences using the construction “too + adjective + to”
Activities
Input
1. Ask students, “Have you ever visited a nice place, only to hear others complaining?
Maybe they complained about the weather or the prices or the hotel.” Give an example
from your personal experiences: “For example, I recently visited Germany. I enjoyed
being in a quaint old town in the wintertime, but I heard someone at the guest house
complaining: ‘It’s too cold to walk around town. The streets are too dark at night to see
where you’re going. A vehicle is too expensive to rent.’”
2. Point out the “too – adjective – to” construction in each sentence. Help students
understand that too, unlike very, has a negative connotation.
Interaction
3. Place students in pairs. Give each pair a card with a vacation destination on it.
4. Have them write three to five possible sentences like the ones on the board, as if they are
a complaining tourist.
Output
5. Have each pair come up and read their sentences aloud. With that information, the class
tries to guess the location.
Assessment
• As pairs give their sentences, note whether they are using the construction “too ___ to”
correctly.

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Adapted from “Adjectives, Adverbs, and Nouns,” by J. Dormer, in New Ways in Teaching Grammar, edited by C.
Rylance and A. Kevech, 2018, pp. 3–4. Copyright 2018 by TESOL Press. Adapted with permission.