Lesson planning for English teachers: the shape that actually works
Most weak lessons are not weak because the teacher lacked English. They are weak because the lesson had no aim — or had four.
A lesson plan exists to answer one question: what will learners be able to do at the end that they could not do at the start? Everything else is arrangement.
That framing catches the most common failure immediately. "Today we will cover the present perfect" is not an aim — it is a topic. "Learners will be able to describe three experiences using the present perfect" is an aim, because you can tell whether it happened.
Write the aim as an outcome
A usable aim has three properties: it describes learners, not the teacher; it is observable; and it is small enough for one lesson.
- ✗ I will teach vocabulary about food.
- ✗ Learners will understand the past simple.
- ✓ Learners will be able to order a meal using six food items and two request forms.
"Understand" is not observable. If you cannot see it happen, you cannot know whether the lesson worked, and neither can an observer.
Two standard shapes
PPP — Presentation, Practice, Production. Present the language, practise it in controlled form, then have learners use it freely. Predictable and easy to observe, which is why it dominates teaching practice assessments. Its weakness is that it can feel teacher-heavy.
ESA — Engage, Study, Activate. Engage interest first, study the language, then activate it in real use. More flexible: the stages can be re-ordered or looped, which suits mixed-level classes.
Both encode the same principle — controlled before free — and both are accepted in TKT Module 2. Pick one and be consistent rather than inventing a shape per lesson.
VideoA complete micro-lesson in under sixty seconds — setup, model, drill, check. The same four beats a full class period uses, compressed.
The timing most new teachers get wrong
| Stage | Typical share of a 60-minute class |
|---|---|
| Warm-up / engage | 5 min |
| Presentation / study | 10–15 min |
| Controlled practice | 15 min |
| Free production | 15–20 min |
| Feedback and close | 5–10 min |
The number that matters is the last two rows. Learner talking time should be well above teacher talking time, and free production is where the lesson's aim is actually met. New teachers routinely spend 30 minutes presenting and five on production, then wonder why nobody can use the language.
Mistakes that show up in every observation
No aim, or four aims. A lesson doing vocabulary, a tense, pronunciation and a reading text does none of them.
Teacher talking time. If you spoke more than the class did, it was a lecture.
Instructions given as paragraphs. Give one instruction, demonstrate it, check it with a question — Are you working alone or in pairs? — then start. Never explain the whole activity in advance.
No planned feedback stage. Errors noticed during production need a slot at the end. Correcting during free production kills fluency, which is the same trade described in fluency vs accuracy.
No plan B. Write one line: what to cut if you are running late, and what to add if the class finishes early. You will need one of them most lessons.
The plan is a tool, not a performance
A plan you follow rigidly while the class is visibly lost is worse than no plan. The point of writing it is that you have thought the lesson through — which is exactly what lets you depart from it intelligently.
Planning is assessed in TKT Module 2, and it is practised under observation in the teacher training course and the IETTC. Reading about it, as with TPR, only gets you to the starting line.
Frequently asked questions
- What should an English lesson plan include?
- A specific, observable aim stated as what learners will be able to do; a staged sequence moving from controlled to free practice; timings; the materials needed; a planned feedback stage; and a one-line plan B for running long or short.
- What is the difference between PPP and ESA?
- PPP is Presentation, Practice, Production — a fixed order that is predictable and easy to observe. ESA is Engage, Study, Activate, whose stages can be re-ordered or repeated. Both move learners from controlled use to free use; ESA is simply more flexible for mixed-level classes.
- How much of a lesson should be teacher talking time?
- Much less than learner talking time. As a rough target, free production and controlled practice together should occupy over half a language lesson, since that is where the aim is actually met. A lesson where the teacher spoke more than the class was a lecture.
Keep reading
English teacher training in Kerala: what a certificate is actually worth
The teacher training market is full of acronyms and short on plain answers. Here is what each qualification is, and who actually asks for it.
What is the Cambridge TKT, and is it worth taking?
TKT gets mentioned in every teacher training advertisement in Kerala and explained in almost none of them. It is a modular exam with no pass mark — and that matters.
TPR: teaching English through the body, and where it stops working
TPR is the method behind the Brets classroom. It solves the hardest problem in a beginner class — the silence — but it has a ceiling, and honest teaching says where.