ESL Lesson Plans: Types and Purpose

By Michael Hines  |   Submitted On December 24, 2011

All ESL teachers--regardless of training, experience, or competency--need a

carefully drawn lesson plan in order to assist their students in attaining learning
objectives, both on a daily basis as well as the long-term. Having a lesson plan is
like having a complete and clear visualization of how a learning session is to take
place and how students are able to grasp and retain lesson concepts. Numerous
research indicate that pre-visualizing success in athletic competitions as well as
business endeavors is a concrete step in the process of actually achieving it. The
same is true with classroom engagements. Without a lesson plan, this visualization
process is blurred at best and the learning outcomes that will be generated will be
far from ideal.

That said, the importance of lesson plans in ESL/EFL education is difficult to

overstate. ESL educators simply need to visualize daily lessons in advance and
build the most appropriate teaching strategies into a comprehensive lesson plan.
Otherwise, going to class without adequate preparation will most likely be
detrimental to both the teachers and their students. Unprepared teachers will
become mediocre at the job and will be viewed as unprofessional by their peers,
superiors, and students. On the other hand, students under inadequately prepared
language teachers will enjoy less-than optimum knowledge inputs and will
generally have a low quality learning and appreciation of lesson concepts,
compared with students under highly competent and prepared educators.

Given the substantial resources pooled into the learning session by students and
education providers, an unprofessionally managed class is a terrible waste of time,
money and effort. Moreover, students and teachers under this scenario generally
have very low motivation to improve. Having a lesson plan and effectively using it
as a guide for daily teaching will reflect your professionalism and reliability. You
also present yourself as a good role model for your students who will come to
appreciate the value of coming to class prepared and primed to achieve the lesson
targets.

Lesson Plan 101

If you are new to teaching, a lesson plan is basically just a step-by-step guide on
how the teacher intends to present a lesson and the ways by which students are
expected to learn and appreciate the various lesson concepts. An excellent lesson
plan is one that can be easily and effectively used by another educator in your
place. This means that the ideal lesson plan is both clear and comprehensive. The
details and elements of lesson plans vary, depending on the specific format

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mandated by the school or organization. However, the common components of
good lesson plan include the following:

1. Lesson Title

2. The period of time (in minutes, hours, days, or weeks) necessary to complete the
lesson

3. Class details (class name or section, age, skill level, etc.)

4. The lesson objectives

5. Instructional approach(es) to be used (this section describes the sequence of

learning events as well as the techniques the teacher will use in helping students
achieve the lesson objectives)

6. Instructional materials (such as a film, an image gallery, a music video, etc.)

7. Summary of and derived conclusions from the lesson

8. Methods for practicing the lesson concepts

9. Evaluation and testing methods to be used

10. Contingency plans or elements (This section describes subsidiary topics or

additional techniques and materials that can be used to either fortify the learning
gains generated during the session or productively fill up excess time. Fun and
engaging, seat work, dialogues, and other activities are ideal for this section)

Unless a specific lesson plan format is required by the learning institution, most
ESL practitioners tailor their lesson plans according to the teaching philosophies or
techniques they believe in or are most comfortable with. In general, however,
excellent ESL lesson plans have common characteristics that you should integrate
in your own teaching strategies:

· Ideal lesson plans have a concise summary that fits on a single page. The detailed
plan proper may--and often--exceeds this number, but the idea is to allow anyone
to have a quick overview of the lesson.

· Great lesson plans are organized in a way that is easy and a delight to follow.

· Lesson plans should be strongly aligned with the needs and learning
competencies of their intended audience.

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· Each individual lesson plan should adhere to a continuity of lesson concepts and
should not only fit in the curriculum but also reflect the overall vision of the
subject.

· ESL Lesson plans should establish platforms for students to apply language
learning to real-world situations.

In ESL education, lesson plans are crucial even in purely conversational classes. In
order to establish an environment that encourages high quality learning and draws
non-native speakers to articulate themselves extensively, adequate preparation is of
paramount importance. Having a haphazardly designed plan is also inexcusable.

Types of ESL Lesson Plans

There are literally dozens of lesson plan types depending on the teaching
philosophy followed by an educator or specific mandated by learning institutions.
In ESL and EFL education, the most common lesson plans are those based on three
main instructional approaches:

A. PPP (Presentation, Practice and Production)

B. TTT (Test, Teach and Test)

C. TBA (Task-based Approach)

Presentation, Practice and Production. PPP is a recommended lesson approach for

many educators of ESL/EFL and is commonly taught in institutions that provide
TESOL and TEFL certifications. Most English language educators believe that
PPP is the root approach from which other approaches have evolved.

In a nutshell, PPP facilitates the presentation (teacher-centric) of new language

concepts, the practice (joint participation of teacher and students) of the new
language concepts, and the production (student-centric) of new language concepts.
During the presentation phase, up to 80 percent of the period may be appropriated
for a lecture or a teacher-led explanation of lesson concepts. During this time, the
teacher may discuss grammatical issues, spelling, and common use of the new
language concept. The teacher also raises concept appreciation checks to verify the
students' understanding of the new concepts. When students clearly understand the
new concepts, the teacher may then proceed to the next phase. Otherwise a brief
recap of the subject matter should be conducted.

In the practice phase, the teacher encourages students to participate more through
orchestrated conversation graded recitation. Ideally, this phase should allow
students to articulate 60 to 70 percent of the time, with the teacher assuming a
secondary role as moderator. Written and verbal activities and drills should both be
used, with varying intensities depending on the new language concept.
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Lastly, students should be encouraged to dominate (90 percent participation) the
production phase. The teacher only monitors the class dynamics and just give
feedback as the lesson ends. By this time, students should be adequately
comfortable with the new language concepts that they can accurately and fluently
use it to communicate.

Test, Teach and Test. TTT is a frequently used alternative to the PPP method,
wherein the production phase is sequentially moved to the first part of the lesson.
During the (first) test phase that corresponds to the production phase in the PPP
approach, students are more or less abruptly asked to communicatively produce a
language concept based on their existing knowledge and without any prior
guidance from the teacher. The teacher will then asses the students' level of
competency in the particular language area, determine their needs, and proceed
with the teach phase (which corresponds to the presentation phase in the PPP
approach) based on an overall assessment. The teach phase allows educators to
discuss problem areas and guide students towards the correct use of the language
concept.

The final stage of the TTT approach is the second test that aims to check how
students have absorbed the new inputs from the teacher. The logic of this
sequencing is for students to learn the new language concepts better by
differentiating its invalid uses (most likely to be committed during the first test
phase) from correct usage (likely to be accomplished after the teacher presented
the language concept during the teach phase).

In general, the TTT approach is a good way for teachers to determine the specific
needs of students in different language areas. With this knowledge, educators can
optimize their teaching strategies to produce optimum learning outcomes. It is best
used in intermediate and higher competency levels, as well as in classes where the
students have mixed language proficiencies. However, one consistent criticism
about the TTT approach is that it has an element of randomness since several,
unexpected student needs may arise that is beyond the scope of the intended
lesson. Despite this disruptive possibility, the TTT approach is still being adopted
by many educators because it is very "economical" and "focused" in the sense that
valuable time need not be wasted on teaching language areas students are already
proficient with.

Task based Approach. TBA is a good alternative to either the PPP approach or the
TTT method. In TBA-structured classes, teachers do not pre-determine the
language specifics to study but base their lesson strategies on how a central task is
completed by the students. Similar to the other two approaches, TBA follows a
sequential progression: 1) a pre-task introduction to be conducted by the teacher;
2) the students' completion of a central task involving a particular language aspect;
3) reporting, analysis and feedback to be performed by the teacher concerning how

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the students accomplished the central task; and 4) practice sessions to hone student
proficiencies in the language area.

The task-based approach is advocated by many educators because of several clear

advantages. For one thing, TBA allows students to employ all their language
resources towards the completion of a task and not just pre-selected language areas
as in the case of PPP. In addition, TBA utilizes natural, real-life language contexts
that are highly relevant to students. Hence, language exploration and learning
directly arises from students' actual needs and not as suggested in textbooks. TBA
is also based on the premise that a holistic exposure to language--as opposed to
incremental exposures common to PPP--is a better way of learning a new
language.

Conclusion

Based on the profusion of online materials, each approach enjoys strong support
from their respective proponents. It would not hurt to try out each one depending
on your classes' learning environments. Remember, there is no written rule
restricting anyone from modifying, combining, or optimizing any of the three
approaches. At least in designing lesson plans, flexibility is a more preferred
option than dogmatic rigidity. The bottom line is to customize the lesson plan that
will help every one attain the learning objectives and deliver the best value for
your students.