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Lesson Planning and Instructional Activities

By Andy Halvorsen

The instructional triangle involves thinking about objectives, instructional activities, and
assessments. To maximize student learning, all of these elements need to be aligned carefully.
This is where the lesson planning process comes in. A lesson plan is a type of roadmap that
puts the relationships between each element of the instructional triangle into actual practice. In
this reading, we will look specifically at the lesson planning process and learn about some of the
most important elements in lesson planning. We will also learn more about specific types of
instructional activities and how these activities can be integrated into a successful lesson.

Why lesson planning matters

Language learning is a long-term process with many sequential steps along the way. Each
lesson that you create is a building block for student success. To make our lessons most
effective, we need to plan them carefully. This planning has several benefits. First, it allows
teachers time to reflect on the lesson’s objectives and how these objectives should best be
achieved and measured. The process of writing the plan helps you to think through your
students’ needs and consider how to meet those needs in the classroom. Second, lesson
planning helps to assure alignment in all elements of the instructional triangle. Well-structured
lessons are built around objectives, activities, and assessments, and all of these are of equal
importance in the planning process. Also, many teachers use the lesson planning process as a
way to plan the sequence of their activities the transitions between these activities. Finally,
lesson planning assures a degree of consistency, both within each class that you teach and
within the curriculum as a whole. Because lessons are foundational blocks for student learning,
we want lessons that build from one another. Also, students benefit from some level of
consistency from lesson to lesson. If they know roughly what to expect in the classroom, they
are more able to focus on the process of language learning.

Planning an excellent lesson is not easy. This is true for even the most experienced
teachers. Purgason (2014) offers a variety of reasons why lesson planning can be challenging.
These include the need for knowledge of second language acquisition theory as well as an
understanding of various methodological choices to be made during a lesson. Timing is also a
challenge. Many teachers struggle to allocate appropriate time to different components of a
lesson plan or to predict how long various elements will take. However, by understanding the
primary steps in the lesson planning process, these challenges can be overcome.

Steps in the lesson planning process

All teachers develop their own system for lesson planning, and it is important that you find a
method that works well for you. Whatever process you choose, there are a few key steps to
keep in mind. Consider the following steps, adapted from the University of Michigan’s Center for
Research on Learning and Teaching.

Step 1: Consider the goals and objectives. You may have a curriculum provided for you that
states the course goals and supporting objectives, or you may be writing these on your own.
Either way, the first step in lesson planning is to consider these components. Each lesson
needs specific objectives, and these should be tied to the goals for the course. Consider the
example goal and associated objectives below.

Advanced Certification in English Language Teaching (ACE) Course 2

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Week 2 required reading by Andy Halvorsen
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Example course goal: Students will improve their public speaking and presentation skills
Example objective 1: Students will narrate a short story in small groups for 2-3 minutes
Example objective 2: Students will demonstrate appropriate eye contact with audience during
small group presentations of a short story

The goal defines what students will improve during the course as a whole, and the lesson’s
objectives define observable and measurable actions that successful students should be able to
accomplish.

Step 2: Plan a warmer or introductory activity. This activity should engage the students in a
meaningful way and also introduce them to the content of the day’s lesson. There are many
possible ways to do this. For example, you might play a short video or audio clip, tell a personal
story, or conduct a quick poll in the classroom. Whatever activity you choose, it should connect
students to the objectives for the lesson.

Example introductory activity: The teacher shows a short video clip from a popular TV show
where the main character is telling a story to a small group of friends. Students are asked to
listen and discuss the speaker’s eye contact and body language while telling the story.

Step 3: Outline learning and instructional activities. These activities are the heart of your lesson.
What will students be doing for the majority of the class time? Who will they be working with?
How will they move around the room? What tasks do they need to accomplish? As we know
from looking at the instructional triangle, the answers to these questions must support the
learning objectives for the lesson. In our example lesson on narrating a short story, what kinds
of activities might be appropriate?

Example instructional activities: First, students review as a class what they have learned about
small-group presentations. They talk about eye contact, body language and posture, intonation,
rhythm, speaking stress, and other issues they have studied in the past. Next, students are
divided into groups and the teacher explains that each member will narrate a short story to the
group for 2-3 minutes. Students are given a peer-review sheet to read which they will use to
observe their peers’ presentations. Before beginning, the teacher gives a model presentation
and has the class give feedback. The majority of the class time is spent on small group
presentations and feedback with the teacher listening and moving around the room. At the end
of the lesson, the teacher highlights the strengths and weaknesses she saw for the whole class,
and she assigns several videos to be watched as homework.

Step 4: Determine how you will assess the learning objectives. Assessment of learning
objectives can happen in both formal and informal ways. A formal assessment might take the
form of a quiz, test, or presentation, but this will likely not happen in every class. Informal
assessment can happen in many ways. Often a teacher will assess whether or not students are
meeting learning objectives simply by interacting with students and observing their language
use. During lesson planning, it is essential to make sure that you have a way to clearly
determine whether or not learning objectives are being met.

Let’s return to our example lesson and think about how the teacher will be assessing the
learning objectives.

Example assessment activities: The first learning objective is for students to narrate a short
story in a limited time frame. The teacher has designed her instructional activities around this

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Week 2 required reading by Andy Halvorsen
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objective, so students will have the opportunity to narrate their short stories. The second
objective relates to the use of eye contact during the narration of the short stories. As the
teacher moves around the class, she will informally observe students working toward both of
these objectives and provide feedback. Also, because the lesson allows for peer feedback
during the small group presentations, students will be working to determine whether or not their
peers have met the objectives as well.

Additional lesson planning tips

Beyond following the four steps mentioned above, teachers getting started with the lesson
planning process should keep some additional points in mind as well. Think about how the
following tips might help with your own lesson planning.

1. Plan your timing carefully, but always leave room for flexibility

Allocating time to activities in a lesson plan is one of the most challenging aspects for novice
teachers because it takes practice and classroom experience to really understand how much
time to allow for. In general, teachers tend to plan for too little time to really get through an
activity. This means they end up rushing at the end and not completing important aspects of the
plan. Don’t forget to dedicate time for many of the routine tasks in the classroom. It takes time to
hand back papers, prepare video equipment, or get students organized into pairs and groups.
Plan in advance for how activities can be flexible with time. What aspects could be reasonably
cut out if you are behind? How could activities be lengthened if time allows?

2. Share the plan

Your students don’t need to see the details of your lesson plan, but you should always share
with them a rough outline of the tasks and activities for the day. It is also helpful for student to
see learning objectives, so they know what they should accomplish during the lesson. This
helps students to take control of the learning process and feel comfortable with the classroom
routine.

3. Write reflective notes on your lesson plan

While you are teaching, you will likely encounter elements of the plan that worked well and
others that did not. If you have time during your teaching, make some quick notes on the
activities in your lesson plan. Note down any ideas you have for improvement to the plan or
changes to activities as well. You may forget these by the time the class finishes. Finally, try to
take 2-3 minutes shortly after class to write additional reflective notes. These notes are
extremely valuable for improving the quality of your teaching. Remember to save your lesson
plans for later review.

4. Develop a template

Once you find a lesson planning style that works for you, create a template that you can use for
yourself each time you write a plan. This can save enormous time, and it will help you to build
consistency into your teaching. We all plan lessons slightly differently, but a lesson planning
template is a valuable tool for all teachers.

Advanced Certification in English Language Teaching (ACE) Course 2

Copyright 2016 University of Oregon. All rights reserved.
Week 2 required reading by Andy Halvorsen
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Understanding your options for instructional activities

We’ve already mentioned the importance of including your instructional activities in your lesson
plan and making sure these activities align with objectives and assessments. One way to think
about the different types of activities that can happen in a classroom is to differentiate between
teacher-centered and student-centered activities. Another factor that impacts the choice of
activities is the language teaching approaches or methods being used. In general, it is easiest to
think about activity types in terms of the language skills being practiced. The table below lists a
variety of possible classroom activity types for each of the four skill areas. Many activities
overlap across language skills, and of course many more could be added as well. In general,
these activity types are listed in order how challenging they may be for language learners.

Listening activity types Reading activity types

• Sound discrimination • Letter and word recognition
• Follow teacher commands • Multiple choice comprehension questions
• Cloze or gap-fill exercises • Rearranging words or sentences
• Checking items on a list • Cloze exercises
• Music listening for general • General in-class reading
meaning • Extensive reading (out of class)
• Dictation (listen and write) • Skills focus (skimming, scanning, etc.)
• Peer listening and feedback • Text organizational features
• Academic note taking • Critical reading and text analysis
• Critical or evaluative listening

Speaking activity types Writing activity types

• Reading aloud • Letter and word formation
• Teacher imitation (drills or choral • First language translation
work) • Sentence completion
• Pronunciation drills • Error correction
• Singing songs • Process writing focus (brainstorming,
• Rehearsed presentations or outlining, drafting, etc.)
monologues • Annotating, paraphrasing and summarizing
• Improvised pair dialogues • Journal or reflective writing
• Small group discussions • Essays and academic writing
• Role-plays
• Debates

Structuring your activities

Once you have selected the activities that will form the heart of your lesson, you will need to
think about how to structure these activities to support the learners. An important concept to
keep in mind here is scaffolding. When learning is scaffolded, it means that the instructor finds
ways to support the learners to make the tasks manageable and appropriate for them. For

Advanced Certification in English Language Teaching (ACE) Course 2

Copyright 2016 University of Oregon. All rights reserved.
Week 2 required reading by Andy Halvorsen
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example, if you chose to do an in-class reading activity of a short story, you might provide your
students with a list of challenging vocabulary words and definitions to support them in their
reading. Well sequenced activities also provide a way of scaffolding in that skills practiced and
developed in one activity should transfer to the next. With all activities you choose, think about
how you can scaffold your instruction for the learners.

Finally, it can be helpful to consider developing your activities using the pre-during-post model.
In this model, you consider each activity in three sections. In the “pre” stage, you plan for what
you can do to prepare learners for the activity. This might mean doing things to raise their
interest, giving instructions, or modeling the activity for students. The “during” stage refers to the
time students themselves spend on the activity. When planning, think both about what the
students will be doing and what the teacher will be doing as well. After the activity has been
completed, you’ll also need to plan for the “post” stage as well. How will you wrap up the
activity? What kind of summary, overview, or feedback will you provide?

If you plan lessons carefully by considering all elements of the instructional triangle, and if you
choose activities that are thought through with the pre-during-post model in mind, you will
gradually develop your lesson planning skills and improve learning opportunities for your
students.

References

Purgason, K. B. (2014). Lesson Planning in Second/Foreign Language Teaching. In Celce-

Murcia, M., D. M. Brinton, & M. A. Snow (Eds.), Teaching English as a Second or
Foreign Language, 4 Edition. (pp. 362-379). Boston: Heinle Cengage.
th

Center for Research on Learning and Teaching: University of Michigan. (2016). Strategies for
effective lesson planning. http://www.crlt.umich.edu/gsis/p2_5.

Advanced Certification in English Language Teaching (ACE) Course 2

Copyright 2016 University of Oregon. All rights reserved.
Week 2 required reading by Andy Halvorsen