Lesson Plans
A plan that survives a real classroom has three qualities: it fits the period, it works if half the class has not done the homework, and it can be prepared in fifteen minutes.
A lesson structure for a 40-minute period
This shape works for almost any English lesson. The proportions matter more than the content: notice how little of it is the teacher talking.
Settle and recall — 5 minutes
Three questions on the previous lesson, written on the board before the students come in. Everyone writes answers. It settles the class, it revises, and it tells you in two minutes what was retained.
Present — 8 minutes
The new material, explained once, with examples on the board. Eight minutes is the limit for most classes. If it needs more, it needs splitting into two lessons.
Model — 5 minutes
Do one yourself, aloud, thinking aloud as you go: I am looking at the word 'since', so I need the present perfect… Showing your reasoning teaches far more than showing your answer.
Guided practice — 10 minutes
Students work with support: in pairs, with a framework, or with the first one done for them. You circulate. This is the part most often cut when time is short, and it is the part that must not be.
Independent practice — 8 minutes
Alone, without support. You now find out who has actually understood, while there is still time to do something about it.
Check and close — 4 minutes
Take answers from three or four students, correct the commonest error publicly, and state in one sentence what the lesson was about. Set homework that practises this lesson only.
Writing a learning outcome that is worth writing
One outcome, one observable verb
An outcome states what the pupil will be able to do, not what you will cover. Teaching the past tense is a topic; pupils will be able to write five sentences about last weekend using the simple past is an outcome.
Use a verb you can see: write, say, list, match, ask, label, retell, correct. Avoid understand, know, appreciate, be aware of — you cannot observe any of them in forty minutes, so you cannot tell whether the lesson worked.
Add the quantity and the condition. Not pupils will write sentences but pupils will write five sentences, using the word bank on the board. Now you know at 4.00 p.m. whether it happened.
One outcome per lesson. Two if they are genuinely linked. A plan listing five outcomes for forty minutes is a plan that has not been thought about.
Allocating the time honestly
Plan for thirty-four working minutes in a forty-minute period. The register, settling and the walk between rooms take the rest, every single day.
Give the largest block to pupils producing language, not to you presenting it. If presentation exceeds ten minutes, the lesson has become a lecture.
Write the clock time, not the duration, in the margin: 2.15 start pair work. Durations drift; clock times tell you immediately that you are four minutes behind.
Plan the last five minutes first. Decide how you will check learning, then build backwards. Lessons that run out of time always lose the check, which is the only part that told you anything.
Choosing teaching aids that survive a real classroom
The best aid is the one you will actually have. In most classrooms that is the blackboard, your voice, the pupils themselves, and paper.
Realia beats pictures, pictures beat words. A real bus ticket, a real medicine label, a real leaflet from a shop teaches register and layout better than any drawing.
Flashcards on quarter-sheets last for years and work at the back of a class of forty. Laminate the set you use most.
Pupils are an aid. Two children at the front acting a dialogue is a listening resource that needs no electricity.
If you plan around a projector or speakers, always plan the version without them too. That version is the one you will teach.
Differentiation, planned rather than improvised
For pupils who struggle: give the first sentence, supply a word bank, reduce the number required rather than the difficulty, pair them with a middle-ability partner, allow the answer orally before it is written.
For pupils who are ahead: change the task, not the quantity — same story from another character's viewpoint, rewrite it in a different tense, turn the paragraph into a dialogue, write the three questions they would ask the writer.
Write both lines into the plan before the lesson. Differentiation invented at 2.30 p.m. in front of a bored fast finisher is not differentiation.
Mark against the outcome only. If the outcome was the simple past, mark the simple past. Returning a weak pupil's work covered in corrections for spelling, articles and handwriting teaches them only that English is not for them.
Formative assessment and exit activities
Formative assessment is simply finding out before it is too late. It needs no marking and no forms.
Hold-up answers. Everyone writes the answer large and holds it up. You read forty responses in ten seconds.
Thumbs on the desk — up, sideways, down — for I could do this on my own / with help / not yet. Low, quick and surprisingly honest if you never punish a thumb-down.
Exit sentence. One sentence using today's language, said at the door or written on a slip as they leave. The slips take four minutes to read and tell you exactly what tomorrow must start with.
Three names. Before the bell, ask yourself which three pupils you are unsure about. Check those three first tomorrow.
A worked 80-minute (double period) plan
| Time | Stage | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| 0–5 | Entry task | On the board: Write three things you would ask the principal for, if you could ask for anything. Register taken while they write. |
| 5–12 | Lead-in and purpose | Two or three ideas read out. You establish that a request in writing needs a reason, not only a want. The outcome is stated aloud and written on the board. |
| 12–25 | Presentation | A real letter of request on the board or a handout. Pupils identify the parts: address, date, salutation, subject line, the request, the reason, the close. They copy the skeleton, not the whole letter. |
| 25–35 | Guided practice | Whole class builds one paragraph together on the board. You supply the polite forms: I should be grateful if you would ..., May I request ... |
| 35–40 | Break in the middle | Stand, stretch, a two-minute spelling chain. A double period without a break loses the second half. |
| 40–60 | Independent writing | Each pupil writes their own letter. You walk the fixed route. Word bank stays on the board for those who need it; the extension is to add a second paragraph anticipating an objection. |
| 60–72 | Peer check and redraft | In pairs, using a three-point checklist on the board: is the subject line clear, is there a reason, is the close correct? Pupils correct their own work; you do not collect a first draft. |
| 72–80 | Feedback and exit | Two letters read aloud. You correct the one pattern that went wrong most often. Exit: each pupil says one polite request form aloud at the door. |
Blank template, observation checklist and self-evaluation form
A blank lesson-plan template, a lesson-observation checklist and a teacher self-evaluation form are on the Lesson Plan Template page.
All three were written by RCF English, so there is no permission to seek: print them, photocopy them for your department, or retype them with your own school's heading.
Four worked plans
Grammar lesson — the present perfect (40 minutes)
- Recall (5): Three sentences on the board in the simple past; students identify the time expression in each.
- Present (8): Two columns — I saw him yesterday / I have seen him. Draw out from the class what has changed. Give the rule only after they have noticed the pattern.
- Model (5): Do three items aloud, saying why each takes the form it does. Include one you deliberately get wrong and correct.
- Guided (10): Ten sentences in pairs, the first three already done. Circulate; note the commonest error.
- Independent (8): Five sentences alone, written in exercise books.
- Close (4): Take three answers. Correct the commonest error publicly. Homework: five sentences about their own week using since and for.
Writing lesson — notices (40 minutes)
- Recall (5): Show a badly written notice on the board. What is missing? Students list.
- Present (8): The five essential parts of a notice, on the board, numbered.
- Model (5): Build a notice on the board with the class supplying the content, you supplying the form.
- Guided (10): Students write a notice with the five parts already listed down the side of the page as headings.
- Independent (8): A second notice, no headings supplied.
- Close (4): Two students read theirs; class checks the five parts on their fingers. See Notices.
Reading lesson — comprehension (40 minutes)
- Recall (5): Two vocabulary items from last lesson, used in new sentences.
- Present (8): Read the passage aloud once while students follow. Then teach one strategy only — for example, reading the questions first.
- Model (5): Answer question 1 aloud, showing where in the passage you found it and why you rejected the other possibility.
- Guided (10): Questions 2–4 in pairs, with the relevant paragraph number given for each.
- Independent (8): Questions 5–6 alone, with no paragraph numbers.
- Close (4): Take answers. Ask where did you find it? rather than is that right? See Reading Comprehension.
Literature lesson — developing an answer (40 minutes)
- Recall (5): One question on the previous scene or chapter.
- Present (8): Point, evidence, explanation, effect, link — the five parts, on the board.
- Model (5): Build one paragraph on the board, sentence by sentence, labelling each part as you write it.
- Guided (10): Give the class a point and a quotation; they write the explanation, effect and link.
- Independent (8): A second point, with no quotation supplied.
- Close (4): Read one strong paragraph aloud and ask the class to identify the five parts. See How to Develop an Answer.
Three things worth building into every plan
- Write your objective as something the students will do, not as something you will cover. Not teach the present perfect but students write five correct sentences using since and for. You can tell at the end whether it happened.
- Plan the extension before the lesson, not during it. Two extra questions for the students who finish early, ready on the board. Without it, the fastest students spend ten minutes doing nothing.
- Plan what happens if they have not understood. One alternative explanation, prepared in advance. Repeating the first explanation more loudly does not work.
Downloadable lesson plans
- Lesson planGrade 10 and 11
O/L Literature: Five Sample School Based Assessment Plans
Five ready-to-use SBA tools for Grades 10 and 11 English Literature, one for each part of the syllabus: a poetry commentary portfolio, a short-story role play and character profile, an analytical essay on The Vendor of Sweets, and group presentations on Twilight of a Crane and The Bear. Each gives the competency, competency level, learning outcome, teacher and student activities, timing and a twenty-mark marking scheme, with blank fields for the school, date and signatures.
Copyright status: RCF English material, free to use