You may be a newly qualified ELT teacher or someone who has been teaching for a while. We often ask ourselves where to start when planning a lesson from scratch, what ideas to gather together to make it as effective as possible. Some organisations have ready made curriculums to follow or use coursebooks but if you want to make the materials yourself here are some pointers. 

1.  First consider a language point you want the class to learn so you are planning to present it.  Think about a grammar point or vocabulary and examine some logical contexts and some exercises that would fit effectively.  

2. An alternative way to start is to think of a topic such as festivals, food or sport and consider exercises that would work well with this area of language. 

3. It’s really effective to think about starting with the ending – what would be the lesson’s outcomes?  Analyse what the class is going to achieve by the end of your lesson and work your way backwards with the planning.  What language and/or skills will they need in order to accomplish this outcome?

4. Next is to look more closely at the language they will learn with this material and estimate the common problems that learners have with this language.  Start brainstorming exercise types and examples that help address this language problem first. 

5. Teachers and material writers are always seeking interesting texts to use with class.  Using something that is suitable in word count and a topic that is engaging either authentic or adapted is a good starting point which can help with the context too. 

6. You could start the lesson with an audio text on the same topic as a possible warmer to engage students and could set a question or two that accompanies it.  

7. Choose the exercises carefully, ones that guide the class or perhaps questions type examples from exams that will help them prepare. 

8. If you are considering a lesson that practices a particular skill you may need to ensure the sub skill or skills are practised while choosing a suitable text for this sub skill as well. 

9. We sometimes support learners who need English for their work and using some of their work documentation can be engaging and useful.  There are also examples you can find online especially work related emails or health and safety documents etc. 

10. Looking at other materials either from coursebooks or online can provide some valuable inspiration concerning the format so is often a good place to see how other teachers or writers have put plans together.  The British Council have some excellent examples:  https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/

I am a trainer on Trinity Cert Tesol courses and Trinity Dip Tesol. I also deliver my own training: Canva for ELT Professionals. You can email me at: clare@hayward-ELT-training.com or look out for my socials with news on up coming Canva for ELT courses or webinars (there is a regular free webinar about Canva for ELT too!)