LESSON PLANS

Lesson Plans

Lesson Plans

Beginning-Level

At the basic-level students have restricted understanding of the English language. They rarely use English for communication. They can respond nonverbal to commands, statements and questions in a simple form. As their oral comprehension increases, they begin to use simple words and phrases, and may use English spontaneously. They should be developing BICS at this level.

Intermediate-Level

These students can understand short conversations on simple topics. They rely on familiarity. They use repetition, gestures and nonverbal cues to sustain conversation. They rely on contextual and visual cues to aid in comprehension. They can begin to identify the main idea and supporting details of passages (Thompson, 2007). They can write simple notes and make brief journal entries using basic vocabulary and common language structures. Frequent errors are characteristic at this level.

Advanced-Level

Students at this level have adequate language skills for day-to-day communication. Occasional structural and lexical errors still occur. They may still have difficulty with idiomatic expressions and words with multiple meanings. They may still have difficulty with complex structures and abstract academic concepts, but are able to communicate in English in new or unfamiliar settings.

Lesson plan for beginners

Here are some ideas for you which I have learned from my own experience, from observing colleagues and student teachers over about 27 years of teaching French in secondary schools (High Schools).

Starts and Ends

Visualise how you would like your ideal lesson to start…..

Maybe the children are lining up outside your classroom. They are quiet or talking calmly. You stand by the doorway as they enter in single file. You say “bonjour” to each student. Perhaps you have the odd word with them about their appearance, a little “ça va?”, a personal bit of banter in English here and there. The class are now in the room having taken out their books. They are calmly standing behind their table. You wait for total silence and greet them with a “Bonjour tout le monde!” They reply in unison “Bonjour, monsieur/madame”.

You say “Asseyez-vous”. The class sit down and listen attentively to what you are going to say next. In the real world, of course, it doesn't always work that way, so you could help the process along with a trick or two. With younger classes why not tell the class that you are going to count down in French from 20 to zero and that they must have all their books out by the time you get to zero? Or why not have the class recite or sing the alphabet as they come in and they have to have all their books ready by the time they get to Z? When it comes to the class sitting down, why not occasionally break the routine by saying that they can sit down when they hear the first letter of their name?

Planning a Sequence Of Lessons

You will hopefully have a well-organised scheme of work in your department. In my experience it is difficult to plan every lesson too far in advance because you have to adapt to the ...