Information collection & exchange

 Steps in a lesson plan 
With your outline clearly established, you can develop your lesson plans by following these steps: 
• review 
• presentation 
• practice 
• application 
• assignment 
 
 Review 
Reviewing previous work allows you to check on understanding of the previous lessons and gives students 
an opportunity to ask for clarification. 
In a fifty-minute lesson you should allow approximately ten minutes for review. 
 
 Presentation 

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Setting a familiar context is an important part of presenting new material. This step of your lesson should 
therefore be closely tied to your Review. Your objective at this point is to move your students from the known 
to the unknown. 
 
 Practice 
Practicing new material requires guidance and control from the teacher. Exercises in this section of the 
lesson will need to be carefully prepared and include exercises such as multiple choice, substitution drills, 
true or false, and filling in blanks. You will need to monitor activities, checking that new information has been 
understood and that students are putting their new skills correctly into practice. 
 
 
 Application 
Applying new material is different from practicing it in that the teacher steps back and allows the students to 
take control. Your students will have had time to absorb your input and they can now focus on their output. 
Exercises in this part of the lesson will be more open ended. They will include role-plays, written reports, 
complex group activities. 
In a fifty-minute class these three steps, Presentation, Practice, and Application should take approximately 
thirty-five minutes. 
 
 Assignments 
Explaining assignments should not be left until the last minute. Give yourself time to prepare your students 
for the work they will be doing out of class. When your students understand what is required of them they 
have a better chance of succeeding and achieving the objective of the lesson. Your assignment should 
reflect the materials presented in your lesson. 
Traditionally, assignments have consisted of exercises from the text. However, you may want to explore 
some of the options offered by a communicative approach and give your students a real task to perform. For 
example, in a country where English is widely spoken, such as Kenya or the Philippines, you might ask your 
students to find out details of upcoming events and to report back to the class. 
In a fifty-minute class, you should allow at least five minutes for this step.