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British Council

Teaching English: How to Plan a Great Lesson

British Council via FutureLearn

This course may be unavailable.

Overview

Improve your English lesson planning and explore teaching with technology

Effective lesson planning will help your English students get the most from your classes.

On this teaching English course, you will look at four professional practices, share your own experiences, and apply what you’ve learnt to your CPD.

As you explore the key components of lesson planning, you’ll learn the importance of relationship-building and using technology to engage and support your students.

You’ll also learn the best ways to manage your lessons and make the most of any teaching resources available to you.

This course is designed for English language teachers around the world who want to improve their teaching methods and lesson planning.

You could be teaching at a primary, secondary, or higher education level.

Syllabus

  • Understanding learners
    • Getting started
    • Getting to know your learners
    • Motivating learners and getting them talking
    • Involving learners through differentiation
    • Review
  • Planning lessons and courses
    • Planning ahead
    • Aims and stages
    • Task: lesson observation
    • Adapting materials and planning for differentiation
    • Review
  • Managing the lesson
    • Introducing and practising language
    • Multilingual approaches
    • Alone, in pairs or in groups?
    • Review
  • Managing resources
    • What's available?
    • Using images and realia
    • Integrating ICT
    • Using the board
    • Review and next steps

Taught by

Claire Ross

Reviews

4.8 rating, based on 372 Class Central reviews

4.8 rating at FutureLearn based on 112 ratings

Start your review of Teaching English: How to Plan a Great Lesson

  • Anonymous
    I have participated in several courses online, in different platforms, as Coursera, Edx, in Universities as Yale or Harvard, and in Future Learn I have had the best experience. Because, you send weekly our reminders. This particular course has been…
  • Anonymous
    The most remarkable aspect about this course is that it is eminently practical. First of all you are introduced on the idea of approaching your students taking into account their different needs, interests, circumstances, ages, etc., in order to c…
  • Anonymous
    This course has greatly been of help to me. i enjoy each step to the full. It greatly helped me to see areas i have not tried enough as a teacher and it has also shown me how to teach with a difference. you can't go wrong with Future learn courses. they are so reach and loaded.
  • Anonymous
    I've enjoyed this course and the most thing I like about it is the videos of real lessons in real class and their feedbacks. Also, the reflective journal is something I would like to try because I used to do it and evaluate my work, but not in a written way.

    I have a prevoius knowledge of most of the techniques in the course till now, but it's always a good thing to refresh your memory and meet people who share their experiences and opinions with you.

    Thank you for your efforts and for all pdfs, links and apps that you shared with us.

  • Anonymous
    I´ve started this course with few knowledge about teaching English and I've just finished the course and it blew my mind with bright ideas, concepts and above all a lot of good practices and advices given by colleagues spread around the world. It was an astonishing experience and I am pretty sure it will help me to be a better teacher. Thanks everybody - teachers, colleagues for sharing your time with us!
  • Anonymous
    Hello! I'm Sagir from Bangladesh. My teaching career is not very long. Hardly 2 and a half years. Fortunately or unfortunately, I have joined during the COVID-19 pandemic. After joining the school, I didn't get a chance to take class for 17 months…
  • Anonymous
    Very enjoyable course! I particularly like further reading articles. Carefully chosen resources and wonderful teaching ideas from other experienced teachers. Thank you so much!
  • Anonymous
    This course became a real good new start to be back into teaching after a pause with my own children. I could find here many new ideas and tools for teaching, useful links for teaching resourses, interesting lessons videos and further discussion wit…
  • Anonymous
    A great course. I recommend it to any teacher who wants to teach online. The tasks, links and resources provided in the course will be helpful during your career as an online teacher.
  • Profile image for Baldana Turmaganbet
    Baldana Turmaganbet
    I really enjoyed taking this course. I analyzed myself and studied with different teachers. There were also useful links where I could find materials for all occasions.
  • Ana De Pretto
    I only have to thank you for this stunning course!!! Congratulations Team and The British Council!!!!
  • Anonymous
    I am a volunteer helping migrants learn English. It's a free class at a community centre and I have had no training or advice. It is difficult to plan lessons as we constantly have new arrivals and some speak virtually no English. This British Counc…
  • Anonymous
    I find this a practical course that helps explain Differentiation in simple terms. The examples provided and the video clips help to further support my understanding of DfL. It is certainly good to know that I don't have to prepare individual lessons for each student but that I can meet the needs of the students by scaffolding through questions etc so that learning needs are met.
    What I have learnt is that DfL happens when the teacher presents content in different ways, provides students with a variety of activities to internalise new knowledge, and also presents them with choices on how they display their learning.
  • Teresa Kelly
    I am an experienced ESOL teacher who has returned to teaching after a break. This course has been invaluable in helping me transition back into English language teaching. It is very detailed and with a variety of teaching/engagement methods.
    I would highly recommend this course to both new and experienced ESOL teachers who want to offer the best expereince to their learners, and also be confident and successful language teachers.
  • Anonymous
    Я не вчитель початківець, але з задоволенням проходжу цей курс. На мою думку в цьому курсі кожен вчитель знайде для себе багато корисного. Адже завжди корисно спостерігати за роботою інших педагогів та черпати корисні ідеї.
  • Anonymous
    It´s very useful and interesting for me. I´m learning a lot because I teach English but I´m haven´t studied at a Teacher´s training college so I know nothing about planning . I use to follow the coursebook plans and I "give form" to it according to other resources or ideas that I think they are useful to use in class. Apart from that, my students follow me during my class, I can see that at many tmes they really enjoy it and they learn. That´s why I´m trying to do my best because I love to do it and to keep in touch with students.
  • Rosine Astolfi
    This is the course I have been dreaming about for long. And there it is. I tell you, it's well shaped, there are many examples, teachers pop over regularly. Resources can be uploaded and you have access to padlet wall and to the B.Council website freely and to webinars. Everything you need is there to your next great lesson. See you soon. R.A.
  • Anonymous
    This is an excellent course - very helpful for anyone planning and delivering English lessons. It is good that the course educators interact with the participants.
    In order to make full use of the course, including following links requires more time than suggested - perhaps alter the time required or make the course longer than 4 weeks?
  • Anonymous
    I am following this course to refresh my knowledge as I plan going back to teaching after a long break. It has reminded me of many important aspects of teaching from the very general basics to rather specific tools that I can use to prepare for classes. Although it is named How to Plan a Great Lesson, the take-away is much broader as it lies on the foundations of teaching: knowing your students, differentiation, scaffolding, planning, modifying/adapting the course material, self-reflection. I would recommend this course as it really makes you consider where you stand and how you can improve on it, while, at the same time, offering plenty of advice and experience from other teachers from around the world.
  • Anonymous
    I've taken part in various online teacher training courses. Usually they were more like just a set of webinars (each 2-3 hrs long!) and included tasks to check comprehension and a test to get a certificate. There was almost no collaboration with fel…

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