Connect English

When CELTA or other teacher training courses begin, trainees are often overwhelmed with new terminology, teaching techniques, and planning expectations. At this early stage, providing clear, ready-made lesson shapes is not just helpful, it’s essential.

These simple frameworks give trainees a safety net. They reduce cognitive load by offering a ready structure for lesson planning while they’re still processing fundamental skills such as lesson staging, setting up activities, and giving instructions.

Why start with lesson shapes?

They help trainees focus on what happens in each stage without worrying about designing the whole sequence from scratch.

• They make the connection between lesson aims and classroom procedure more visible.
• They help trainees build confidence through repetition.

As Scrivener (2011) notes, early in a teacher’s development, structure acts like “training wheels,” allowing them to balance their pedagogical skills before experimenting.

Moving beyond the shape

While lesson shapes are invaluable at first, it’s important that trainees don’t become dependent on them. By mid-course, the real learning comes from understanding the aim of the lesson and identifying the most effective route to achieve it.

This means:

• Looking at the end goal – what do you want students to be able to do by the end of the lesson?
• Identifying the knowledge, skills, and interaction patterns needed to get there.
• Choosing or adapting stages to suit the specific learners and context, not just to “fit the shape.”

Harmer (2015) reminds us that “staging is not a fixed formula, but a flexible map” – and the best teachers know when to redraw the map.

Seeing the connections between stages

Trainees often see lesson stages as separate boxes to tick. In reality, every stage feeds into the next. The Lead-in is not just an icebreaker – it primes learners for the Context stage. The Controlled Practice stage is not an isolated drill – it prepares students for the Freer Practice.

Encouraging trainees to think about how each stage connects to the next helps them:

• Maintain lesson flow.
• Ensure activities serve the aim, rather than existing for their own sake.
• Make transitions smoother and more purposeful.

Planning backwards for better timing

One of the most useful tools I’ve introduced to trainees is backward planning:

1. Start with the final stage – What exactly will learners do to demonstrate they’ve met the aim?
2. Work backwards to identify what preparation they need in earlier stages.
3. Allocate time realistically, knowing that later stages often get squeezed if earlier ones run long.

Trainees who use backward planning often find their lessons have more balanced timing and stronger aim-focus. This echoes Wiggins & McTighe’s (2005) Understanding by Design principle: begin with the end in mind.

Final thoughts

Lesson shapes are the perfect scaffolding tool for new teachers, but they are just that: scaffolding. Our job as trainers is to help trainees see beyond the template, to connect the dots between stages, and to plan with the aim (and the learners) in focus.

Over time, the rigid shapes fall away, leaving teachers who can design lessons that are flexible, purposeful, and responsive. In other words: teaching that flows.

References

• Harmer, J. (2015). The Practice of English Language Teaching (5th ed.). Pearson.
• Scrivener, J. (2011). Learning Teaching (3rd ed.). Macmillan.
• Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by Design (2nd ed.). ASCD.