ELT365 · Day 272 — Planning in Series — Units of Work
Idea
Individual lesson plans exist inside a longer sequence. A unit of work plans the arc across several lessons: recycling, progression, and cumulative practice.
Example
A three-lesson unit on narrative tenses: L1 introduces past simple and continuous, L2 practises them in a reading, L3 uses them in a speaking and writing task.
Try
Plan a three-lesson unit around one language area. Map how the target language builds across the three lessons.
From my training materials
This document from my training file is a lexis worksheet titled “11 Working life.pdf,” which presents employment vocabulary through a story about a freelance journalist. While this is not a multi-lesson unit plan itself, it connects to the topic of planning in series because it illustrates how vocabulary is embedded in context and then recycled. The worksheet uses a narrative to introduce terms like “job satisfaction” and “pay rise,” showing that language items are not just isolated lists but part of a coherent thread. This contextual approach is essential when planning a sequence of lessons where new items build on previous ones.
The excerpt highlights how the story leads into questions that require the learner to use the new chunks. For example, it mentions, “I hardly ever get a pay rise, I don’t get paid if I take a day off.” This demonstrates a recycling technique where the target language is revisited in a slightly different format. In a broader unit of work, such recycling might occur across multiple lessons, with later lessons using the same chunks in new contexts. This worksheet shows the importance of designing materials that allow for cumulative practice, ensuring that learners don’t just memorize definitions but understand how the language functions in realistic communication. The connection is loose but valuable for understanding the mechanics of lexical progression.
Independent project; not affiliated with, endorsed by, or accredited by Cambridge University Press & Assessment. Confers no qualification.