LLFE-T01 · What Is a Lesson Aim? — Writing Learner-Facing Aims
🎯 What Is a Lesson Aim?
⏱ 5 minutes · 📚 CELTA methodology · 🏫 Micro-lesson
📖 From the teacher’s desk: On my CELTA course, writing lesson aims was the first thing I had to master — and the first thing I got wrong. My early aims were teacher-focused (“to teach vocabulary about food”) instead of learner-focused. My tutor’s feedback was simple and transformative: “The aim should say what the learner can DO at the end, not what you plan to teach.”
🎯 By the end of this micro-lesson, you can: write a clear, learner-facing lesson aim using the correct structure.
🔥 The Problem (1 min)
Which aim is better?
A: “To teach the present perfect.”
B: “By the end of the lesson, students will be able to use the present perfect to talk about past experiences.”
🤔 Why?
📖 The Framework (2 min)
CELTA-informed aim formula:
| ❌ Teacher-focused | ✅ Learner-focused |
|---|---|
| To teach food vocabulary | To name 8 foods and say what they like/don’t like |
| To practise asking questions | To ask 5 questions in a job interview context |
| To cover modal verbs | To use “could” and “should” to give advice |
💡 Key test: Can the learner read the aim and know if they have achieved it? If yes — it’s a good aim!
✏️ Practice (2 min)
Rewrite these as learner-facing aims:
- “To teach prepositions of place.”
- “To cover the past simple.”
- “To do a listening activity about travel.”
🗝️ Answer Key
- “SWBAT use prepositions (in, on, next to, opposite) to describe the location of objects in a room.”
- “SWBAT form and use past simple sentences to describe completed past actions.”
- “SWBAT identify specific details about travel plans from an audio recording.”
Cambridge CELTA course completed — 120 supervised teaching hours, 4 written assignments passed at the required standard.
Independent project; not affiliated with, endorsed by, or accredited by Cambridge University Press & Assessment. Confers no qualification.
✉️ Questions? sourovdeb.com