1.2 Main Aims, Subsidiary Aims & Stage Aims

Why aim types are a Module 2 scoring topic

Part 1 of TKT Module 2 tests identifying and selecting aims as its first syllabus area. The handbook’s example testing focus names main, subsidiary and personal aims, specification of aims, and factors influencing the choice of aims. If you cannot tell those labels apart, matching tasks become guesswork: every classroom extract looks like “the aim.” This section teaches the TKT Glossary meanings and then shows how live items usually hide the correct label behind a procedure or a teacher’s private improvement goal.

An aim, in the glossary, is what the teacher wants to achieve in the lesson or in the course. That sentence is easy to skim and still miss. The aim is an intended achievement, not a list of materials, not a page number, and not a description of how learners sit. The glossary then splits that achievement into three classroom labels you must keep distinct, plus a fourth label — personal aim — that often appears as a distractor for the main aim.

Glossary definitions you should be able to quote

The main aim is the most important aim. The glossary’s own examples are to teach the present perfect simple or to develop listening skills. One lesson, one headline achievement. If a colleague asked “What was that lesson for?”, the main aim is the answer that would still be true if you deleted the warmer, the homework, and the extra vocabulary recap.

A stage aim is the aim or purpose of a stage, step, or short section of a lesson. Glossary examples: to provide controlled practice of the present perfect simple, or to develop listening for gist. Stage aims are local. They should add up to the main aim, but no single stage is the whole lesson.

A subsidiary aim is the secondary focus, less important than the main aim. It can be the language or skills learners use in order to achieve the main aim, or a skill or language area practised while the teacher is working on the main aim. In a gist-reading lesson, recycling topic vocabulary so learners can complete the gist task is often subsidiary. In a grammar lesson, a short speaking task that uses the new form for real exchange can be subsidiary fluency work.

A personal aim is what the teacher would like to improve in his or her own teaching, for example to reduce time spent writing on the whiteboard. Personal aims are real professional development. They are not the lesson’s main aim, and they are not what learners are trying to achieve. TKT writers love this trap.

Learner-outcome wording versus teacher-intention wording

Teachers write aims in two surface styles. Teacher-intention wording names what the teacher will do: “to teach the present perfect simple,” “to develop listening for gist.” That style matches the glossary examples, so it is legitimate TKT language. Learner-outcome wording names what learners will be able to do: “By the end of the lesson, learners will be able to describe recent life experiences using the present perfect simple.” Outcome wording is clearer for planning and for later specification work in the next section. On the test, do not reject an option only because it starts with “to teach” or “to provide.” Ask whether it names the achievement of that lesson or stage.

A useful check: if you can replace the sentence with “the teacher will walk around and hand out cards” and it still sounds similar, you wrote a procedure, not an aim. If you can replace it with “I will stop echoing learners’ answers,” you wrote a personal aim. If deleting the sentence would make the lesson’s purpose unrecognisable, you are looking at the main aim.

Worked classroom examples

Grammar lesson (B1 adults, travel stories)

The class has already met past simple for finished time phrases (yesterday, in 2019). Tomorrow they need language for experiences without a finished-time marker.

• Main aim (teacher-intention): to teach the present perfect simple for life experiences.
• Main aim (learner-outcome): By the end of the lesson, learners will be able to ask and answer Have you ever…? questions about travel using have/has + past participle.
• Subsidiary aims: recycle travel vocabulary they need to complete the mingle; notice weak forms of have you; get brief spoken fluency while using the new form.
• Stage aims: a photo warmer to activate the travel topic (not to teach the grammar yet); a guided-discovery stage so learners mark time expressions that do not sit with present perfect; controlled practice of have/has + past participle in a gap-fill; a mingle that practises the target form with some genuine information exchange.

If an item described the gap-fill and offered “to teach the present perfect simple” as the stage aim, that option would be too big: that is the main aim. The stage aim is controlled practice of the form already presented.

Reading-for-gist lesson (B1 teens, school-exchange article)

The school magazine has a 280-word article about a two-week exchange in another city. The teacher’s headline purpose is a reading skill, not a grammar point.

• Main aim: to develop reading for gist so learners can identify the article’s overall purpose after a strictly timed first read.
• Subsidiary aims: recycle school-life vocabulary needed to complete the gist task; later, a short scan for three names, which is a different subskill practised after the gist aim is secured.
• Stage aims: learners predict from the headline and a photo (to activate content schemata); they have 90 seconds to choose which of three titles best matches the whole text (gist); they compare choices in pairs (to justify the gist decision, not to start detailed comprehension); only then does a scan task appear.

The trap is calling the 90-second title-match “to practise reading for detailed information.” Gist is overall meaning under time pressure. Detail comes later and would be a different stage aim — or a different lesson’s main aim.

Functional lesson (A2 office workers, polite requests)

Learners need language for asking colleagues to help with routine office tasks without sounding abrupt.

• Main aim: learners will be able to make polite workplace requests using Could you…? and Would you mind + -ing.
• Subsidiary aims: listen for the intonation of polite requests in a short dialogue; recycle office vocabulary (printer, shift, cover).
• Stage aims: notice the target exponents in a recorded dialogue (to raise awareness of form and politeness); substitution drills (controlled practice of the exponents); a photocopier-and-shift role-play (freer practice of the function in a plausible context).

Here the role-play’s stage aim is freer practice of the function, not “to put learners in pairs,” which is only the grouping procedure.

Three aim types versus the usual distractors

Personal aim sits outside that three-way contrast on purpose. It is a teacher-development intention. If the option talks about what I will do better as a teacher, it is not the main aim and not a stage aim for learners.

The matching pattern: stage → stage aim

TKT frequently gives a short description of what learners do and asks you to match it to the stage aim. The official sample papers use that pattern; the scenarios below are original and are not copied from those papers.

Extract A. Learners have 90 seconds to match four short workplace emails to four purposes: complain, invite, request information, thank.
Stage aim: to practise reading for gist / to identify the purpose of short texts.
Not: to hand out the photocopies (procedure). Not: to teach the past perfect (wrong system). Not: to use less first language in instructions (personal aim).

Extract B. After a brief model, learners complete eight sentences by choosing have or has and a past participle from a box; the teacher nominates answers and confirms form.
Stage aim: to provide controlled practice of present perfect simple forms.
Not: to develop speaking fluency (the task is accuracy-focused and teacher-centred). Not: to teach reading for gist.

Extract C. Learners listen once to a two-minute conversation between a receptionist and a patient and tick which of three sentences best summarises why the patient called.
Stage aim: to listen for gist.
Not: to listen for specific numbers such as a phone extension (that would be listening for specific information, a different stage). Not: “to play the audio” (procedure).

Extract D. In closed pairs, learners take turns being a colleague who needs a shift covered; they must use Would you mind + -ing at least twice while negotiating.
Stage aim: to provide freer practice of polite requests.
Not: the main aim of a listening lesson. Not: “to stand up and change pairs” (procedure).

When you train, cover the procedure with your hand and ask why this stage exists. The leftover sentence is usually the stage aim.

Common exam traps

• Choosing a procedure because it is what you can see in the extract (pair work, a recording, a worksheet).
• Choosing a personal aim because it is worthy (“monitor less,” “use the board less”).
• Inflating a stage aim into the main aim (controlled practice is not “teach the present perfect” if presentation already happened).
• Inflating a subsidiary skill into the main aim (vocabulary support is not a gist-reading lesson’s headline purpose).
• Mixing gist with specific information or detail because both involve a text or a recording.