3.2 Anticipated Problems & Proactive Solutions

Why anticipated problems belong on a Module 2 plan

A lesson plan is a rehearsal on paper. The heading anticipated problems (and solutions) asks you to predict what may go wrong before learners walk in, and to write what you will do about it. Independent OpenExamPrep teaching for TKT Module 2 treats this heading as evidence of planning skill. A vague worry (they may find it hard) is not a problem. A pep talk (help them, explain again, encourage them) is not a solution.

Module 2 matching tasks often give you a short extract and ask which plan heading it belongs under. The same classroom idea can be written as an aim, a procedure, an anticipated problem, or a solution. You must classify the wording, not the topic. If the sentence names a difficulty learners may have, it is a problem. If it names an action the teacher will take to prevent or repair that difficulty, it is a solution. If it names a learning outcome with to practise / to enable / to provide, it is an aim. If it narrates what teacher and learners do, it is procedure.

What counts as a predicted problem

Write problems as observable learner or classroom events, not as your feelings about the class. Useful stems include Learners may…, The audio may…, The controlled practice may overrun because…. Then attach evidence: a typical error, a skills behaviour, or a logistics fact you already know from the class profile.

Work across these types so your plan is not only a grammar-error list.

Linguistic problems: form, meaning, pronunciation

Form problems are errors in structure, word order, morphology, or the wrong piece of grammar for the slot.

• Learners may produce I didn't went, combining past do with a past main verb.
• Learners may invert the subject and the lexical verb without an auxiliary: Went you to the shop?
• Learners may pluralise uncountables: any breads, many furnitures.

Meaning problems are when learners can chant a form but use it for the wrong idea.

• Learners may treat must and have to as always interchangeable, missing speaker-source obligation versus external rule.
• Learners may hear present perfect Have you ever… as a question about last weekend and answer with a finished-time phrase only, without the life-experience meaning.

Pronunciation problems are sounds, stress, or linking that will block understanding or make the target string unusable.

• Learners may add an extra syllable to every regular past form, saying walk-ed with /Id/ on walked, where /t/ is required.
• Learners may stress the auxiliary in I'm going to instead of the main verb, so the string does not sound like a going-to future.

Those sentences are anticipated problems. They are not aims. An aim for the same lesson might read To enable learners to ask past simple yes/no questions about last weekend. They are not procedures. A procedure might read Teacher models two questions; learners stand and ask three classmates.

Skills problems

A skills problem is about how learners read, listen, speak, or write, not only about a grammar item hiding in the text.

• Learners may try to catch every word on a first listen and miss the speaker's overall opinion.
• Learners may start writing a full composition before they have a paragraph plan, so cohesion collapses in the last five minutes.
• Learners may read a matching-headings text word by word from line one, so they never skim for the paragraph topic.

A solution for the listening example is not play the audio again. A proactive solution is: set one gist question; forbid dictionaries during the first play; teach a don't need every word reminder on the board; then move to a detail task. Playing again can be a backup, but the plan should first change the task so gist is possible.

Instruction problems

Even a well-chosen mingle fails if learners do not know how to start. Predict the confusion in the instructions, not in the students' character.

• Learners may stay with the first partner in a Find someone who mingle because they do not know they must speak to five people.
• Learners may write answers in their notebooks during a speaking drill because the worksheet looks like homework.
• Learners may not understand who is A and who is B in an information-gap, so both look at the same sheet.

Concrete solutions: ICQs (Do you talk to one person or several? Do you write full sentences?); an open-pair demonstration; a one-line instruction on the board; colour-coded A/B cards. Help them does not tell an observer what you will do when fifteen learners look blank.

Timing overruns

Timing is a Module 2 column of its own, but overrun is also an anticipated problem when you can already see why the stage is greedy.

• The substitution table has eighteen prompts, so controlled practice may consume the minutes reserved for production.
• Plenary checking of a twelve-item gap-fill item by item may leave no time for delayed error feedback.

Solutions are design changes you write in advance: cut the table to eight prompts; check only four contested items in plenary; put remaining answers on a slide; protect production with a visible time box and a task that can shrink (report two ideas instead of five).

Grouping and dynamics

• A friendship group of five may complete the decision task in L1 and produce no English to report.
• One strong speaker may answer for a mixed group, so three learners never try the target form.
• Two learners who refuse to work together may freeze a closed-pair drill.

Solutions: assign roles (scribe, reporter, language monitor); change grouping (onion ring, teacher-selected pairs); give the strong speaker a reporter job that comes after everyone has drafted one sentence; have a spare pair card so you can regroup without a public argument. Write the spare pairing on the plan; do not improvise only in your head.

Materials and tech failure

• The classroom computer may fail to play the downloaded lecture extract.
• The photocopier may jam, leaving you with one worksheet for sixteen learners.
• The coursebook listening may be on a CD player that is locked in another room.

Solutions: a phone backup of the audio with speakers; a teacher-read transcript as last resort (note that this changes the listening conditions); a pair-share photocopy or a board-write of six items; arriving with the audio already tested. Use technology better is not a solution.

Cultural sensitivity

• A Find someone who item about dating, alcohol, or family income may embarrass or exclude some learners.
• A role-play that forces a learner to criticise a boss in front of older classmates may feel inappropriate in that group.

Solutions: rewrite the survey with workplace or hobby items you have already checked against the class profile; offer a character card so the opinion is not autobiographical; warn in the plan that item 6 is optional. Cultural prediction is part of planning, not political decoration.

Classification: problem, not aim, not procedure

Module 2 items reward this habit: read the extract as a heading test.

Notice the last row. Solutions are actions. Problems are predictions. Aims are outcomes. Procedures are stage scripts. Personal aims are about your teaching behaviour (to give instructions in under a minute). If you file Learners may omit the article before jobs: She is teacher under Aim, you have misclassified a problem. If you file Teacher elicits two jobs and marks a/an on the board under Anticipated problems, you have misclassified a solution or a procedure.

Pair every problem with a solution

A Module 2 plan that lists six problems and no solutions is incomplete. A plan that lists solutions to problems you never named is confusing. Write them as pairs.

Worked pair — past simple questions (original example). Problem: Learners may use present simple with a finished-time marker: Do you go to the cinema last week? Solution: Write last week / yesterday / on Saturday in a time-phrase box; do two open-pair models that stress the time phrase; monitor for present-simple questions and note them for plenary. That solution is specific enough that a cover teacher could run it.

Worked pair — second conditional. Problem: Learners may use was instead of were in If I were you…, or drop would in the result clause. Solution: Leave If I were… / I would… as a substitution frame; concept-check that the situation is imaginary now; delayed notes, not interrupting every closed pair.

Worked pair — instructions. Problem: Learners may not know they must not look at their partner's picture in an information-gap. Solution: Seat partners facing each other with a bag as a screen; ICQ: Do you show your picture? Hands up if you may look.

When you practise for the paper, take any coursebook unit and force yourself to write three problem–solution pairs of different types: one linguistic, one skills or instruction, one logistics or cultural. That spread is what a complete Module 2 plan looks like, and it is what matching items are sampling when they ask you which heading an extract belongs to.