2.2 Core Plan Headings, Assumptions, Timetable Fit & Aids

2.2 Core Plan Headings, Assumptions, Timetable Fit and Aids

If Module 2 is a matching exam in disguise, the matching keys are components of a lesson plan. The TKT Glossary is blunt: components are the different parts of a lesson plan. You are not being tested on whether your school uses a branded template. You are being tested on whether you can name the box a professional note belongs in.

The heading set works as a system. Aims say what the lesson is for (learners and, separately, the teacher). Stages chop the hour into named sections. Procedures say exactly what will happen in each section. Timing budgets minutes. Interaction patterns say who talks to whom. Aids list the materials and equipment the procedures need. Assumptions record what you believe learners already know or can do, so you do not teach it again from zero. Anticipated problems record what might still go wrong, with a response. Timetable fit locates this lesson in a sequence. Personal aims sit on the same document as a teacher-development heading.

Miss one heading and the others start to lie. A procedure that needs audio but lists no aid is incomplete. An aim that assumes question forms you never taught is a planning error, not a brave challenge. A wonderful freer-practice task that belongs after a writing lesson has poor timetable fit even if the procedure is elegant.

OpenExamPrep treats the heading set as independent TKT Module 2 study material. The labels below are the ones matching tasks expect you to recognise; they are not a claim that every school plan looks identical.

The heading set as a system

Read a plan downwards, not as isolated labels.

1. Timetable fit answers “Why this lesson today?”
2. Assumptions answer “What are we allowed to take as already in place?”
3. Aims (main, subsidiary, stage, personal) answer “What are we trying to achieve, and what is the teacher practising?”
4. Anticipated problems answer “Where might this fail, given those assumptions?”
5. Stages, procedures, timing, interaction patterns, and aids answer “What will we actually do, in what order, for how long, with whom, using what?”

On the paper, an item rarely asks for this whole chain. It gives one note and four headings. If you have practised the chain, the note snaps to the right heading instead of to a neighbour.

Assumptions

Assumptions are what the teacher believes learners already know or can do. They are not hopes. They are not the main aim. They are the knowledge and skill you will not present from scratch.

Examples that belong under assumptions:

• Learners already know the present simple of have got from last week, so today’s café lesson can spend its presentation minutes on I’d like versus I like.
• Learners can already scan a short text for names and numbers, so a job-advert lesson can move faster to a new lexical set (shift, overtime) instead of teaching the subskill from zero.
• Learners know each other’s names and can form pairs without a lengthy grouping stage.
• The class met the function of requesting in a shop last month, so today’s complaints lesson can treat Could I have…? as review rather than new input.

An assumption that is actually an aim in disguise: “Learners will know the past perfect by the end.” That is an outcome, not a prior belief. An assumption that is actually an anticipated problem: “Learners will confuse I’d like and I like.” Confusion you expect is a problem to plan for; knowledge you count on is an assumption.

If an assumption is wrong, the lesson usually overruns because you are forced to teach the missing language in the middle of a practice stage. That is why assumptions sit next to anticipated problems on good plans: they are two sides of learner-readiness. Module 2 items exploit that neighbourhood. A note that begins “Learners already…” is almost always an assumption. A note that begins “Learners may…” or “Learners might mix up…” is almost always an anticipated problem.

Timetable fit

Timetable fit is how the lesson fits logically into the sequence of lessons. The TKT Glossary example is still the cleanest test: learners talk about last holiday after a past-simple presentation and before a writing lesson on the same topic. The speaking lesson is not a random fluency hour. It uses language just presented and rehearses content that writing will need.

Write timetable fit as a short sequence, not as a philosophy:

• After Unit 4 food vocabulary and a lesson on comparatives (cheaper, more expensive), this lesson is a supermarket role-play; next lesson is a short review paragraph comparing two shops.
• After learners practised scanning timetables for numbers, this lesson is airport-announcement listening with the same lexical set; next lesson is a speaking task giving directions in an airport.
• This is the second of three lessons on narratives: yesterday was past simple form; today is past continuous for background; tomorrow is a story-writing lesson combining both.
• Last lesson introduced should for advice; today learners give advice in a problem-page role-play; next lesson they write a short advice email.

Poor timetable fit looks like this: a detailed writing lesson on a topic learners have never spoken or read about; a freer role-play that needs exponents you will not present until Friday; a “revision” lesson that actually introduces a new tense. Module 2 items often give you three lessons in a row and ask which statement describes timetable fit. The answer mentions before and after, not the colour of the handout and not the main language aim in isolation.

Timetable fit is not the same as an aim. “Learners can use the past simple to talk about holidays” is an aim. “This speaking lesson comes after yesterday’s past-simple presentation and before tomorrow’s holiday email” is timetable fit. Both can be true of the same hour. Only one of those sentences is the sequence heading.

Aids as a plan field

Aids on the plan are the materials and equipment listed for the lesson: handouts, pictures, flashcards, audio, a timer, role cards, the coursebook page, a projector. This heading is an inventory. It is not the later Module 2 topic on why you might choose a particular teaching aid or how a picture can elicit language in general. Here you only need to recognise that a note listing stuff the class will use belongs under aids.

Write aids as countable, ready-to-grab items:

• 14 copies of a gapped café dialogue
• audio track 3.2 (MP3) and speakers
• a set of 12 food flashcards
• 14 picture cards of symptoms plus 14 role cards
• whiteboard pens and a prepared timeline
• the coursebook page 46 recording and 16 cut-up sentence strips

“Use visual aids to help learners” is not an aids entry; it is a vague procedure or a reason. “Flashcards of six jobs” is an aids entry. “The teacher will reduce TTT” is a personal aim, even if the teacher is holding flashcards while doing it. “Learners look at the pictures and name the jobs” is a procedure that uses the aid.

When a matching task shows a shopping list of objects, choose aids. When it shows people doing something with those objects, choose procedure. When it shows why the pictures were chosen (to elicit, to support weaker readers, to replace a long teacher explanation), you have moved into reasons for using a teaching aid—a later chapter. This section only asks you to file the inventory.

Matching plan notes to headings

The table uses original classroom notes in the pattern TKT trainer matching tasks use. Cover the right-hand column and name the heading.

Neighbour headings are the usual distractors. Assumptions and anticipated problems both talk about learners, but one is prior knowledge and the other is a predicted difficulty. Timetable fit and aims both talk about “why this lesson,” but timetable fit is sequence, not outcome. Aids and procedures both mention objects, but aids list them and procedures say what people do with them. Timing is only the number of minutes, not the action those minutes contain.

Classroom scenario: putting the system on one page

A 60-minute pre-intermediate lesson on polite café orders shows every heading at once.

• Timetable fit: after a lesson on food lexical sets; before a writing lesson (a short review of a café).
• Assumptions: learners can name common foods; they can use I want but overuse it in service encounters.
• Main aim: learners can order food using I’d like + noun phrase.
• Subsidiary aim: learners listen for specific information in a short café dialogue.
• Personal aim: give the role-play instructions once and check with ICQs.
• Anticipated problem: learners will say I like coffee when they mean I’d like a coffee; response: a substitution drill contrasting the two, plus a reminder on the board (I’d like = order).
• Aids: 12 picture menus, audio of a model order, two sets of customer/waiter role cards.
• Interaction: T–S for clarification; S–S for the role-play.
• Stages with timing: lead-in 6; listening gist 8; clarification 10; controlled practice 10; freer role-play 16; feedback 10.

Every line is a different heading. Module 2 is asking you to peel those lines apart, not to memorise a café lesson. If tomorrow’s paper uses a complaints lesson or a scanning lesson, the same boxes still apply.

Using the heading map in a matching task

Start at the top of the diagram only when the stem mentions yesterday, next lesson, or a sequence. Start at assumptions when the stem says learners already know or can. Start at aids when the stem is a list of objects. Start at procedures when people are doing something. If you jump straight to aims every time, you will mis-file timetable fit and assumptions—the two headings that look like “reasons for the lesson” but are not learner outcomes.