2.3 Procedures, Stages & Timing

2.3 Procedures, Stages and Timing

Once aims and headings are in place, Module 2 still asks a practical question: what will people do, in which section of the hour, and for how long? The TKT Glossary splits that question into three labels candidates mix up.

A procedure gives the details of exactly what is going to happen in each stage. The glossary illustration is learners practising the language of complaints in a pair role-play. A stage is a section of a lesson. Timing is the likely time activities or stages should take.

The exam penalty for mixing them is consistent. If you write an aim in the procedure column, you cannot say what the class will actually do. If you name a stage with no stage aim, you have a label without a purpose. If you time only the “fun bit” and ignore setup and feedback, the plan is a wish, not a schedule.

OpenExamPrep teaches these three labels as independent Module 2 study material. Recognising the glossary senses is what the matching tasks reward; copying a school’s favourite template is not.

Procedures are observable actions, not aims

Write procedures as things a camera could record: who does what, with what, in what grouping.

Strong procedures:

• Learners underline the past continuous forms in the marker story, then compare in pairs.
• The teacher plays the café audio once; learners tick the food items they hear.
• Learners practise the language of complaints in a pair role-play, using the exponents on the board (I’m afraid…, Could you replace…?).
• The teacher nominates three pairs to perform; the class listens for whether they used I’d like.
• Learners scan the job advert for salary, hours, location, and start date, then check with a partner.

Weak procedures:

• Practise speaking.
• Present the grammar.
• Improve fluency.
• Have fun with role-play.
• Do a reading.

“Practise speaking” names a skill area. It does not say whether learners are drilling exponents, telling anecdotes, or reading a dialogue aloud. On a matching task, that slogan is not a procedure. “Present the grammar” names a teacher intention closer to a stage title than to a procedure. The procedure would be: “Teacher boards a timeline; learners match two example sentences to background and interrupting events.”

A procedure can mention the teacher and the learners. It should not steal the job of the aim. The aim says why the role-play exists (to give freer practice of complaint exponents). The procedure says how the role-play will run. If you can film it, it is probably a procedure. If you can only mark it on a test at the end of the lesson, it is probably an aim.

Stage names used on TKT

A stage is a named section. Module 2 items use a fairly stable set of labels. You should be able to match an activity description to the label.

Do not confuse warmer and lead-in. A warmer can be a three-minute spelling race with no link to today’s café order. A lead-in for that lesson would be a talk about favourite cafés or a photo of a menu. Do not confuse gist and scan. Gist answers “What is this text basically doing?” Scan answers “What is the salary on line 4?” A gist task might ask whether an article is for or against a new airport. A scan task might ask for the opening date in paragraph three.

Every named stage needs a stage aim. “Controlled practice” without “to check learners can form I’d like + noun” is a heading with no purpose. Module 2 can ask you which statement is a stage aim for a named stage; the answer will be learner-facing and local to that section. It should support the main aim without copying the main aim word-for-word. The main aim of a café lesson might be ordering with I’d like. The stage aim of the gap-fill is only to check the form before the role-play.

Realistic timing for 45- and 60-minute classes

Timing is an estimate of how long a stage should take, including the unglamorous minutes: giving instructions, handing out cards, an example with one pair, and checking answers. Plans that assign 15 minutes to “role-play” and 0 minutes to setup will overrun before the first customer speaks.

45-minute grammar lesson (past continuous interrupted by past simple, anecdote aim):

If those blocks add to more than 45, cut examples from controlled practice, not the whole freer-practice stage. The main aim was storytelling, not the gap-fill. Transitions and grouping are not a hidden extra stage; they are baked into the figures. Pretending that pairing sixteen teenagers takes zero minutes is how a 45-minute plan becomes a 55-minute lesson.

60-minute skills lesson (scan a job advert):

A 60-minute class is not a 45-minute class with a longer warmer. The extra quarter-hour usually belongs to a second task (detail questions or a communicative follow-up) and to feedback that was being skipped. Padding the warmer to 15 minutes because you “have more time” is poor timetable use, not a personal aim about pace.

When a stage overruns

Overrunning is a planning topic, not only a classroom-management topic. Decide in advance which minutes are sacred.

1. Protect the stage that carries the main aim. If the main aim is a freer complaints role-play, do not let clarification eat it.
2. Stop at a logical item. Skip remaining gap-fill items rather than skipping feedback entirely.
3. Keep a short feedback slot. Unchecked practice teaches whatever learners invented.
4. Do not “make up time” by deleting the plenary every day; timetable fit for tomorrow depends on a two-minute preview.
5. After the lesson, revise the plan’s timing. If clarification always needs 12 minutes with this class, write 12. Wishful six-minute presentations are a TKT trap when the note on the paper is obviously too short for the procedure described.

A worked overrun: controlled practice is planned for 8 minutes in a 45-minute class. At minute 14, two pairs are still on item 1 because instructions were unclear. The teacher who “finishes the worksheet” will cancel freer practice and then wonder why the main aim was not met. The teacher who stops after item 4, does two minutes of answer check, and still runs a shortened role-play has protected the aim. The personal aim for next time might be ICQs, which is how this chapter’s three sections lock together.

Aim versus procedure versus stage versus timing: one lesson snippet

Same café-order lesson, same stretch of class time, four different headings:

If an item shows only “8 minutes,” the heading is timing. If it shows only “Controlled practice,” the heading is stage. If it shows the substitution-drill actions, the heading is procedure. If it shows “to check learners can form…,” the heading is a stage aim. Candidates lose marks when they treat all four sentences as “the practice bit.”

Three traps that cost marks

Writing “practise speaking” as a procedure. Name the observable task: pair role-play of a customer and a waiter using three exponents on the board. “Practise speaking” is a skill-area slogan. It could describe drilling, discussion, reading aloud, or a game. Module 2 wants the camera-ready version.

Timing that ignores setup and feedback. A scan “for 3 minutes” plus no time to give out papers or check answers is not a 3-minute stage. Write the whole block. The same trap appears when freer practice is timed as “15 minutes of talking” with no instruction minute and no plenary.

Stages with no stage aim. A plan that lists warmer, presentation, practice, and “game” without saying what learners should achieve in each section is a running order, not a plan. Module 2 expects the purpose as well as the label. A game can be controlled practice or freer practice depending on how restricted the language is; the stage aim tells you which, and the procedure tells you how the game is played.

Reading the minute budget

The bar chart is a planning picture, not a rule that every scanning lesson must use these exact numbers. The six bars add to 60 minutes. Scan and the follow-up task are the two largest learner-work blocks, and feedback still has a real bar because answer-check and delayed language work are part of timing, not leftovers. A plan that draws a tall bar for gist and a tiny bar for feedback is the version Module 2 will treat as unrealistic. Instructions, grouping, and handing out the text sit inside those stage totals; do not invent a seventh stage called “setup.”