4.2 Topic, Project & Schemes of Work

Why topic, project, and schemes of work appear on Module 2

TKT Module 2 does not only ask you to sequence one listening lesson. It also asks you to plan a sequence of lessons: several connected lessons that recycle language, vary skills, and build toward an outcome. The syllabus names topic and project as common sequences alongside skills. A scheme of work is the working plan that shows how those lessons sit across a week or a term.

Chapter 2 already treated timetable fit as a heading in the lesson plan (how long you have, how many lessons a week, what comes before and after). This section does not re-teach that heading. It uses timetable fit as a constraint: if you have three 45-minute lessons this week, the sequence has to fit, not merely look ambitious on paper. A brilliant five-lesson project that you then crush into two remaining hours is a sequencing error, not bad luck.

When the paper shows a week of lesson outlines, ask four questions: What thread holds the lessons together? What is being recycled? Which skill or system changes? What can learners do on Friday that they could not do on Monday?

Topic sequences: one thread, changing skills

A topic sequence takes a content thread — food, travel, work, festivals, health — and runs several lessons through it. The topic is the glue. The skills and systems should change, while lexis and functions recycle.

If Lesson 1 is “food” plus listening to a café order, Lesson 2 should not be another café listening with a new recording and no memory of Lesson 1. Lesson 2 might upgrade order/request exponents (Could I have… / I’ll have… / Is that to eat in?) using the same café world. Lesson 3 might be a speaking role-play in the café. Lesson 4 might be a short written review of a café. Same world, new skill, repeated language with a slightly higher demand — that is a spiral, not a photocopy.

Recycling is not repeating the same worksheet. Recycling is meeting I'd rather have the vegetarian option in a listening, then in a controlled choice, then in a pair role-play, then in a written lunch invitation. Each return should be a little more demanding: from recognising the phrase, to choosing it, to using it under time pressure.

A topic is not a licence to teach five unrelated lexical sets that happen to share a picture. Fruit on Monday, cooking verbs on Tuesday, restaurant furniture on Wednesday, nutrition nouns on Thursday, and recipes on Friday is five lessons with food wallpaper. Nothing spirals, so the week does not add up.

Worked three-lesson map (B1, topic: travel problems)

Imagine an adult class with three 50-minute lessons and a shared outcome: learners can explain a travel delay and ask for help.

Notice what the map is not: three PPP lessons on the present perfect. The present perfect might appear in Lesson 3 (The train has been cancelled), but it is not the spine of the week unless you decide the week’s main thread is that tense. If you did decide that, you would still recycle the tense across skills rather than present it three times in the same shape.

Timetable fit in this map is practical. Lesson 2 is speaking-heavy because Lesson 1 was a quiet listening lesson. Lesson 3 is writing because the class now has content (the delay) and exponents (asking for help, explaining). Monday’s listening is not an orphan; it feeds Tuesday’s talk and Wednesday’s message.

Worked five-lesson map (A2–B1, topic: food, 45 minutes each)

Lesson 2 is the systems slot. It is allowed — a scheme should include systems — but it must use the same world as Lessons 1, 3, 4, and 5. If Lessons 1–5 were all present-simple PPP with food pictures, you would have a topic sticker on five identical lessons and no skills development.

Project sequences across a week

A project sequence aims at a visible product: a poster, a short video, a class survey, a leaflet, a group presentation. The product is not a decoration at the end of a grammar week. It is the reason the week exists. A typical project spine is:

research → plan → produce → present → language upgrade

• Research: learners gather content (a listening or reading input, a survey of classmates, a small set of needed words — not a free-for-all on phones).
• Plan: they decide roles, outline, and success criteria (the leaflet must include a price, a time, and a contact).
• Produce: they make the artefact. This is where writing, design, and rehearsal happen.
• Present: they show it to a real audience (another group, the class, a recorded voice message).
• Language upgrade: the teacher uses notes from monitoring to teach what the project revealed they needed. Upgrade is a planned stage, not a scolding.

Example: B1 “Improve our break-time café.” Lesson 1: listen to complaints and note issues (research). Lesson 2: plan a proposal in groups (plan). Lesson 3: write a short proposal or make a poster (produce). Lesson 4: present to another group who vote (present). Lesson 5: upgrade should / could / why don't we from the presentations (language upgrade). The language aim is visible: making suggestions and giving reasons.

A project with no language aim is an arts-and-crafts hour. “Make a poster about your country” with no exponents, no model, and no upgrade stage may fill the timetable, but it does not show Module 2 that you can sequence lessons for language learning. Write the language aim on the scheme: Learners will use language for suggestions and reasons to present one change to the café. Then the poster is evidence, not the aim itself.

Projects also need success criteria early. If groups do not know that the leaflet must name a price and a time, production becomes decoration. Criteria turn the produce stage into language work: learners keep returning to the exponents that help them meet the brief.

Schemes of work: balancing a series

A scheme of work (also called a sequence of lessons or a weekly overview) answers: What is the outcome in two weeks? How do systems and skills share the timetable? Where is language recycled? Where does pace change so learners are not in the same interaction pattern every day?

Plan a scheme with four checks:

1. Balance systems and skills. A week of only grammar presentations produces accurate gap-fills and weak listeners. A week of only discussions produces fluency with fossilised errors. Mix.
2. Spiral recycle. Put the same lexical set or function in at least two different skills. First meeting can be receptive; a later meeting should demand production.
3. Vary pace and interaction. After a quiet reading lesson, plan pair speaking. After a noisy project, plan a short focus on accuracy. Module 2 cares that you can justify the variety, not that every lesson is “fun.”
4. Build toward an outcome. The Friday presentation, the written paragraph, the role-play assessment — something at the end that could not have been done on Monday.

Using timetable fit without re-teaching the heading

You already know timetable fit as a plan component. Here it decides order across lessons:

• If Monday is 45 minutes after a sports day, do not park the week’s only writing rewrite there. Learners will be late and noisy; save rewrite for a calmer slot, or shorten the task.
• If the coursebook unit is too long for three lessons, cut activities that do not serve the week’s outcome. Do not speed-run five PPP presentations so the book looks “finished.”
• If learners have already had two heavy listening weeks, a project that is all more audio is a poor fit even if the topic is new. Change the skill, keep the thread.
• If last week already used Could I have… in a café role-play, this week’s café lesson should be labelled recycle / upgrade, not present. Mis-labelling a recycle as a first presentation is a sequencing error on the scheme.

Timetable fit also includes what the institution actually allows. A project that needs four consecutive days will fail in a class that meets twice a week unless you redesign the spine (research plus plan in lesson 1, produce in lesson 2, present and upgrade in lesson 3). The sequence is still research → plan → produce → present → upgrade. The map is just stretched.

Traps in series planning

• Three identical PPP grammar lessons in a row. Same shape, new tense. Learners never practise a skill, and the grammar is not recycled in a meaningful task. Repair: keep one systems lesson, then use the tense or function in listening, speaking, or writing.
• A project with no language aim. Repair: write the exponents and the upgrade stage on the scheme before you book the poster paper.
• A topic week that never recycles. Five food lessons with five unrelated lexical sets. Repair: choose one functional area (ordering, offering, comparing dishes) and return to it in at least two skills.
• Outcome on Friday that Monday did not prepare. A presentation with no research, plan, or useful language earlier in the week. Repair: work backwards from Friday and insert the missing stages.
• Ignoring energy. Four consecutive individual worksheets because they are easy to photocopy. Repair: alternate quiet and interactive lessons on the scheme, not only inside one lesson.

When you answer a Module 2 item about a sequence of lessons, ask: What is being recycled? What skill changes? What is the end product? Does this fit the time they actually have? If you cannot answer those four, the scheme is a list of lessons, not a sequence.