Boomerang Lesson

A lesson shape from Jeremy Harmer's ESA framework in which the teacher places an Activate stage early, before the Study stage, so that learners attempt the target task first, expose what they cannot yet do, and then receive language input pitched at the gaps the attempt revealed. The shape returns to Activate at the end — hence the name — letting learners try the task again with the new resources.

Sequence

A boomerang typically runs Engage, Activate (1), Study, Activate (2). The first Activate is communicative and demanding: a role-play, a problem-solving discussion, a piece of writing, or any task that requires the language the lesson will go on to teach. Learners attempt it with whatever they currently have. The teacher monitors and gathers evidence: what learners reached for, what they avoided, which structures broke down. The Study phase then targets what the monitoring surfaced rather than what the syllabus assumed. The second Activate revisits the original task, or a parallel one, so learners can apply what they have just been taught and the teacher can see whether the input made a difference.

The pedagogic logic shares ground with Test-Teach-Test: both shapes treat early performance as diagnostic, both let the teaching content be shaped by learner output rather than fixed in advance. The boomerang sits within the wider ESA architecture and presupposes the Engage stage, so it adds a brief affective and topical hook before the diagnostic task.

When it suits

The shape works best with learners who have enough language to attempt the target task in some form, even imperfectly. Complete beginners cannot generate enough output for the first Activate to function diagnostically, so the straight-arrow sequence usually fits them better. The boomerang also assumes the teacher can think on their feet during monitoring, since the Study stage cannot be fully scripted in advance — its content depends on what the first Activate produces. New teachers often pre-plan two or three likely Study foci and choose between them based on monitoring evidence.

The shape encourages task authenticity. Because the lesson opens with the task itself rather than with isolated language items, the language taught in the Study phase carries an immediate purpose, namely completing or improving the task already attempted, which tends to raise engagement and retention compared with input that arrives before any communicative need has been established.

References

• Harmer, J. (2007). How to Teach English (New ed.). Pearson Longman.
• Harmer, J. (2015). The Practice of English Language Teaching (5th ed.). Pearson Education.