Procedural Lesson Plan
A lesson plan whose centre of gravity is the procedure — the sequence of instructional moves, with timings, transitions, and interaction patterns — rather than the aims, the rationale, or the language analysis. Procedural plans answer the question what does the teacher do, when, and how, in fine enough detail that the lesson could in principle be carried out by someone other than the writer.
What is foreground
The procedure column or section is where the work goes. Each stage is broken down into the teacher's verbal moves, the learners' actions, the materials handed out or projected, the grouping (whole class, pairs, threes, individuals), and the timing. Transitions between stages are spelled out, since they are where well-planned lessons most often lose time: how learners regroup, how the previous task closes, how the next one is introduced. Giving Instructions is treated as a designed step rather than an improvised aside, often with the rubric drafted verbatim and instruction-checking moves built in.
This contrasts with two adjacent plan styles. A goal-focused plan foregrounds aims and exit criteria (what learners will be able to do at the end and how the teacher will know) while leaving procedure relatively sketchy. A rationale-focused plan, common in DELTA-style writing, foregrounds the reasoning behind each decision and may say less about minute-by-minute execution. A procedural plan trades depth in those areas for execution clarity. Each style suits a different audience.
Where it fits
Procedural plans suit working teaching: the document a teacher takes into the room, glances at during stage changes, and works from when the schedule is tight. They are also the format most useful for cover lessons, for substitute teachers, and for archiving — a procedurally complete plan can be re-run by someone unfamiliar with the original cohort, where a plan dominated by rationale cannot. Schools that ask teachers to leave plans before absences typically expect this format.
The known weakness is that a strong procedure can disguise a weak design. A lesson with crisp transitions, accurate timings, and well-rehearsed instructions can still pursue an aim that does not match what learners need. Procedural plans benefit from a brief aims-and-rationale header that anchors the procedure to the cohort, so that the execution detail serves a defensible purpose rather than substituting for one.
Many institutional templates produce procedural plans by default, and many experienced teachers privately work in this register because it matches how teaching feels in the moment: a sequence of moves, made one after another, against the clock.
References
- Scrivener, J. (2011). Learning Teaching: The Essential Guide to English Language Teaching (3rd ed.). Macmillan Education.
- Woodward, T. (2001). Planning Lessons and Courses: Designing Sequences of Work for the Language Classroom. Cambridge University Press.