presentation practice and production examples

What is ‘Presentation, Practice, Production’ (PPP)?

And how can i best use it in my classroom.

Presentation, practice, production (PPP) is a lesson structure, a way to order activities in your lessons.

Although quite old and heavily criticised over the years, PPP is probably the most commonly used lesson structure in teaching English to foreign learners today. It’s also still widely taught to new teachers and seen on initial teacher training courses like the CELTA and CertTESOL.

Most course books that you’re likely to use will structure their chapters in ways similar or the same as PPP, meaning that you’ll get a lot of exposure to this method.

As the name suggests, there are three stages to this lesson structure, which we’ll look at now.

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The ‘presentation’ stage

This is where the language is introduced, or ‘presented’ to the learners, usually by introducing a context or situation. For example, you could:

Tell or act out a short story or anecdote ( “I woke up this morning with a nasty cold… AHHH-CHOOO! I went to the doctor and…”)

Play a short audio clip

Show a clip from a movie or TV show.

Show objects you’ve brought in (e.g. newspaper cuttings, plane tickets, hobby materials)

The aim is to ensure students understand the context and get them thinking about it. You could elicit ideas or suggestions from students, get them to talk to each other about what they know or think about the situation, etc. This also helps them start to remember the language and vocabulary they already know about the topic (or ‘activate the schemata’, if you want the fancy term for it).

The ‘practice’ stage

The ‘practice’ stage is when students use the language in a controlled way. This stage is sometimes divided into two — a controlled practice and a freer practice. Again, among many things, you could get students to:

Drill sentences or sounds, chorally or individually.

Substitution drill in pairs

Sentence matching activities

Gap-fill exercises

Pair work asking and answering questions

The aim of this stage is accuracy . Error correction is important in this stage, so monitor the students closely and take time to correct errors immediately. A delayed error correction section after the activity would be useful for target language errors that seem to be common.

The ‘production’ stage

The ‘production’ stage is where the language is used more openly. Things like:

Communication tasks

Collaborative tasks

Discussion activities

The focus of this stage is using the language as fluently and naturally as possible , as students would do outside of the classroom.

Theory behind Presentation, Practice, Production

This is where PPP gets criticised. It started in the 1960s, and language learning theory has developed considerably since then. Academics who study second language acquisition get annoyed at how PPP doesn’t tick any of the boxes for how we’re supposed to learn a language and yet is still so widespread.

Some learning assumptions behind presentation, practice, production are:

Students should be told the grammar rules and then practice them (a deductive approach).

Language learning is a skill like any other and should be practised as such.

There should be a high level of teacher control, slowly handed over to learners as the lesson progresses.

Language is a series of items that can be learned in sequence.

The target language should be practised by removing unnecessary language to help focus.

All of these have been shown that this isn’t how we best learn languages (in fact, the opposite is largely true!).

However, it isn’t all bad. Here’s my opinion on the advantages and disadvantages of PPP:

It’s easy to learn for new teachers.

It’s very flexible.

It’s easy to plan for and has a logical progression.

It works for most types of classes, including larger classes.

Most course books use this or a similar method to structure their lessons and chapters.

Disadvantages

Research shows that it may not be the best way to teach/learn a language.

Weaker learners may overuse the target language from the practice session, so it sounds unnatural.

Learners may not know how to use the target language in different contexts.

It can be boring if used repeatedly for higher-level students.

Thoughts on Presentation, Practice, Production

Academics are often far removed from the classroom and the real world, studying the individual phenomenon in isolation.

I’ve often seen a light bulb moment for students whilst teaching PPP (although one could argue that it’s not strict PPP, and it’d be hard to isolate the teaching method from other variables). Teaching over a period of time with this method, you do see students improve. Consider also that it’s not done in isolation — you should be getting your learners to interact in English naturally and read extensively outside of class, for starters.

Presentation, practice, production works. Maybe not as well as something like task-based learning (TBL), but TBL takes longer to plan and implement, which becomes very difficult when your teaching hours are high.

Sure, so it might not be theoretically perfect, but it does work.

How to adapt the PPP method

Also, I believe it has evolved from the ‘traditional’ PPP approach described above. Here are some ways you can adapt the classic PPP structure:

Spend more time in the presentation stage eliciting.

Turn the deductive aspect of explicit grammar instruction into an inductive aspect (so learners have to figure out the patterns themselves).

Add collaborative tasks during the practice stage, which learners must use the target language to complete successfully.

Include meta-learning strategies so students can learn how to learn.

Include more incidental language throughout the class so learners hear language in a more natural context.

Change the final stage into a task, such as you’d find in task-based learning .

These changes turn PPP into something else, a blended approach that addresses many of the criticisms of PPP.

Other structures have sought to improve upon the model of PPP. Variants include ESA (engage, study, activate) and CAP (context, analysis, practice)

However, the simplicity of PPP and its notoriety have kept it the most widely used model. I doubt it’s going away any time soon.

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PPP Framework in Teaching: Presentation, Practice and Production

The PPP Teaching Framework is a model to describe the typical stages of language teaching lesson.

The PPP Teaching framework consist of four main stages:  Warm-up, Presentation, Practice and Production and is used to teach speaking and writing lessons.

There is a variation when we use this framework to teach Listening and Reading skills .

The framework that we use to teach passive skills is the PDP framework which stands for Pre, While and Post

Let’s check all that you need to know to use the PPP Framework correctly

Table of Contents

PPP Framework: Criticism

Stages of the ppp framework, presentation, important considerations when planning lessons, considerations when teaching listening and reading, how to teach listening, how to teach reading , questions to ask yourself when creating ppp or pdp lessons, short quiz: how much did you learn, more on english language teaching.

This framework for teaching language classes is often criticized because:

• It forces students to use certain grammar structures and vocabulary.
• Since it forces students to use a target structure and vocabulary, this reduces the learner opportunities to use the language in spontaneous ways.

These are the stages of the PPP Framework:

• It’s an activity at the start of the class to warm up the learners. They tend to be short, dynamic activities.
• It is recommended that the warm- up is related to the topic studied during that class. 
• In my opinion, the most important thing about a dynamic warm-up is that you continue with dynamic activities  during the presentation, practice and production stage.

In the presentation stage, teacher introduces:

You can introduce the vocabulary and grammar in two different ways.

• Deductively : This involves the learners being given a general rule, which is then applied to specific language examples
• Inductively:   This approach starts with examples and asks learners to find rules

Important things to take into account:

• Choose the vocabulary and grammar structures necessary for your students to succeed.
• Don’t introduce vocabulary and grammar that won’t be used during the lesson.
• Try not to introduce lots of words. Keep new words to a maximum of 20 per lesson.
• Get students involved in the presentation of the vocabulary and grammar so you can reduce teacher talking time and encourage learner-centered instruction

The practice stage aims to provide opportunities for learners to use the target structure and vocabulary used during class.

This stage is also controlled practiced since the tasks prepared by the teacher have  controlled results.

Teacher should try to use the vocabulary and structures during the presentation stage for obvious reasons:

• What’s the point of introducing vocabulary and grammar you aren’t going to use?
• How can you expect students to succeed if you use different vocabulary and grammar to the one you taught in the presentation stage?

All meaningful activities which give students the opportunity to practice the language more freely.

It  is impossible to be wrong if:

• Your activities encourage peer to peer interaction.
• Students are taught grammar inductively.
•  Your lesson is made up of task that maximize student talking time.
• Students stand up and talk to others.
• There are games and activities that are fun and meaningful.
• Your scaffolding is good because students can do what you want them to do.

The Presentation, Practice and Production is usually used to teach speaking, writing or grammar.

If you want to focus on listening and reading, you have to take into account the PDP Framework

This framework is an approach to teaching reading and listening skills lessons.   

PDP means Pre- During (while) and Post

The basic idea is:

• Try to help students to know a little about what they’re going to read or listen before they read or hear it
• Give them a reason to read or listen by setting questions or other reading listening tasks
• Ask them to do something with the information they get from the reading or listening. 

The Framework for teaching listening is called Pre, While and Post.

Check out these resources to understand more about this framework

• 12 Types of Pre-Listening Activities
• 12 Examples of While-Listening Activities
• 10 Types of Post-Listening Activities for the ESL Classroom.

The Framework for teaching reading is called Pre, While and Post

• Stages for Teaching Reading
• 15 Examples of Pre-Reading Activities
• 10 Examples of While-Reading Activities
• 10 Examples of Post-Reading Activities
• Making Reading Communicative

These are some important questions that you should ask yourself when creating a PPP or PDP Lesson.

• Are the activities of the PPP lesson plan linked to each other?
• Are the activities of the PDP lesson plan linked to each other?
• Do the activities belong to the right stage of the lesson? For example, is the pre-reading activity an actual pre-reading activity?
• Is the lesson plan based on reality and not on impossible and unrealistic expectations
• Is the evaluation strategy measuring what you need to measure?
• Are activities engaging to the learner?

These are some statements that you should analyze and assign to a category of the PPP Framework

The categories being: Presentation (A), Practice (B) and Production (C)

• Teacher directs the activities during this stage ( )
• Teacher provides feedback to students ( )
• Activities include drills and multiple choice exercises ( )
• Students produce oral and written texts ( )
• Teacher uses visual aids to demonstrate a situation ( )
• Teacher describes grammar rules ( )
• Activities include oral presentations by the students ( )
• The teacher doesn’t necessarily intervene in this stage ( )
• Language is presented in context ( )
• Exercises in this stage can be productive or receptive ( )

I hope that you found everything that you were looking for about the PPP Framework

These are some posts with more ideas and information to teach English

• 5 Challenges English Language Learners Face
• 10 Characteristics of Teacher-Centered Instruction
• The Most Effective Classroom Seating Arrangements
• 15 Awesome ESL Games and Activities
• ESL Classroom Activities: Dictogloss
• Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching

I am Jose Manuel, English professor and creator of EnglishPost.org, a blog whose mission is to share lessons for those who want to learn and improve their English

Related Posts

Top-Down and Bottom-up Processing in the ESL Classroom

10 Types of Post-Listening Activities

Listening for Gist and Detail

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Creating PPP Lesson Plans: How to Teach ESL Effectively

Want your students to be enthused, energetic learners?

Here’s a secret: It’s all in the lesson plan.

Using the PPP structure for your lessons will help you stay on track, deliver new material effectively and most importantly, help your students build new English skills.

PPP is a lesson plan template that consists of Presentation (P1), Practice (P2) and Production (P3) , and it’s often used for ESL (English as a Second Language) classes. It focuses on giving students a solid foundation for new concepts, then encouraging them to apply these on their own.   

Read on to find out how to deliver awesome ESL lessons with the PPP template!

What Makes an ESL Lesson Plan Exceptional?

How to make esl lesson plans with a ppp template, 1. presentation, 2. practice, 3. production.

Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)

• Clear aims and objectives. First off, make sure you have a good understanding of your main goal for the lesson and how you propose to reach that goal. It’s also a great idea to share these with your students so they’ll know exactly what they will accomplish.
• Grading. Careful, we’re not talking about correcting work and giving letter grades here! This is the concept of climbing a hill, starting off with something easy or relatable to your students and then making the material more challenging as you ascend.
• PPP structure. This is one of the most used lesson plan formats in ESL. PPP (presentation, practice, production) allows you to develop a structured, graded and time-efficient lesson plan that conveys the material in an understandable way. 
• Effective time breakdown. Knowing when you should talk and when you should allow your students to engage is another key component. One strategy is jotting down time limits for each activity in the margins of the lesson plan sheet. For the PPP structure, a good time allotment might be 15 minutes of Presentation (P1), 20 minutes of practice (P2) and 25 minutes of production (P3).
• Relevant material. Take a few moments to gauge your student’s level, their interests, hobbies, work and home life. Consider showing videos, trending articles and other native content that your students would enjoy. For instance, FluentU features English videos like movie trailers and TV series clips, with interactive subtitles and transcripts for learners.

Let’s go through each step of the PPP template: 

Presentation is the first step, and it’s also the most important. This is your time to shine because it’s the main part of teaching : you’ll be explaining new concepts to your eager students.

At this stage, teachers should talk approximately 75% of the time. 

• Thousands of learner friendly videos (especially beginners)
• Handpicked, organized, and annotated by FluentU's experts
• Integrated into courses for beginners

Make your lesson exciting and relatable 

Remember how boring it was when you had a teacher who only lectured, with little enthusiasm? Well, don’t be that teacher—break the mold and become animated. Students learn through context, so tell a story or use resources that excite students to learn more. Peaking interest is essential.

To lead students into the lesson, you can start with something familiar, such as material discussed in a previous class. For example, if you’re talking about house vocabulary, focus on the bedroom first, then break down the vocabulary inside of the bedroom.

Show visuals like photos and videos 

Use visuals to stimulate understanding and get your students curious about a topic.

If you are presenting key places in a city or town, using pictures of your students’ town/s will invoke interest and be relevant to their world.

For teaching home-related vocabulary, you can display photos from your home, relating them to relevant vocabulary. After that, show your students how to use vocabulary nouns with prepositions of place through statements like “The toaster is on the counter.” 

Ask thoughtful questions 

Once introduction is complete, you can then guide your students to analyze the material more closely. You are still in control of your classroom so keep presenting, but ask questions and make your students think more about what it is they are seeing and hearing.

• Interactive subtitles: click any word to see detailed examples and explanations
• Slow down or loop the tricky parts
• Show or hide subtitles
• Review words with our powerful learning engine

Questions are also great for checking if students understand the new material. Don’t let them off the hook so easily. Try not to tell them answers, allowing them to work it out in English!

Practice is the second stage of the PPP lesson plan template. This is when you will hand over a bit of control to your students and let them try out the new material themselves. If your presentation was well-developed and awesome, your students will be more than ready to jump in.

In this stage, you will give your students a set of tasks or activities . These tasks should be challenging and only solvable with the new material, but not too difficult. 

The students will do most of the talking since they’ll be going over the material with you and their classmates. Generally, you can aim to let your students speak 65% of the time and just jump in every now and then to point out something new or answer questions. 

Guide your class through exercises

For a smooth transition into the practice stage, do exercises together with your students first, or work through questions together. 

To continue with the same example of rooms in a house, a great practice activity would be to let your students label nouns and prepositions of place around the room. There are many techniques for this, and you can go around the room looking out for trouble areas and helping out as needed.

Do pair and group practice

Once your students get more used to the material, you can begin pair and group activities.  

• Learn words in the context of sentences
• Swipe left or right to see more examples from other videos
• Go beyond just a superficial understanding

Allowing students to brainstorm and work together will encourage them to communicate more and learn about their classmates. For groupwork, you can even divide the class and organize a contest to make them more eager to focus on the material.

Production is the final stage in a PPP lesson plan. This is also referred to as the fluency stage—your students will now be like birds leaving the nest for the first time.

In the production stage, teacher talk time is at its lowest and almost nonexistent. Let your students be creative and develop their own work , speaking 90% of the time to your meager 10%. It’s important for them to gain confidence in English on their own.

Set up writing or speaking activities 

Most production activities involve writing or speaking, and sometimes both are combined if necessary. This allows your students to build confidence and be creative when using the new material, as it’s solely in their hands.

Carrying our example house vocabulary lesson through the final step, you can now let your students craft a short story or presentation involving the many things they have in their own home. They can write a script and present it to the class during production.

Encourage production through groupwork

Similar to the previous stage, you can separate your class into pairs or groups for production. They can construct dialogues, monologues, scripted plays and so on together.

One great pair exercise you can use is to have two students create a script using the new material and then let them act it out in front of the class.

• FluentU builds you up, so you can build sentences on your own
• Start with multiple-choice questions and advance through sentence building to producing your own output
• Go from understanding to speaking in a natural progression.

A great, fun and material-rich lesson will keep your students encouraged to learn more and build their confidence as English speakers.

So for lesson plan success, be sure to construct a well-developed and exciting lesson plan using the PPP template. Good luck, and enjoy!

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PPP TEFL Teaching Methodology

What is presentation, practice and production (ppp).

During your  SEE TEFL certification course  you will become more familiar with an established  methodology for teaching English as a foreign language  known as 3Ps or PPP – presentation, practice, production. The PPP method could be characterized as a common-sense approach to teaching as it consists of 3 stages that most people who have learnt how to do anything will be familiar with.

The first stage is the presentation of an aspect of language in a context that students are familiar with, much the same way that a swimming instructor would demonstrate a stroke outside the pool to beginners.

The second stage is practice, where students will be given an activity that gives them plenty of opportunities to practice the new aspect of language and become familiar with it whilst receiving limited and appropriate assistance from the teacher. To continue with the analogy, the swimming instructor allowing the children to rehearse the stroke in the pool whilst being close enough to give any support required and plenty of encouragement.

The final stage is production where the students will use the language in context, in an activity set up by the teacher who will be giving minimal assistance, like the swimming instructor allowing his young charges to take their first few tentative strokes on their own.

Advantages of the PPP (3Ps) Method

As with any well-established methodology, PPP has its critics and a couple of relatively new methodologies are starting to gain in popularity such as  TBL (task based learning)  and  ESA (engage, study, activate) . However, even strong advocates of these new methodologies do concede that new EFL (English as a foreign language) teachers find the PPP methodology easiest to grasp, and that these new teachers, once familiar with the PPP methodology, are able to use TBL and ESA more effectively than new trainees that are only exposed to either TBL or ESA.

Indeed, there are strong arguments to suggest that experienced teachers trained in PPP use many aspects of TBL and ESA in their lessons, and that these new methodologies are in truth, the PPP methodology with some minor adjustments.

At this stage you might well be asking, It’s all very well having a clear methodology for how to teach but how do I know what to teach? The language that we call English today has absorbed a great many influences over the last thousand years or so. It has resulted in it becoming a language that can provide us with a sparklingly witty pop culture reference from a Tarantino script, 4 simple words spoken by Dr. Martin Luther King that continue to inspire us today, and something as simple and mundane as a road traffic sign.

The Job of the EFL Teacher

As EFL teachers our job is to break down this rich and complex language into manageable chunks for our students. These chunks of language are what EFL teachers call target languageWe are going to look at an example of what a piece of target language might be and then you will be given more detail on how this would be taught in a PPP lesson before finally watching three videos with some key aspects of each stage of the lesson highlighted for you.

During the course we will spend a great deal of time in the training room equipping you with the tools to employ a successful methodology for teaching the English language. You are going to get opportunities to both hone these skills in the training room and put them into practice in authentic classroom settings.

Of course you might be thinking, I don’t have any experience of being in a classroom! How on earth am I going to cope with standing at the front of a class with 20 plus pairs of eyes looking at me waiting to see what I do?

All good TEFL courses are designed to train those with no teaching experience whatsoever. We will spend the first part of the course in the training room making you familiar with all the new skills you will need whilst giving you opportunities to practice them in a supported and controlled environment.

Only after that, will you be put in an authentic classroom environment. It goes without saying that the first time anybody stands up and delivers their first lesson will be a nerve-racking experience. However, it is also an experience that mellows over time, and one that all teachers remember fondly as time goes by and they feel more at home in a classroom.

There will be some of you out there with experience of teaching in a classroom already. You may be well versed in employing many different methodologies and strategies in your classroom already, but many or most will have been with native English speaking students, or those with a near-native levels of English. This means that some of the skills we will be equipping you with may feel a little alien at first, but your experience will not prove to be a hindrance. Indeed, you will already have successful classroom management skills that can be adapted to fit a second language classroom fairly easily and other trainees on the course will benefit from your presence.

In addition, some of the skills that you will learn on the course can also be adapted to work in a classroom of native speakers too, and it is not unusual for experienced teachers to comment on exactly this after completing a good TEFL course.

Target Language in an EFL Lesson

Recall how it is the job of the EFL teacher to break down the rich tapestry of the English language into manageable bite-size chunks, suitable for study in an average study period of 50 minutes. As mentioned, we refer to these chunks as target language. As EFL teachers we will select target language that is appropriate for both the skill level and the age of the students.

The target language that you will see being presented in the videos is Likes and dislikes for 6 food items.

The teacher you will watch in the video has a clear aim, which is to ensure that:

**By the end of the lesson, students will know the names of 6 food items in English and will be able to express whether or not they like them in a spoken form by entering into a simple dialogue consisting of,

• Do you like ___?,
• Yes, I like ___., or
• No, I don’t like ___.

The six food items are ___. In short, the students will be able to name the 6 food items by the end of the lesson and tell whether they like them or not.**

Presentation – Part 1 of PPP

You may have delivered a few presentations in your time but the type of presentation we deliver in a second language classroom will differ quite a bit from those. For a start, you were speaking to proficient users of the English language about something they were, most likely, vaguely familiar with anyway. In an EFL classroom we don’t have those luxuries, so we have to be careful about the language we use and how clearly we present the new language that we wish for our students to acquire.

Let’s look at 4 key things that should be occurring in an effective second language classroom presentation:

1 – Attention in the Classroom

Learners are alert, have focused their attention on the new language and are responsive to cues that show them that something new is coming up. A simple way to ensure some of the above is if the teacher makes the target language interesting to the students.

The language will of course, be of more interest to the students if it is put into some type of context that the students are familiar with. In the case of likes and dislikes for young learners a visual associated with a facial expression will be something they can relate to. Naturally, the easier it is for them to relate to the context, the more likely they are to be interested in the language presented.

In the case of the target language for the videos a smiley face visual and a sad face visual on the whiteboard linked to the phrases I like ___. and I don’t like ___., respectively. A teacher might make exaggerated facial expressions whilst presenting these ideas to make the ideas both fun and easy to perceive for the students. This is often referred to as contextualization in EFL classrooms.

2 – Perception and Grading of Language

We want to ensure that the learners both see and hear the target language easily. So if a whiteboard is being used, it should be well organized with different colors being used to differentiate between different ideas. If images are being used, there should be no ambiguity as to what they represent and sounds made by the teacher should not only be clear, but should be repeated and the teacher needs to check the material has been perceived correctly, and can do this by asking the students to repeat the sounds he or she is making.

Learners will be bombarded with a series of images corresponding to sounds made by the teacher during the presentation stage and it is the teacher’s responsibility to ensure that they are not overloaded with information and that clear links are being made between the images and the associated sounds.

Therefore, there is an onus on the teacher not to use any unnecessary language at this stage. That is to say the grading of their language should be appropriate for the level of their students and the language they use should consist of the target language and any other essential language required to present the ideas clearly such as commands like listen! The commands should, whenever possible, be supported by clear body language.

3 – Target Language Understanding

The learners must be able to understand the meaning of the material. So in the case of likes and dislikes they perhaps need to see an image of a happy face and associate it with liking something and a sad face and associate that with disliking something.

We also need to have a way of checking if the learners did indeed, understand the material presented without asking the question, Do you understand? as this invariably triggers the response yes! from learners who are keen to please their teacher and not to lose face. We, as teachers, need to be a little more imaginative in checking our student’s understanding of material presented. Ideally, we should be checking the learners’ understanding in context. In the videos you will see, expect to see the teacher doing this during the presentation stage.

4 – Short-term Memory in the Classroom

The learners will have to retain the information from the presentation and use it further on in the lesson when we have consolidated their learning of the material and we will give them an opportunity to produce it on their own.

For the target language to be retained by the learners, it needs to be engaging and we need to consider that different learners will remember the material in different ways. Some by the way the material is seen, others by the way it is heard, and others if it is associated with a physical movement perhaps. We need to make sure our presentation has something to enable all these types of learners to retain the information.

Presentation Stage of a PPP EFL Lesson with subtitles

Practice – Part 2 of PPP

Practice can roughly be defined as the rehearsal of certain behaviors with the objective of consolidating learning and improving performance. Below are some of the characteristics of an effective language practice:

1 – Practice Validity

The practice activity must have learners rehearsing the skill or material it purports to practice. So in the case of the lesson you will view shortly, it must have the learners practicing both the food vocabulary items and the structure of the dialogue, i.e.,

• Yes, I like ___, or

2 – Pre-learning

Before we ask our learners to practice new language, we must have ensured that they have some understanding of the new language. We will have done this during the presentation stage. If they have not had the new language clearly presented to them and been aided in being given some understanding of it, then they (the learners) will not be practicing at this stage but will be going through another initial learning stage. Worse still, they will feel like they are being tested on something they haven’t been allowed to gain an understanding of.

3 – Volume (Amount) of Practice

Here, we are referring to the number of opportunities every student in the class has to practice the new language and not the level of sound. The more opportunities each student has to practice the target language, the more effective this stage of the lesson is.

So in the case of likes and dislikes, we might give the students individual worksheets where they have to fill in some part of the dialogue and the name of a food.

4 – Success Orientation

The students should have an opportunity to practice the new language and in order for this to happen they need an activity that both stretches them and is a task they can complete because of course, if it wasn’t, they wouldn’t be getting any opportunity to practice.

5 – Issuing Activity Instructions and Managing the Activity

Of course, whilst it is important to select an appropriate activity, it is equally important to issue clear and unambiguous instructions for the activity itself so all of your students are clear as to what is expected of them. We will be issuing instructions for the activity in the student’s second language so we need to make use of clear visuals to support any language we have to use and strong demonstrations of what is expected.

Managing the activity should consist of the teacher being mobile during the activity, offering praise and being on hand to show struggling students where relevant information may be found on the whiteboard.

Practice Stage of PPP EFL Lesson with subtitles

Production – Part 3 of PPP

The students have now had the target language presented to them clearly and have had an opportunity to practice it in a controlled environment. If we return to the swimming instructor analogy, it is now time to let them take their first few tentative strokes in the pool on their own with supervision and encouragement from the instructor.

As with the practice stage, we have to initiate an activity that allows them opportunities to use the target language in the classroom. In fact, the characteristics of a production stage activity are quite similar to the practice stage with one key difference and that is, student autonomy.

During this stage, the students will be producing the target language with minimal assistance from the teacher as opposed to the practice stage where the teacher will be on hand to assist students rehearse target language that has only just been presented to them.

Here are some of the key aspects of a production stage activity:

1 – Volume (Amount) of Production

As with practice, we want to create as many opportunities for our students to produce the target language albeit this time, more independently. This means we avoid activities where the students speak to the teacher as this allows limited opportunities (the students have to wait their turn before they get a chance to speak to the teacher). Instead for spoken activities, we look to get the students speaking in pairs, speaking to each other as much as possible, whilst we as the teachers go around the classroom offering minimal assistance but lots of positive reinforcement.

2 – Production Validity

Again, we should initiate an activity that allows the students to produce the target language that we presented to them and not a variation on it (although this is not strictly true with higher level students).

So, in the case of likes and dislikes for food, we should set up an activity where the students are saying, Do you like pineapple? as opposed to, What do you think of pineapples?

3 – Production Contextualization

The activity should simulate a real–life situation where they (the students) may use the target language. In the case of likes and dislikes for food this might be a menu with images of the food items or perhaps a series of images of the food items to prompt the dialogue,

• Yes, I like ____, or

Note that a successful production activity will also have aspects that set it apart from a practice activity, including:

4 – Student Autonomy

Students will be speaking, using the target language, with ideally, little or no support from the teacher.

They shouldn’t be looking things up on either the whiteboard or on any materials they have on their desk (e.g. a completed practice worksheet) so a teacher may choose to erase information from the whiteboard for this stage and the teacher might also choose to get students to clear their desks.

5 – Issuing Instructions for an Activity

As with the practice stage whilst it is important to select an appropriate activity, it is equally important to issue clear and unambiguous instructions for the activity itself so all of our students are clear as to what is expected of them. We will be issuing instructions for the activity in the student’s second language so we need to make use of clear visuals to support any language we have to use and strong demonstrations of what is expected, just as we will have done during the practice stage.

6 – Correcting Errors During the Activity

It is important that the students get as many opportunities to speak using the newly acquired language. Therefore, a teacher shouldn’t be drowning them out by speaking at length, over the top of them to correct any errors. This obviously differs from the practice where students expect the teacher to assist them as they rehearse (not produce) newly acquired language.

Clever use of body language by the teacher will enable them to be discrete in correcting errors and will allow them to offer much needed encouragement to students as well.

Production Stage of a PPP EFL Lesson with subtitles

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• Classroom Considerations, Teacher's Toolkit

Me: Okay, time for me to do some lesson planning for tomorrow.

Also me: *yawn*

Lesson planning is one of those unfortunate things that are a necessary evil in the English as a Foreign Language classroom. Lesson planning can be downright boring if we’re honest, but it is something that needs to be done in order to teach the best lessons we can.  The bottom line, you’re stuck with lesson planning (sorry!). But it doesn’t have to be as arduous as you think.

Let’s talk about one very common lesson plan structure which can make your lesson planning as easy as, well, PPP!

PPP in the EFL classroom

Here’s the lowdown on PPP in the EFL classroom.

If you’ve even taken one look at the course content on your TEFL course, you should be familiar with PPP. PPP stands for Presentation, Practice, and Production.  t is a very common lesson plan model that is used in English as a Foreign Language classrooms around the world.

Why is PPP so common in EFL classrooms?

PPP is not rocket science. Nor is it brain surgery. This is probably the reason it is so widely used in EFL classrooms.

Once you have understood the basics of a PPP lesson, it’s super easy to slot your activities into the lesson plan framework, thus creating a lesson plan which you know will be logical and which will flow.

A breakdown of PPP

A PPP lesson is divided into three stages: not surprisingly, Presentation, Practice and Production.

The Presentation stage is basically the beginning of the lesson.

It starts with a warmer and/or a lead-in to get the students engaged and interested in the topic (or to wake them up if your lesson is at the end of the day!).

Then the teacher presents the target language of the lesson. There are a number of ways this can be done, such as presenting the language in context, eliciting the language, or telling a personal anecdote.

The teacher then tells the students the rules of the particular language structure and explains the meaning, form, and pronunciation.

The second stage is the Practice stage .

In this stage, the learners do activities to practice the target language, which requires total accuracy. These activities are, by their very nature, the controlled practice of the language.

The final stage is the Production stage .

This is when the students do more activities, but this time they are less controlled and freer. In other words, the learners are free to use the target language in whichever way they wish in the activity set up by the teacher.

The advantages of PPP

There are many advantages to using PPP in the EFL Classroom. The obvious advantage of PPP is that it is simple and straightforward. Once you have gotten the hang of the different activities you can do in the EFL classroom, it is simply a matter of plugging them into the relevant stage and your lesson should make sense.

It also provides a structure with which to plan your lessons. As long as you are clear on your aims, it helps you to plan your lesson and imagine the different steps you need to take in order to accomplish your aims.

The disadvantages of PPP

Unfortunately, there are a few disadvantages to PPP lessons.

Firstly, it is very easy to get stuck in the PPP framework .

In other words, all your lessons end up exactly the same. Of course, many of our lessons are very similar, but it’s easy to become lazy and use the exact same activities for your lessons. PPP is good like that, in that you can be confident your lessons will be effective, but you can become complacent when it comes to interest levels. As a result, your lessons can become samey .

Another disadvantage is that many teachers place too much emphasis on the Presentation stage, believing this to be the most important stage. What happens here is that the students have no opportunity to practice the language, which is actually what we want them to do.

A PPP lesson plan example

Let’s now look at an example of a traditional PPP lesson, teaching the present perfect to Intermediate learners.

Read more: An Explanation Of The Present Perfect

Presentation

The teacher puts up a map of the world on the board. In green, she has marked countries she has been to. In blue, she has marked countries she would like to go to. She asks the students to guess what the different colours mean.

Once they have correctly guessed, she boards a few example sentences, such as

I have been to India.

I have never been to France.

Have you been to Mexico?

She then explains – while eliciting as much as possible. The teacher then focuses on meaning, form and pronunciation.

The students then complete a grammar exercise, in which they complete a gap fill. As a second practice activity, the students must decide whether a set of sentences are grammatically correct or not.

The students finally discuss in partners which countries they have been to and which they would still like to visit. The students then change partners and repeat the conversations. The teacher gets feedback from the class and does a delayed error correction activity.

Alternatives to PPP

Of course, PPP is not the only way to structure an EFL lesson plan.

There are many other frameworks that work just as well, such as ARC , TTT , and TBL . Each has its advantages and disadvantages. Which one you will use in your classroom will depend on your learners, the target language, and you.

Using PPP in the EFL classroom is a great idea for beginners.

While you are starting out as a TEFL teacher, we recommend you adopt the PPP lesson plan structure just for the simple fact that it’s logical and straightforward. When you have a bit of experience under your belt then you should definitely branch out and try your hand at a few other lesson plan structures.

But until then, go forth and Present, Practice and Produce!

The above information about PPP is very informative and helpful for the beginners like me .I would appreciate if you post more informative articles about language lessons at the initial stage. thanks a lot

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Language education , Language Teaching Strategies

Using the ppp lesson structure to teach grammar and vocabulary.

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Understanding the grammatical elements and key vocabulary of a language are essential parts of achieving a good degree of fluency. Without them, it is pretty difficult to communicate clearly with a native language speaker. Grammar and vocabulary can therefore be seen as structural parts of a language and usually require a specific teaching methodology to deliver effectively.

Deductive approaches to teaching grammar and vocabulary are commonly used in this regard and form part of initial teacher training courses like the CELTA and CertTESOL . In such approaches a teacher presents a rule / structure to the class and the class then produces language based on that rule. This technique easily fits into a lesson structure known as PPP (Presentation, Practice and Production) . This blog post explores the PPP language lesson plan structure in detail, outlining how and where it can be most effectively used in English language and foreign language teaching classrooms.

The PPP lesson structure

As outlined in the image above, the PPP model consists of three progressive stages, which combine to engage and motivate language learners. Best practice suggests that a 60-minute lesson should feature equal time (i.e 20 minutes) to each stage – language teachers can therefore plan out their lessons in advance allowing enough time to address any issues that students may encounter. It is worth noting that this structure therefore works best with classes of uniform ability – otherwise less able students can be left behind if the key learning outcomes have not been fully understood. (Remember to check out our other post for ideas on how to tailor lessons based on students’ different language levels ).

Let’s work through each of the PPP stages in turn.

1. The ‘Presentation’ Stage

In this stage the teacher presents the new grammar concept or vocabulary in a meaningful context or situation to their learners. Building up stories on the board, using realia (e.g newspaper cuttings, household items, hobby materials), flashcards and miming are fun ways to present the language. Short audio or film clips can also be highly effective. 

The aim of this stage is to ensure that the students understand the context you are presenting and to get them to start thinking about it. Always try to get their thoughts on the context you’ve presented – ask them if they have been in this situation, has a family member? How did it make them feel and what happened next? This helps students to bring the situation to life and helps them remember previous scaffolding on the topic (i.e grammar and vocab that they already know). 

2. The ‘Practice’ Stage

In this stage, students begin to use the elements of the target language that they learnt previously through activities developed by the educator. The stage is usually controlled by the teacher and learners practice saying or writing the language structure or vocabulary correctly. Teachers should certainly model and correct if mistakes occur.

Typical practice stage activities include:

• Drill sentences / sounds – individually, in pairs or whole class
• Multiple-choice exercises
• Gap fill tasks
• Directed, paired conversation practice

The aim of these practice activities is building students’ accurate use of target language. If common errors persistently occur, then a specific exercise or recap session might be useful.

3. The ‘Production’ Stage

Once learners have demonstrated that they fully understand the key learning points and are able to demonstrate this without mistakes in controlled exercises, they can move onto the (free) production stage. In this stage, students are encouraged to use the target language as fluently and naturally as possible to replicate use outside of the language classroom.

Typical production stage activities include 

• Communication tasks (e.g presentations, speeches, debates, articles)
• Collaborative tasks
• Discussion activities

In this stage the teacher should not intervene or correct whilst students are “producing” language. Rather if mistakes have been made, it is better to address them after the exercise has been completed.

Advantages and disadvantages of the PPP lessons in language teaching

As with all language teaching strategies and lesson structures, the PPP approach is not 100% guaranteed to work brilliantly in all classrooms and with all students. A review of the literature relating to the PPP approach identifies a number of advantages and disadvantages which we summarise below.

• The PPP method is easy to adopt and is good for new language teachers
• The approach is widely applicable and can be used very flexibly
• It’s easy to plan a lesson around and has a clear, logical structure for students (and educators) to follow
• Evidence suggests that teachers trained on this method are more likely to use new teaching methods than those who do not.

Disadvantages

• It encourages and prioritises accuracy over fluency
• The presentation stage is too teacher-focused and has limited student engagement
• It can become boring to students if used repeatedly, particularly for higher language proficiency students
• Research suggests that it might not be the most effective way to teach or learn a language

As always, our recommendation would be to test it and try it in your setting and then tailor it to your specific circumstances. Maybe see how some form of learner-focused guided discovery could be incorporated into the presentation stage. Collaborative learning activities could, for example, also be included in the practice stage and a task, such as you might find in a task based learning approach would also fit well into the final stage.

How do Sanako products help educators to teach using the PPP lesson plan?

Sanako produces a range of language learning and teaching tools that help educators to improve their students’ reading skills. For example our browser-based language teaching solution Sanako Connect supports educators across all stages of the PPP language teaching approach.

• PRESENTATION – Educators can create distinctive contexts and situations in Sanako Connect using a wide variety of easily uploadable stimulus materials including text files, PDFs, presentations, audio clips, video, and web pages.
• PRACTICE – Test students’ understanding of grammar concepts and key vocabulary by creating exercises and questions for them to answer through gap-fill and multiple-choice quizzes.
• PRODUCE – Students can be easily divided into pairs or group discussions and be assigned role play and discussion activities. Outputs and deliverables can be collected, and reviewed on the same platform.

If you’d like to find out more about how Sanako’s dedicated language teaching solutions could transform your approach to teaching English or other modern languages, please contact us now to arrange your FREE demo!

This blog post was last updated 26 September, 2023.

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American English Education

美 国 英 语 教 育 American English Education

The Three P’s of Lesson Planning

"PPP" means

Presentation, Practice, and Production.

“ Presentation ” is the part of the lesson when the target language (the language to be taught to the students) is presented to the students generally through eliciting and cueing of the students to see if they know it and then providing the language if no one does.

The target language is usually put on the board either in structure (grammar-type) charts or in dialogs. Presentation features more "teacher talk" than the other stages of the lesson, generally as much as 65-90% of the time. This portion of the total lesson can take as much as 20-40% of the lesson time.

Next comes the “ Practice ” section when the students practice the target language in one to three activities that progress from very structured (students are given activities that provide little possibility for error) to less-structured as they master the material. These activities should include as much "student talk" as possible and not focus on written activities, though written activities can provide a structure for the verbal practices.

Practice should have the "student talk time" range from 60-80 percent of the time with teacher talk time being the balance of that time. This portion of the total lesson can take from 30-50% of the lesson time.

" Production " is the stage of the lesson when the students take the target language and use it in conversations that they structure and use it to talk about themselves or their daily lives or situations. Production should involve student talk at as much as 90% of the time and this component of the lesson can/should take as much as 20-30% of the lesson time.

As you can see the general structure of a PPP lesson is flexible, but an important feature is the movement from controlled and structured speech to less-controlled and more freely used and created speech. Another important feature of PPP (and other methods too) is the rapid reduction of teacher talk time and the increase in student talk time.

Notes: One of the most common errors untrained teachers make is that they talk too much .  

Do you know what TPR is? It is one of the main teaching methods taught at ABIE. Learn about it here .

Everyone knows, learning a second language is difficult. There are three main types of styles in which individuals are often categorized under when it comes to learning. Are you one of these learning types? Click here to find out what learning type you are .

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• Planning lessons and courses

Planning a grammar lesson

Without grammar, words hang together without any real meaning or sense. In order to be able to speak a language to some degree of proficiency and to be able to say what we really want to say, we need to have some grammatical knowledge.

By teaching grammar we not only give our students the means to express themselves, but we also fulfil their expectations of what learning a foreign language involves. Fortunately, nowadays with the emphasis on a communicative approach and a wealth of stimulating resources, teaching grammar does not necessarily mean endless conjugation of verbs or grammar translation.

Which approach?

• Presentation

There are two main approaches to teaching grammar. These are the deductive and the inductive approach.

• A deductive approach is when the rule is presented and the language is produced based on the rule. (The teacher gives the rule.)
• An inductive approach is when the rule is inferred through some form of guided discovery. (The teacher gives the students a means to discover the rule for themselves.)

In other words, the former is more teacher centred and the latter more learner centred. Both approaches have their advantages and disadvantages. In my own experience, the deductive approach is undoubtedly time saving and allows more time for practising the language items thus making it an effective approach with lower level students. The inductive approach, on the other hand, is often more beneficial to students who already have a base in the language as it encourages them to work things out for themselves based on their existing knowledge. Presentation, practice and production (PPP)

A deductive approach often fits into a lesson structure known as PPP (Presentation, Practice, Production). The teacher presents the target language and then gives students the opportunity to practise it through very controlled activities. The final stage of the lesson gives the students the opportunity to practise the target language in freer activities which bring in other language elements.

In a 60-minute lesson each stage would last approximately 20 minutes. This model works well as it can be used for most isolated grammatical items. It also allows the teacher to time each stage of the lesson fairly accurately and to anticipate and be prepared for the problems students may encounter. It is less workable at higher levels when students need to compare and contrast several grammatical items at the same time and when their linguistic abilities are far less uniform. Presentation

In this stage the teacher presents the new language in a meaningful context. I find that building up stories on the board, using realia or flashcards and miming are fun ways to present the language.

For example, when presenting the 2nd conditional, I often draw a picture of myself with thought bubbles of lots of money, a sports car, a big house and a world map.

• I ask my students what I'm thinking about and then introduce the target language. "If I had a lot of money, I would buy a sports car and a big house."
• I practise and drill the sentence orally before writing it on the board (positive, negative, question and short answer).
• I then focus on form by asking the students questions. E.g." What do we use after 'if '?" and on meaning by asking the students questions to check that they have understood the concept (E.g." Do I have lots of money? " No. " What am I doing? " Imagining.)
• When I am satisfied that my students understand the form and the meaning, I move on to the practice stage of the lesson. During this stage of the lesson it is important to correct phonological and grammatical mistakes.

There are numerous activities which can be used for this stage including gap fill exercises, substitution drills, sentence transformations, split sentences, picture dictations, class questionnaires, reordering sentences and matching sentences to pictures.

• It is important that the activities are fairly controlled at this stage as students have only just met the new language. Many students' books and workbooks have exercises and activities which can be used at this stage.
• When teaching the 2nd conditional, I would use split sentences as a controlled practice activity. I give students lots of sentence halves and in pairs they try and match the beginnings and ends of the sentences. Example: " If I won the lottery, " …. " I'd travel around the world. "
• I would then do a communicative follow up game like pelmanism or snap using the same sentence halves.

Again there are numerous activities for this stage and what you choose will depend on the language you are teaching and on the level of your students. However, information gaps, role plays, interviews, simulations, find someone who, spot the differences between two pictures, picture cues, problem solving, personalisation activities and board games are all meaningful activities which give students the opportunity to practise the language more freely.

• When teaching the 2nd conditional, I would try to personalise the lesson at this stage by giving students a list of question prompts to ask others in the class. Example: do / if / win the lottery?
• Although the questions are controlled the students are given the opportunity to answer more spontaneously using other language items and thus the activity becomes much less predictable.
• It is important to monitor and make a note of any errors so that you can build in class feedback and error analysis at the end of the lesson.

When teaching grammar, there are several factors we need to take into consideration and the following are some of the questions we should ask ourselves:

• How useful and relevant is the language?
• What other language do my students need to know in order to learn the new structure effectively?
• What problems might my students face when learning the new language?
• How can I make the lesson fun, meaningful and memorable?

Although I try to only use English when teaching a grammar lesson, it is sometimes beneficial to the students to make a comparison to L1 in the presentation stage. This is particularly true in the case of more problematic grammatical structures which students are not able to transfer to their own language.

It is also important to note that using the PPP model does not necessarily exclude using a more inductive approach since some form of learner-centred guided discovery could be built into the presentation stage. When presenting the 2nd conditional I sometimes present the language in context and then give the students a worksheet with a series of analysis questions to do in pairs. PPP is one model for planning a lesson. Other models include TTT (Test, Teach, Test), ARC (Authentic use, Restricted use, Clarification and focus) and ESA (Engage, Study, Activate). All models have their advantages and disadvantages and I, like many other teachers I know, use different models depending on the lesson, class, level and learner styles. Further reading

Grammar Practice Activities: A Practical Guide for Teachers . Penny Ur, Cambridge Handbooks for Language Teachers 1988 Grammar Games and Activities for Teachers . Peter Watcyn Jones, Penguin Books 1995 How to Teach English . Jeremy Harmer, Longman 1998 How to Teach Grammar . Scott Thornbury, Longman 1999

PPP vs Certification

I work in a university in Cuba, the latest news is that students need to get a certificate in English to complete the requirements for their to graduate. But English is a handicapped subject in primary, secondary and preuniversity schools, our students hardly can answer personal information questions. PPP is not the answer to train our students to pass the certification exams on A2 level.

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great! I like it

Teach grammar, not linguistics!

If there's one thing that gets in the way of teaching grammar anywhere outside of university, it's linguistics ! Check out this recent article in EL Gazette https://www.elgazette.com/linguistics-and-grammar-time-for-a-divorce/

english grammar

may I know when did the author upload this article?

Re: english grammar

This article was written in 2005.

Best wishes

I don't understand the complaining about PPP. It is a standard method in all subjects. It works well. The variation is PWP , pre while post which might be better but would take more time to identify patterns. So students would be lost in the woods without any presenting of rules. It is how you teach PPP. I think I havent done it very lively up to now reading this. Thank you very much for the advices.

Teaching grammar

It's good to see someone defending a deductive approach and PPP. They may not be trendy, as comments above suggest, but for some students they are vital. Grammar teaching became un-trendy in the 1970s, as the first comment above points out. That was a bad move, and one that was particularly bad for the many students, specially the many who are not so good at "discovering things for themselves".  In this respect, the deductive / PPP approach is more egalitarian. Andrew Rossiter discusses this in an article in the November 2020 issue of EL Gazette - https://www.elgazette.com/how-to-demystify-grammar /

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EXAMPLE LESSON PLANS

Following the ppp model.

It is difficult to find a universally perfect lesson plan that would always be suitable for a certain level at a certain point in a course.  Some would argue that it is impossible.  Still, those classes which share a sufficient number of common characteristics in its profile can be given a similar lesson plan.  What makes the lesson plan stronger is how the teacher uses it while actually in the classroom.  The students and teacher together shape the form it takes on during its execution.  The lesson plan is an anticipation of the directions the teacher wants to take the class and how to go about it.

The lesson plans listed here are suggestions and models to serve in reaching other teachers to help their understanding and to stimulate & encourage them to produce their own versions, customized to reflect their particular experiences, perspectives and situations.  And the reader is reminded that the PPP model is only one of many possible approaches to teaching a language class.  Where a teacher has flexibility and interest, it is recommended to experiment and explore ideas that might contribute to a richer level of appreciation of the teaching/learning environment and one’s place in it.

A.     BEING FLEXIBLE IN YOUR LESSON PLANNING

Some considerations to keep in mind

On this page there are 8 examples of lesson plans you can look at, four of which have been previously presented.  If you compare them, you may notice some differences such as in LP2 (Lesson Plan 2) there are 3 Presentations, not one.  These differences are there to show you that you can apply the model with some flexibility, depending on your objectives.

Most of the examples focus on presenting grammar or vocabulary but LP3 is done differently because there is a stronger focus on the input (reading), so a PWP approach is used.  Just because you want to focus more on a reading or listening activity doesn’t mean you can’t have the students look at and use some grammatical structures or new vocabulary, but because that target language is of a lower priority and has less time and fewer activities surrounding it, the PWP model is used.  In either model you still want to get your students talking (and perhaps writing) about the theme and the input.

The Production activity in these examples has been for speaking, but writing could be another end to strive for, and you follow the same procedure (Context → Input → Presentation → Practice → Production) to get the students orientated and using the target language in the way defined in your objectives.  For example, By the end of the class, the students will be able to organize their ideas and use some appropriate expressions in a formal letter requesting information about living in a campus residence for the next university year.

It has been emphasized a few times in this article that the PPP model can be useful in many ways, but the teacher is encouraged to modify it or use other approaches, depending on the situation and objectives.  Using a song in class might be presented in different ways, but both LP6 & LP7 suggest ways that could be theoretically followed using the PPP model.  LP6 focuses on vocabulary for its target language in a low or intermediate group and LP7 uses the same song but is used for an advanced level and to focus on one aspect of pronunciation (connected speech) rather than a grammar or vocabulary aim.

Sometimes teachers want to get their students speaking more.  This can be done in many ways but to demonstrate how this model might be applied, a clear objective is recommended and building the students up to that end constitutes the bulk of the class.  LP8 is one possible example of how that could be done.  What’s important to realize is that unless you have imposed limits placed on you, you have a great amount of freedom to create a lesson plan suitable for you and your students.  The PPP model offers you one way, and you can play with it to best reach your ends, or choose other approaches if they seem more worthwhile.

The format of these plans is done in a way to highlight how you can approach doing them with the PPP perspective.  If you are working for a school or some company that wishes you to submit your lesson plan, make sure you follow their recommended format, not the one presented here.  Also, official observations aside, you want to have a plan that is very user friendly TO YOU, so feel free to make any changes to the format that help you feel more comfortable designing the plan and later executing it in the classroom.

B.     PREVIOUSLY PRESENTED LESSON PLANS

Here are some links to lesson plans already presented in this article

Click on the number or description to have a look at the lesson plan.  Note that sometimes the lesson plan is part of a greater explanation, so you may want to have a look at what is written before or after the lesson plan.

Click on ‘Download’ below the description to have a look at the lesson plan.  Note that the first 3 lesson plans aren’t accompanied by materials.  They are simply examples and part of a greater explanation cited in the line below ‘Download’.

View or Download lesson plan 1

Lesson Plan 1 is from The PPP Model Explained , Section C which reviews the terminology and concepts previously presented.

View or Download lesson plan 2

Lesson Plan 2 is from The PPP Model Explained , Section D where the concepts are explored further, providing more details and insights on how the model can be used.

View or Download lesson plan 3

Lesson Plan 3 is from The PWP Model which compares how this model is similar and different to the PPP model.  The PWP model has a greater focus on reading or listening.

Lesson Plan 4 is the one used in teaching the class demonstrated in Class In Action .  This lesson plan has been more fully developed, complete with accompanying materials.  If you want to see any of them, click on ‘Download’ below the image:

Download lesson plan

Download Handout 1: Reading Qs

Download answer key

Download Handout 2: worksheet

Alternative options to lesson plan 4

A FEW FINAL WORDS: It’s a good idea to include your intentions (objectives), what you expect the students to do (how you’re going about that) and what you as the teacher will be doing for different reasons.  When somebody other than the teacher is reading the lesson plan, it is not always clear how and why things are to be done in a certain way.  For that matter, it might not be clear to the teacher either, so it is a good exercise to get accustomed to including those extra details.  Sometimes a class goes over very well and the teacher wants to save the lesson plan to use with another class some time in the future.  A year later when you look at the plan again and are trying to interpret what to do and why it should be done, there may be some ideas lost or unclear because they weren’t spelled out in the original.

Two more tips for lesson planners: 1) If you’re having an official observation or have to fill out your lesson plan using a certain form, make another version for yourself that you can easily follow while you are actually teaching.  It might just be a series of big circled numbers listed on a page with a few notes jotted down to remind you what to do in which order.  Or it could be a power point presentation with detailed notes in the margins describing step be step what you want to say and do.  Whatever helps you feel comfortable and directed during the class should by the notes you follow while teaching.  And if there are official forms, then you can do them in the expected way to give to the proper people.

2) During or shortly after the class, make a few notes which reflect any insights or ideas that come to mind when executing the plan.  Maybe some issues came up, students had some good suggestions or you had an inspiration.  This can help you immensely if you want to repeat the plan with another class, or when you are thinking what to do in the next class.

C.     MORE EXAMPLES, THIS TIME WITH A CHALLENGE

You might like to see what kind of lesson plan you can come up with

Here are a few more examples.  You have two options.  One is to simply click on each example and have a look. Another is to accept THE CHALLENGE.  This is an invitation for you to choose one or more situations and then try to write your own lesson plan corresponding to that situation.  When you are done, or have done as much as you care to, then compare your version with the one provided.  You can take on the challenge at any level you wish.  That might mean just having a few thoughts about how you might go about it, you could scratch out a minimal skeleton plan, or you could develop it further with some details.

When you compare your version with the given one, it’s important to remember that there is no final true ‘correct’ answer or perfect plan.  Two very experienced teachers could very easily come up with very different plans.  And a teacher with less experience would come up with what is within her/his current resources and perspectives, which would be appropriate for her/his situation.  When you encounter differences between the two versions (yours and the one here), look at them as different options and consider the benefits of each one.  This might stimulate more ideas on what you might be able to do in your classes.  Also keep in mind that how you imagined your class profile would be different in some ways to how another would do that, so it is possible that while the two plans would vary, they would each be appropriate to their respective imagined situation.

OPTION ONE:  So, if you want to simply view the examples, click on those that catch your eye.  You may want to have a look at Before You Start and A Few Thoughts as well.

OPTION TWO:  You want to try the challenge. – Choose the situation (LP5, LP6, LP7 or LP8) you want to approach. – Read the Before You Start for a little more orientation – Think of how you would make your lesson plan and draft it out following the points in THE CHALLENGE – Compare yours with the one provided and look for benefits in both plans.  Also check out A Few Thoughts.

1- Read the language focus and consider the level.  If it is for a lower level, it might be the first time you are introducing the grammar point, for example, or if you think the students have already been exposed to the target language, you would dedicate your class to clarifying some points and strengthening the students’ usage.  Different interpretations would lead to very different classes being taught.

2- Read Before You Start.

3- Complete the lesson plan by addressing each of the sections

It is not necessary to find any materials to use (listenings or articles, worksheets, etc), nor write out a lot of detailed ideas, unless you feel that helps you, but try not to overdo it.  Simply sketch out how you would interpret each section.  This includes saying what kind of input and describing it a little.  (For example, listening: three people at a meeting at work arguing about the location of the coffee machine.)  Briefly describe what each task or activity will be.  (For example, LISTENING FOR GIST: Students decide which of four topics the people at the meeting are discussing.)   Provide examples and details when it will add to clarity or help define what is being said.

4- Check out the provided lesson plan and compare how it is similar and different from yours.  See what you like from both plans and if this stimulates any good ideas or helps you become more familiar with lesson planning in this style.

5- If you do a few challenges like this, maybe come up with a PPP lesson plan you would like to try out in one of your classes.

Here are the lesson plan challenges for LP5 – LP8:

Write your lesson plan following the basic procedure described above in The Challenge, steps 1 – 5.

Remember to read Before You Start before writing your lesson plan.  When you’re done, read A Few Thoughts and check out the provided plan.

View or Download lesson plan 5

Before you start

Imagine you have to teach the difference between Past Simple and Present Perfect but you don’t like how it’s presented in the student book.  You begin thinking of different alternative ways to teach that class without using the material in the book.  You come across an interesting video which is an interview of a famous celebrity you think many of your students like.  How would you develop your lesson plan from here?

NOTE:  In this challenge there is a range of levels.  Choose one (elementary, pre-intermediate or intermediate) and base your lesson plan on that perspective.

A few thoughts

If it is the first time our students have seen the Present Perfect, it is quite likely that the Past Simple would not play a big role in that class.  If they have seen it before, but maybe only briefly in the previous course last year, then your class may not use the Past Simple much, either.  If the students have had some reasonable experience with the Present Perfect before, or you feel they are all capable of handling two verb tenses (the Present Perfect and the Past Simple), then the provided lesson plan is one way you could approach it.

The Present Perfect is used for different situations and sometimes the simple or the continuous form is more appropriate or correct.  It is best not to mix the different functions unless it is a review after the students have had some exposure to the different applications beforehand.

It’s important to monitor your students to see how they are coping with the information, to give them support and clear direction, as well as ample opportunities to practice and explore before attempting the Production activity.  By being observant on how well they are dealing with the Present Perfect, you can make better decisions on what needs more work and where to challenge them further.

View or Download lesson plan 6

Your students requested a few songs to do in class and you decide that one of them could be possible to cover at that level.  Let’s imagine there are a couple good expressions in the chorus and a couple more in the rest of the song.  You feel that these expressions could be useful for the students to learn as the target language.  There are a few other words or expressions that would be helpful to learn as well, especially in understanding some important parts of the song, so these could be dealt with in the Introduction activity.  Try using the PPP model to write a lesson plan for this class.

If you want to do part of your class working with a song and later perhaps using it to stimulate a speaking activity or two, the PPP model wouldn’t normally be your first option.  The PWP model would be easier to work with in this regard, for example.  Or if you just want to approach the song as a quick activity and not go through the whole process of following a complete model, it is still recommended to have a clear objective on how the song would work to help your students in some way.

If a strong part of the class was focussed on learning and using new vocabulary that comes from the song, the PPP model becomes a more viable option.  It is still not the only way to do things, but it is one possibility.  Have a look at how one interpretation might look.

View or Download lesson plan 7

Imagine you think the same song you used for a lower level group would be fun for your advanced class.  Obviously you wouldn’t have the students do the exact same thing because their needs are different.  You think that it is time for that group of students to work on their pronunciation more.  The suggestion is to focus on teaching connected speech following the PPP model, and that is the challenge set to you.  However, if you are new to teaching, then you may not be ready for this.  If that is the case, work on a different aspect of pronunciation (ex: word stress, sentence stress, consonant clusters, difficult sounds for your students).  That would be fine as long as it is appropriate for a high level.  Also remember that you want to keep the students involved in your Presentation, not to make it only or mostly you lecturing.  How would you go about it?

There are already several examples of activities and lesson plans focussing on grammar or vocabulary in this article.  I wanted to include something that is a little different, but could still fit into our look at lesson planning using the PPP model.  In this case the language focus will be on pronunciation.  Phonology is a language system, no less so than grammar or vocabulary, so it can very easily fit into the PPP model.  Let’s imagine that our advanced students have difficulty understanding people when they speak quickly or not very carefully.  Our students could also work on their own speaking skills, particularly in the area of relaxed speech where the sounds seem to merge together.  Just like grammar and vocabulary, there are some rules to guide the language learners, you can’t teach them all at once, or expect the student to master them in just one class.  In today’s class we are going to introduce the students to 3 aspects of connected speech.  These are three frequent ways sounds are changed when English is spoken in a relaxed manner as opposed to a very careful, even formal style.

A- some sounds change  ex:  Did you → Di j ou   (the ‘d’ and the ‘y’ change to ‘j’) B- some sounds disappear  ex:   Sit down → Sidown   (the ‘t’ disappears when next to a strong ‘d’) C- some sounds join together in perhaps unexpected ways  ex: not at all → no ta tall  (consonants join vowels)

The lesson plan will deal with all three of the above changes occurring during connected speech, but if you prefer to focus on just one or two of them, then do so.  Before plotting out your lesson plan, it would be a good idea to determine what aspect of pronunciation you want to deal with, determine your objective(s), and decide what the theme for the class will be.  If we were not following the PPP model, we could be open to doing things differently, and that might be fine too.  However, it is still generally a very good idea to be clear on your objectives, no matter what model or approach you are considering.

NOTE:  There is a website that allows you to type out those symbols (and it’s good for languages other than English):   https://ipa.typeit.org/

This is another good site because it gives you many examples.  Keep in mind it’s in the British RP Pronunciation dialect. https://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/phoneticsymbolsforenglish.htm

This site is basically the same as the previous one but has the American accent in mind: https://koreatesol.org/sites/default/files/EClinic-%20Phonetic%20Symbols.pdf

This information will be repeated and placed in A Few Thoughts so it will be easy for you to copy and paste the links. As you probably already know, there isn’t only one British accent or one American accent, but it has been decided that these versions are to be used as a standard reference.

In choosing the input one would more frequently select something with a dialogue to capture ‘more natural’ patterns but pronunciation is basically an element of all forms of speaking, be they speeches or monologues, chanting, poetry reading, somebody talking to him or herself, speaking in different situations which involve different kinds of interactions and levels of formality, different accents and regional tendencies, and so on.  For fun we looked at ‘a song’; the same theoretical song which could be used for the low level class in LP6.  Of course you could use a different, more difficult song, or focus on the lyrics and/or grammar.  Some suggestions for that have already been given elsewhere in this presentation of the PPP model.

This lesson plan is a longer than the others because it is dealing with an area that many teachers feel reluctant to touch.  In my early years of teaching, I also wasn’t sure what to do with it, but now connected speech has become one of my favourite aspects of teaching.  It just takes some time to get familiar with what is involved, and some experimenting.  But it can be approached in a fun way and an interesting way.  When you first start out in your explorations, I recommend you limit them to just one or a few aspects.  Then when you feel more confident with those, add one or two more to your repertoire.

Another recommendation:  Sometimes you are teaching something new and there might be a lot of details that you feel important to include.  It depends a little too on how well you improvise, how well you remember and how nervous you get when in front of people.  If the subject matter is fairly new then you could do several things.  One thing is to go over the plan several times in your mind so you feel better prepared.  You could also have a more personalized lesson plan with a general outline telling you the major steps and an occasional prompt for something you may need reminding of.  Accompanying that general outline could be some kind of prompt or a more detailed description just for that section.  In the case of the Presentation, for example, you might want to have a separate paper with the phonemic script examples and symbols that you want to use.

And of course it is often a good idea to spread out complicated elements over several classes.  Focus on one or two ideas in one class so the students get familiar with using them.  Then build onto that in the following class.  You could do a review, maybe some further practice, and then add the next element or layer.

One last point.  Much depends on your objectives.  It’s good to keep in mind what you want to achieve and how you are considering going about it.  Using the PPP or the PWP model may not be the most advantageous option for a song, but it does depend on what you intend on doing.  Feel free to approach your goals in a variety of ways and decide on those that you feel have the benefits you are looking for.

View or Download lesson plan 8

Imagine your students at an intermediate or upper intermediate level and you want to get them speaking in a richer manner, such as justifying their statements, giving examples, responding more to what other people are saying.  You think that it might be a good idea to teach them expressions that would be useful while engaging in a discussion or even an argument with someone.  And that idea evolves into deciding you want your students to have a debate.  The challenge is how can this all be translated into a strong lesson plan using the PPP model?

NOTE:  Functional language is the language used that surrounds a particular situation which involves doing some task.  For example:  ●giving directions;  ●speaking on the phone;  ●apologizing.  Frequently the target language is the use of expressions typical for those situations, but it can also involve some grammar.  In giving directions we do use some set phrases such as ‘go straight’, ‘turn left’, ‘you can’t miss it’, but we also use imperatives.  Functional language is often the theme for a chapter or part of a unit in a student book so after going through it, the students are more capable of functioning in that situation.

Remember that the PPP model is best designed for a language focus, not directly on skills development.  There is some skills work done in the Input stage where reading or listening does play a part, and speaking is encouraged throughout the lesson.  Speaking or writing is also part of the objective and the Production stage, but it is not the language focus.  Normally the language focus is grammar or vocabulary and functional language can work very nicely into this model.

Therefore, if you want your students to engage in a debate, that is fine, and if you approach it using the PPP model, you have to include some language focus.  Because engaging in a debate can be viewed as a function or a situation which often uses particular kinds of language, our target language could be one or more groups of expressions that would be useful in carrying out that speaking activity.  Just like giving directions or speaking on the phone, you could come up with some expressions that would be useful for the students to learn.  While having debates may not be situations taking place as frequently as giving directions or speaking on the phone, you could focus on expressions that could also be transferable to other useful situations like having arguments, discussions, or even exchanges of opinions in conversations.  There are two suggested areas of functional language for you to teach your students. 1- agreeing & disagreeing     (ex:  I agree with you up to a point.   You’ll have to come up with a few more examples to teach.) 2- introducing & emphasizing points   (This isn’t immediately clear to many teachers so a list is provided here.  These are ways to start the sentence you want to communicate that places some emphasis on it.  If you wish to make some changes to the list, that would be fine.)      ●It cannot be denied that… ●What I think is… ●What I don’t understand is why (people think that) … ●One thing to consider is … ●I want to point out that … ●What I want to point out is ….

Complete the lesson plan by addressing each of the sections (context, input gist task, etc – introduction is optional).  It is not necessary to find any materials to use (listenings or articles, worksheets, etc), nor write out a lot of detailed ideas (unless you want to).  Simply sketch out how you would interpret each section.  In this case, because the target language consists of two different sets of expressions, think of how you are going to approach that.  Perhaps you would prefer each has their own Presentation and sets of Practice activities, for example.

Part of the challenge is dealing with two separate themes of functional language.  That is something you will have to make decisions on.  If you prefer something simpler, choose one of the two themes and develop your lesson plan around that.  Also, the suggestion is to have a debate for the Production activity.  It is also a possibility to change that into a discussion or a conversation of some kind, but consider the challenge of preparing your students to engage in a debate.  How would you set it up and get them acquainted with its structure?

Now that you’ve done it, check yours with the version provided.  Remember that the following provided version is not the perfect standard to gauge yours by.  It is simply one version.  With the image and feel of the class you imagined , your lesson plan could be much more appropriate than the one offered here.  But do check it out after you have done yours, partly for curiosity’s sake, and partly to see if you can find some ideas that might complement yours, or stimulate other ideas for you.

There was a fair amount of detail and attention given to the debate activities in the Practice and the Production stages.  Reflect a little on why they were handled differently.  Another area of reflection is to consider having ‘dress rehearsals’ as an option for a final Practice activity.  What benefits are there to doing that, and what other factors might have to be considered (such as motivation, changes to be made, repetition, etc)?  And one last piece for food for thought.  A debate is a little complicated, but sometimes we teachers present complicated ideas, such as the structure for giving presentations, doing simulations or special kinds of role-plays / theater, playing some kinds of games, going over how exams are structured and evaluated, etc.  It’s good to take on the challenge of how to communicate something that involves much structure to students.  The teacher can play with how to approach it, like breaking it up into smaller components and deal with them over several different classes, for example.  All this has to be planned for and thought through as it takes shape in our lesson plans and attempts to meet certain objectives.  Once the structure is learned, we can more easily return to it when it can serve our purpose such as providing direction for how students can work on certain elements.

D.     A FEW FINAL WORDS

Congratulations on making it this far!

If you work in a situation where you have the flexibility (and the responsibility) to create your own lesson plans and not follow any particular model, then a very strong recommendation is to consider what aspects of different models (such as the PPP or PWP) you might be able to use in your class, without the obligation to try and make everything fit into that one model.  Let your perspectives of the class (what might be effective and most beneficial) along with the objectives and what is available (materials, technology, etc) be the defining criteria of how the lesson plan shapes up.  Maybe your goal is not to reach a Production stage, for example.  You want to introduce something complex and prefer to distribute the students’ orientation to it over a succession of classes and you plan on reaching the Production stage in the third or fourth class, depending on the students’ progress.  Sometimes you may want to dedicate only one or two activities and a short time to exploring some language aspect, and don’t want to go through all the different stages.  These and other decisions should override blindly following the PPP (or any other) model.  Some models have certain advantages (and disadvantages) and others have a different mixture.  And sometimes it’s best to step out of the box and do something that you feel is appropriate, even if it isn’t formally presented and labelled as a particular kind of approach or methodology.  To put all this in a nutshell, it’s good to see how applying the model can help bring you to where you want to go, and you should feel free to modify it so it better suits the situation as you see it.  That means that the methodology and the examples are not set in stone and depending on your criteria, you could come up with a very different version that might be more effective for your situation, or the situation you imagined.

I wish you all the best in your future journeys as you explore the possibilities of lesson planning, and the delivery of those plans in the classroom.

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Present, practise, produce

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PPP (present, practice, produce; or presentation, practice, production) is a lesson planning paradigm .

It basically consists of teacher-presented material , that is, language items to be learnt, followed by a controlled practice stage, in which students are "permitted" to apply the new language/skill in a low-risk context. Finally, in the production stage, also called the 'free practice' stage, students do some sort of communication task, such as a role play , which requires them to produce the target language .

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• Teflpedia glossary entry Present, practise, produce was last edited on 15 March 2023, at 05:27. 🔖Cite this page: General info - Specific citation 🔍 General search tools : Bing - DuckDuckGo - Google 🔍 Academic search tools : ERIC - Google Scholar - Semantic Scholar
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How To Teach Grammar Using PPP Model

We need to have some grammatical knowledge to be able to speak a language to some degree of proficiency and to be able to say what we really want to say.

Without grammar, words hang together without any real meaning or sense.

By teaching grammar, we enable students to express themselves correctly.

Thanks to using deductive and inductive approaches to dealing with grammatical rules nowadays, teaching grammar no longer means endless conjugation of verbs or grammar-translation.

How to Use These Two Approaches to Teaching Grammar

A deductive approach.

It is when the rule is presented, and the language is produced based on the rule. (The teacher gives the rule)

An inductive approach

It is when the rule is inferred through some form of guided discovery. (The teacher gives the students a means to discover the rule for themselves)

In other words, the former is more teacher-centred and the latter more learner-centred.

Both approaches have their advantages and disadvantages.

In my own experience, the deductive approach is undoubtedly time-saving and allows more time for practising the language items.

Thus making it an effective approach with lower-level students.

The inductive approach, on the other hand, is often more beneficial to students who already have a base in the language.

It encourages them to work things out for themselves based on their existing knowledge.

Factors to consider when teaching grammar

In general, when teaching grammar, there are several factors we need to take into consideration.

The following are some of the questions we should ask ourselves before deciding on the approach to use:

• How useful and relevant is the language?
• What other language do my students need to know in order to learn the new structure effectively?
• What problems might my students face when learning the new language?
• How can I make the lesson fun, meaningful and memorable?

Although I try to only use English when teaching a grammar lesson, it is sometimes beneficial to the students to make a comparison to L1 in the presentation stage.

This is particularly true in the case of more problematic grammatical structures which students are not able to transfer to their own language.

The Lesson Structure Based on Deductive Approach

A deductive approach often fits into a lesson structure known as PPP (Presentation, Practice, Production).

The teacher presents the target language and then gives students the opportunity to practice it through very controlled activities.

The final stage of the lesson gives the students the opportunity to practice the target language in freer activities which bring in other language elements.

In a 60-minute lesson, each stage would last approximately 20 minutes.

This model works well as it can be used for most isolated grammatical items.

It also allows the teacher to time each stage of the lesson fairly accurately and to anticipate and be prepared for the problems students may encounter.

It is less workable at higher levels when students need to compare and contrast several grammatical items at the same time.

1. Presentation

In this stage, the teacher presents the new language in a meaningful context. I find that building up stories on the board, using realia or flashcards and miming are fun ways to present the language.

2. Practice

There are numerous activities which can be used for this stage including gap fill exercises, substitution drills, sentence transformations, split sentences, picture dictations, class questionnaires, reordering sentences and matching sentences to pictures.

It is important that the activities are fairly controlled at this stage as students have only just met the new language. Many students’ books and workbooks have exercises and activities which can be used at this stage.

3. Production

Again there are numerous activities for this stage and what you choose will depend on the language you are teaching and on the level of your students. However, information gaps, role plays, interviews, simulations, finding someone who, spots the differences between two pictures, picture cues, problem-solving, personalization activities and board games are all meaningful activities which give students the opportunity to practice the language more freely.

It is important to note here that using the PPP model does not necessarily exclude using a more inductive approach since some form of learner-centred guided discovery could be built into the presentation stage.

Other models for planning a lesson

PPP is one model for planning a lesson.

Other models include TTT (Test, Teach, Test), ARC (Authentic use, Restricted use, Clarification, and focus), and ESA (Engage, Study, Activate).

All models have their advantages and disadvantages and I, like many other teachers I know, use different models depending on the lesson, class, level, and learner styles.

Which Model Do You Prefer Using to Plan a Lesson? Why? Share your Ideas with the Community.

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If you like it, share it on:.

PPP I prefer thats what I have learnt in TEFL course

PPP approach is the model I use everyday, it is the best specially for students who do not have normal standards of studying.

in my opinion, I prefer a deductive approach. beacuse can be useful for students doesn’t know anythings ans at the same time is based to teach in general. I guess it is better and all aspect

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