Identifying and Selecting Aims

One of the first steps in planning an effective English lesson is deciding what learners should achieve by the end of the lesson. This is what we call the aims. Clear aims help teachers design purposeful activities, choose suitable materials, and maintain focus throughout the class. For learners, aims provide direction and motivation because they know what they are working toward.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to:

Define main aims, subsidiary aims, stage aims, and personal aims in lesson planning.
Explain the difference between aims and procedures.
Write specific and learner-centered aims rather than vague ones.
Identify the importance of learner needs, course syllabus, and teaching context when setting aims.
Recognize how aims contribute to sequencing activities in a logical order.
Reflect on your own personal aims as a teacher and how they affect classroom practice.

TKT Module 2 – Identifying and Selecting Aims

What Are Lesson Aims?

When planning a lesson, one of the most important questions a teacher asks is, “What do I want my learners to achieve by the end of this lesson?” The answer is expressed through the lesson aim.

A lesson aim is a clear statement of the learning outcome—what learners will be able to do, understand, or demonstrate once the lesson is over. It represents the destination of the learning journey. In contrast, the procedures are the steps or activities learners follow on the way to that destination.

Why Aims Are Not the Same as Procedures

Many beginning teachers confuse aims with procedures. While both are essential, they serve very different functions:

Aims describe the purpose of the lesson in terms of student learning. They are outcome-focused.
Procedures describe the process of the lesson—the tasks, activities, or techniques the teacher and learners carry out. They are activity-focused.

To make the difference clear, consider these examples from an ESL classroom:

Aim: Learners will be able to use polite requests to ask for information.
Procedure: Learners listen to a recording of a hotel receptionist and a guest, then complete a gap-fill exercise with missing request phrases.

Here, the recording and gap-fill task are the procedure. They are a tool to help learners achieve the aim, but they are not the aim itself.

Why is this distinction important for teachers? If we only list procedures, we may end up with a lesson that is busy with activities but unclear in purpose. For example, “Listen to a dialogue, fill in the blanks, then do pair work” is a sequence of activities, but without an aim, we cannot see the intended learning outcome.

In short, procedures are the journey, but aims are the destination. Keeping this distinction in mind ensures that lessons remain focused on outcomes rather than activities.

The Main Aim

The main aim is the central learning goal of a lesson or sequence of lessons. It expresses the most important thing you want your learners to achieve by the end of the class. Think of it as the “headline” of your lesson plan, which is the single most significant takeaway for your learners.

A main aim should always answer the question:
“What will my learners be able to do with the language or skill after this lesson?”

Why the Main Aim Matters

Clarity for the teacher: It keeps your planning focused and stops you from adding activities that don’t serve a purpose.

Clarity for learners: It shows them why they are doing a task and what they should be able to demonstrate at the end.

Assessment of success: After the lesson, you can measure whether learners achieved the aim and decide what to review, extend, or revise in future lessons.

Features of a Good Main Aim

Specific – It clearly states what kind of language, skill, or function learners will practise.

Achievable – It is realistic for the learners’ level and the time available.

Relevant – It reflects learners’ needs, interests, or syllabus requirements.

Outcome-focused – It describes what learners will do with the language, not what the teacher will teach.

Examples in ESL Classrooms

Here are some typical main aims in practice:

Functional language: To practise making polite requests in the context of booking travel tickets.
Reading skills: To develop learners’ ability to read for gist in a newspaper article.
Grammar reinforcement: To consolidate learners’ use of the past simple when narrating personal experiences.
Listening skills: To improve learners’ ability to listen for detail in everyday conversations.
Vocabulary development: To expand learners’ range of adjectives to describe feelings and emotions.

General vs. Specific Aims

A common mistake is to write aims that are too general. Such aims make it difficult to design focused tasks or to measure whether the lesson was effective.

Compare the following:

Too general:To teach the past simple.
- This is vague. It does not say what kind of use, what context, or what outcome learners should achieve.
More specific:To introduce and practise the past simple for talking about personal holiday experiences.
- This is clear. It tells us exactly what the learners will be doing and in what context. Activities can now be tailored (e.g., describing holidays, asking questions about trips).

Another example:

Too general: To develop learners’ reading skills.
Specific: To give learners practice in predicting content and scanning for dates and numbers in a train timetable.

What Makes A Main Aim Strong?

Imagine you are teaching an intermediate ESL group. You want to focus on the present perfect tense.

Weak aim: To teach the present perfect.
Stronger aim: To give learners practice in using the present perfect to describe life experiences using the question form “Have you ever…?”

In the stronger aim, you specify:

The target structure (present perfect question form).
The function (describing life experiences).
The context (personal background).

This makes your lesson purposeful and learner-centered.

Tips for Writing Main Aims

Always think from the learners’ perspective: “By the end of the lesson, learners will be able to…”
Connect the aim to a meaningful context (holidays, jobs, daily routines, travel, etc.).
Make sure the aim is manageable within one lesson; avoid trying to cover too many points at once.
Link the aim to your syllabus or learners’ real-world needs (e.g., preparing for job interviews, ordering food in restaurants).

Subsidiary Aims

While the main aim sets the central learning goal of a lesson, learners cannot always achieve that goal directly. They often need to use or review supporting skills, systems, or strategies to reach it. These supporting goals are known as subsidiary aims.

A subsidiary aim describes the language points or skills that help learners achieve the main aim. These are usually things that learners already know to some degree, but which may need reinforcement, controlled practice, or application in a new context.

Key Features of Subsidiary Aims

Supportive Role – They directly contribute to achieving the main aim rather than existing independently.
Linked to Prior Knowledge – They often draw on language or skills that learners have met before.
Smaller in Scope – Each subsidiary aim is narrower than the main aim and addresses one element of language, skill, or classroom behaviour.
Variety of Areas – Subsidiary aims may cover grammar, vocabulary, phonology, functions, or receptive/productive skills.

An Example

Main Aim: To practise making polite requests in the context of booking travel tickets.

Subsidiary Aims:

Grammar: To revise the use of modal verbs could and would.
Vocabulary: To consolidate lexis related to travel and accommodation (ticket, single room, reservation).
Phonology: To focus on polite intonation patterns when making requests.
Speaking: To provide controlled oral practice in pairs before freer role-play.

Here, the main aim would not be possible without the subsidiary aims. Learners need the grammar forms, the right vocabulary, and the correct intonation before they can confidently carry out the communicative task of making polite requests.

More ESL Examples of Subsidiary Aims

Reading Lesson (Upper-Intermediate)

Main Aim: To develop learners’ ability to skim news articles for gist.
Subsidiary Aims:
- Vocabulary: To review key news-related words (headline, reporter, eyewitness).
- Grammar: To revise the passive voice for understanding news headlines.
- Speaking: To practise summarising news items orally in pairs.

Writing Lesson (Elementary)

Main Aim: To write a simple postcard using the past tense.
Subsidiary Aims:
- Grammar: To review regular and irregular past tense verbs.
- Vocabulary: To recycle words for places and activities (beach, museum, swimming).
- Reading: To analyse a model postcard for layout and organisation.

Listening Lesson (Pre-Intermediate)

Main Aim: To develop learners’ ability to listen for detail in a conversation at a restaurant.
Subsidiary Aims:
- Vocabulary: To review menu items and expressions for ordering food.
- Functional language: To recycle polite phrases for requests (Could I have…?).
- Pronunciation: To notice weak forms in connected speech (I’d like a…).

Tips for Writing Subsidiary Aims

Ask yourself: What do learners need to know or review in order to succeed with the main aim?
Keep them manageable—avoid writing too many, or the lesson may lose focus.
Make sure they are directly linked to the main aim. If they do not support the main goal, they are not true subsidiary aims.
Use a variety of focus areas (e.g., one grammar, one vocabulary, one skill) so that the lesson feels balanced.

Personal Aims

In addition to setting learning aims for students, effective teachers also set personal aims for themselves. A personal aim is a goal related to your own professional development or classroom practice. Unlike main, subsidiary, or stage aims, personal aims are not about what learners will achieve in language or skills, but about how you, as the teacher, want to grow, adapt, or refine your methods during the lesson.

They remind us that teaching is also a continuous learning process for the teacher, not only for the students. By focusing on personal aims, you develop habits that improve the quality of your lessons and make you more reflective and adaptable in the classroom.

Why Personal Aims Matter

Self-awareness: They encourage teachers to reflect on their strengths and weaknesses.
Professional growth: They provide small, practical steps toward long-term teacher development.
Better learning environment: When teachers improve their methods, learners benefit from clearer explanations, smoother activities, and more supportive interactions.
Motivation: They help teachers feel a sense of progress and achievement in their own role, not only in student outcomes.

Examples of Personal Aims

Improving Instructions: To give shorter and clearer instructions by modelling tasks instead of over-explaining.
Boardwork: To use the whiteboard more effectively by organising grammar rules on one side and vocabulary on another.
Classroom Management: To monitor group work more evenly, giving equal attention to all learners.
Interaction: To encourage quieter or less confident students to participate by asking them simpler questions first.
Feedback: To provide more constructive oral feedback after speaking tasks rather than focusing only on errors.
Use of Teaching Aids: To integrate the phonemic chart more often when introducing new vocabulary.
Time Management: To keep activities within the planned time so that the lesson does not run over.

Classroom Illustrations

Scenario – Giving Instructions

A teacher notices that learners often look confused after instructions.
Personal Aim: To use simple, step-by-step English and demonstrate tasks instead of only explaining.
Impact: Learners understand activities faster, and less time is wasted on clarifying.

Scenario – Engaging Quieter Learners

A teacher realises that some students rarely contribute in class discussions.
Personal Aim: To use pair work with sentence starters to give quieter students more confidence to speak.
Impact: These learners gradually become more active, leading to more balanced participation.

Scenario – Whiteboard Use

A teacher finds that their boardwork is messy and learners struggle to copy notes.
Personal Aim: To divide the board into clear sections: vocabulary, grammar, and examples.
Impact: Learners take clearer notes and can easily refer back to the lesson content.

How to Set Effective Personal Aims

Reflect honestly: Think about your recent lessons and identify one area for improvement.
Be specific: Avoid vague goals like “to be a better teacher.” Instead, write: “to use concept-checking questions instead of asking ‘Do you understand?’”
Be realistic: Focus on small, achievable steps. Trying to change everything at once is overwhelming.
Link to learner needs: Choose aims that will directly benefit your students, such as clearer instructions, better timing, or improved feedback.
Evaluate afterwards: After the lesson, ask yourself whether you met your personal aim and how it affected your teaching and learners.

Stage Aims

When planning a lesson, it is not enough to have only a main aim and a set of subsidiary aims. Every individual step in your lesson also needs a clear purpose. These smaller purposes are known as stage aims.

A stage aim describes what each activity in the lesson is designed to achieve in the short term. While the main aim is the overall destination and the subsidiary aims are the supporting steps, stage aims are the signposts along the route. They ensure that each part of the lesson contributes meaningfully to the bigger picture rather than feeling like an isolated task.

Why Stage Aims Are Important

Clarity of Purpose – They prevent activities from being “busy work” with no link to learning outcomes.
Logical Sequencing – They help teachers organise activities in a way that builds progressively toward the main aim.
Learner Motivation – Learners understand why they are doing each activity, making them more engaged.
Assessment – Teachers can check whether each stage aim has been achieved before moving on to the next stage.
Flexibility – If timing is tight, teachers can decide which stage to shorten or drop without losing sight of the main aim.

Example from a Storytelling Lesson

Main Aim: To give learners practice in telling stories using past tenses.

Stage Aims:

Show students pictures of famous landmarks → To contextualise the topic of stories about travel.
Teacher tells a short story about an unusual trip → To provide a model of storytelling and highlight sequencing words.
Students brainstorm ideas for their own stories → To generate content and activate relevant vocabulary.
Learners plan their story in pairs → To prepare structure and encourage organisation before speaking.
Children share stories in groups → To practise fluency, narrative sequencing, and use of past tenses.
Group members ask follow-up questions → To encourage interaction and improve listening comprehension.
Class feedback on stories → To reinforce use of target language and check achievement of the main aim.

Each of these stage aims is a small step that builds toward the final outcome of learners telling their own stories confidently.

More ESL Classroom Examples of Stage Aims

Reading Lesson (Intermediate)

Pre-reading discussion on daily routines → To activate schema and prepare learners for the text.
Skim the article quickly → To practise reading for gist.
Scan the article for specific times → To practise scanning for detail.
Group discussion about similarities with their own routines → To personalise the text and encourage speaking.

Writing Lesson (Elementary)

Look at a model postcard → To familiarise learners with layout and structure.
Identify verbs in the model text → To review past simple for recounting experiences.
Brainstorm holiday activities on the board → To activate vocabulary needed for writing.
Write a draft postcard → To practise producing a short written text with support.
Peer correction of postcards → To encourage learner autonomy and accuracy checking.

Listening Lesson (Pre-Intermediate)

Look at a restaurant menu → To introduce context and key vocabulary.
Listen once to a dialogue → To practise listening for gist (who is speaking, where, why).
Listen again and complete a gap-fill → To practise listening for detail.
Role-play ordering food → To transfer listening input into speaking practice.

Tips for Writing Stage Aims

Be precise: Avoid vague stage aims like “to practise reading”. Instead, write “to practise scanning for numbers in a timetable.”
Use action verbs: Words like identify, match, predict, discuss, draft, correct make stage aims clearer.
Link them to the main aim: Always ask, “How does this step move learners closer to the main aim?”
Keep them short: Stage aims should be one sentence that captures the purpose of the activity.
Check sequencing: Make sure earlier stage aims prepare learners for later ones (e.g., controlled practice should usually come before freer production).

Writing Good Aims

Characteristics of Effective Aims

Learner-centered: Phrase aims from the learner’s perspective. For example: “By the end of the lesson, learners will be able to…”

Specific: Avoid vague aims like “to teach grammar.” Instead say, “to practise using comparatives to compare products in a shopping context.”

Measurable: Learners should be able to demonstrate achievement by the end of the lesson.

A Classroom Example

Main Aim: To develop learners’ ability to scan for specific information in a text about environmental issues.
Subsidiary Aims:
- Vocabulary: To review words like pollution, recycling, renewable energy.
- Speaking: To encourage pair discussions on local environmental problems.
Stage Aims:
- Pre-reading: To activate background knowledge through a class brainstorm.
- While-reading: To practise scanning by finding statistics in the text.
- Post-reading: To discuss opinions and relate to learners’ own context.
Personal Aim: To monitor pair discussions more effectively.

Summary: Identifying and Selecting Aims

Aims describe outcomes, not activities.
Main aim = central focus of the lesson.
Subsidiary aims = supporting skills or language.
Stage aims = purpose of each activity.
Personal aims = teacher’s own improvement goals.
Good aims are specific, learner-centered, and measurable.
Announcing aims helps learners stay motivated.
Reflection after lessons ensures progress for both learners and teachers.

Identifying and Selecting Aims:
Common Questions And Answers

Q1. What is the difference between an aim and a procedure?
An aim is what learners will achieve, while a procedure is the activity they do to get there. For example, “to practise asking for directions” is an aim; “role-play a conversation with a map” is a procedure.

Q2.Should every lesson have more than one aim?
Yes. You should have one main aim, supported by subsidiary aims. Without them, learners may not be fully prepared to reach the main goal.

Q3. How do personal aims help me as a teacher?
Personal aims help you grow professionally by focusing on your teaching methods, such as improving boardwork, giving clearer instructions, or increasing student interaction.

Q4.Is it necessary to tell learners the aims of the lesson?
Often yes, because it motivates learners and clarifies the purpose of tasks. However, in discovery lessons you may reveal the aim at the end so learners notice patterns themselves.

Q5.What happens if learners do not achieve the aim?
This is not a failure. It means the aim may need more time or different strategies. You can revisit it in the next lesson with revised activities.

A Practice Task – Identifying and Selecting Aims

For questions 1–7, match each teacher’s example (1–7) with the type of aim (A–G). There is one correct answer for each.

Types of Aims

A. Main Aim
B. Subsidiary Aim (Grammar)
C. Stage Aim (Pre-task activity)
D. Stage Aim (Controlled practice)
E. Personal Aim
F. Stage Aim (Lesson wrap-up / reflection)
G. Main Aim (Skills-focused)

Teacher’s Examples

The teacher wants learners to practise using the past simple when telling holiday stories.
Before a reading activity, the teacher asks students to predict the content of the text from its headline.
The teacher’s goal is to become better at giving shorter and clearer instructions.
The teacher wants learners to review the use of could and would before practising polite requests.
During a speaking lesson, learners practise role-playing in pairs after the teacher demonstrates a conversation.
The teacher plans the lesson so that, by the end, learners can scan a train timetable to find specific times.
After learners finish a group discussion, the teacher asks them to summarise what they did and reflect on how it helped them.

Reference Resources –
Identifying and Selecting Aims

Textbooks

Ur, P. (2012). A Course in English Language Teaching (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press.
– Offers clear guidance on lesson planning, aims, and practical classroom examples for ESL/EFL teachers.
Scrivener, J. (2011). Learning Teaching (3rd ed.). Macmillan Education.
– A widely used teacher-training book that explains aims, procedures, and lesson staging with clear examples.
Harmer, J. (2015). The Practice of English Language Teaching (5th ed.). Pearson Education.
– Covers how to set aims, lesson sequencing, and the relationship between teaching objectives and classroom practice.
Hedge, T. (2000). Teaching and Learning in the Language Classroom. Oxford University Press.
– Contains a strong section on establishing goals, objectives, and lesson aims, especially useful for reflective teachers.
Brown, H. D. (2007). Principles of Language Learning and Teaching (5th ed.). Pearson Education.
– Though more theoretical, it links learning objectives to practical teaching contexts and learner outcomes.

Online Resources

Cambridge English Teaching Framework – Cambridge Assessment English
– Includes guidance for teachers on planning lessons, setting aims, and reflective teaching practice.

Next Lesson: Identifying the Different Components of a Lesson Plan
Previous lesson: (None)
Home: Module 2 Lesson Navigator