"How-To" Infographic for Language Learning and Goal Setting

Tell students that they are going to get acqainted and share strategies and idea for learning or improving their English.

First, have students converse in pairs or mingle asking and answering questions about learning English. See All Things Topics: Learning English for downloadable A/B conversation questions or sentence strips and "Find Someone Who" PDFs (Permission granted to reproduce for classroom use.).

Have students brainstorm and list on paper, a shared Google Doc, on a Padlet wall, or in groups (no more than five) on a Jotboard ways to learn a language (English in this case) and practice or improve in addition to take classes. A free resource is Teach This's "I'm Going to Improve My English" PDF (permission granted for classroom use).

Ask students if they know someone who is bilingual. Ask students if they know what a polyglot is. Use a video about a polyglot and their strategies for learning languages. Search YouTube for polyglots such as Timothy Doner or a TED Talk such as "The secrets of learning a new language." As students watch, have them note other strategies, techniques, or activities mentioned in the video.

Optionally, have students visit English Club's "How to Learn English" page.

Add to the class brainstormed list any other observed techniques, strategies, or activities from any video viewed or texts read in class.

Have students work individually or in pairs or small groups to list the best techniques, strategies, and activities they use and have learned about. Give feedback on the writing. Help students identify and correct spelling, grammar, punctuation, and wording errors.

Demonstrate how to use the site (Canva or Piktochart) to create a "how to" guide. Assign students to create a visual aid for their list, adding graphic and visual elements. Students can share their infographic guides they download or share a link via email.

See the sample student-made infographic in the documents included with this lesson plan.

Students present their how-to guide to their classmates and display their work. Give feedback on oral skills, as deemed necessary, using a checklist or rubric.

Follow-up with goal setting for the class. Have students select from their own and classmates' guides something to work on as a proximal goal for the time they are in the class. Optionally have students visit English Club's Sample Self Study Agenda and/or complete the site's My English Learning Contract, which can be saved or printed as a PDF. Another option is to explain SMART goals (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound) to students, and they can create a prompt for a Large Language Model such as ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Anthropic Claude, Microsoft CoPilot (depending on what is available at your agency) and enter a prompt to get a starter SMART goal, such as the following: My goal is to improve my ______________ skills in English to ____________ by (date). Create a SMART goal with steps to complete this goal by the date provided and a weekly plan.

Have student post or share their goal statements, check off weekly actions taken, and revise as needed.