Types of Lesson Plans:

There are literally dozens of lesson plan types depending on the teaching philosophy followed by an educator or specific mandated by learning institutions. In ESL and EFL education, the most common lesson plans are those based on three main instructional approaches:

A. PPP (Presentation, Practice and Production)
B. TTT (Test, Teach and Test) 
C. TBA (Task-based Approach) 

Presentation, Practice and Production. PPP is a recommended lesson approach for many educators of ESL/EFL and is commonly taught in institutions that provide TESOL and TEFL certifications. Most English language educators believe that PPP is the root approach from which other approaches have evolved. 

Test, Teach and Test. TTT is a frequently used alternative to the PPP method, where the production phase is sequentially moved to the first part of the lesson. During the (first) test phase that corresponds to the production phase in the PPP approach, students are more or less abruptly asked to communicatively produce a language concept based on their existing knowledge and without any prior guidance from the teacher. The teacher will then asses the students' level of competency in the particular language area, determine their needs, and proceed with the teach phase (which corresponds to the presentation phase in the PPP approach) based on an overall assessment.

Task based Approach. TBA is a good alternative to either the PPP approach or the TTT method. In TBA-structured classes, teachers do not pre-determine the language specifics to study but base their lesson strategies on how a central task is completed by the students. Similar to the other two approaches, TBA follows a sequential progression: 1) a pre-task introduction to be conducted by the teacher; 2) the students' completion of a central task involving a particular language aspect; 3) reporting, analysis and feedback to be performed by the teacher concerning how the students accomplished the central task; and 4) practice sessions to hone student proficiencies in the language area.