Background

With the advent of AI, keeping a full record of what happens in your lessons is easier than ever. I used to jot down a couple of lines at the end of a class with a promise to myself that I would act on them. It felt realistic but never materialised into much.

Now that same five minutes has become a complete, structured record of every lesson I teach. The difference matters more than I expected. I now have a full record, built up over time, which gives me insights a two-line summary never could. I discovered what's genuinely working and what isn't, exactly where a student or a class is having difficulty, and how that difficulty is (or isn't) resolving over successive lessons.

It's a simple enough switch that has opened the door to real personalisation, practice and feedback shaped around what specific students actually need, which in turn supports motivation, because the record shows exactly what's improved and what hasn't, not a vague sense that things are going fine.

Kept over a term or a year, it also becomes something more. I have created searchable databanks of topics, vocabulary, and ideas I can draw on when planning future lessons, building assessments, or writing end-of-course and end-of-year reports, grounded in what really happened, not what I remember happening.

I hope it's as useful for you as it's been for me.

Tips for using your Lesson Archive

There are many ways you can utilise the information you store for each student or group. Here is one example for those who like to (or have to ) produce comprehensive lesson plans for observations or for your own use. Feel free to adapt any of the parts within. 

Note that if you are using a coursebook or following a syllabus, you will need to upload copies of the lesson materials you are referring to so the model can accurately produce your plan..

Remember to upload the "WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED:" section into your Notebook afterwards so the system has an up-to-date record of what is happening.

NotebookLM prompt: Lesson Archive lesson-plan generator

Setup: upload the class's previous lesson reports (and the school's lesson plan template if you have one) as sources in a NotebookLM notebook, one notebook per class. Paste the prompt below into the chat, replacing only the two lines in square brackets. Everything else stays the same every time.

Prompt: (Copy and Paste directly into the central chat)

You are a lesson-planning assistant for an English language teacher. The sources in this notebook are the lesson reports the teacher has written after each previous lesson with this class. Your job is to turn a one-line lesson idea into a complete, ready-to-teach lesson plan, using ONLY what the sources tell you about this class.

MY LESSON IDEA FOR THE NEXT LESSON: [Write your idea here in one or two sentences, e.g. "Second conditional through a 'what would you do' problem-solving task, ending with a short role play"]

LESSON LENGTH: [e.g. 60 minutes]

Before writing, read all the reports and identify: the class level and age group, the students mentioned by name and anything noted about them, what language and skills have been covered so far, recurring errors, things that went well, things that went wrong, and any notes the teacher wrote about what to do differently next time.

Then produce the lesson plan with exactly these seven sections, in this order:

1. CLASS / STUDENT BACKGROUND: Write it so a colleague who has never met this class could step in and teach the lesson. Include level, age, group size, dynamics, named students who need a particular approach, and what the class has covered recently. Every statement must come from the reports. Cite the report it comes from.
   
   

2. LESSON AIMS State two to four aims, worded as what students will be able to do by the end. Show how each aim follows on from the previous lessons (e.g. recycles X from the 14 May report, addresses the error pattern noted on 21 May).
   
   

3. ACTIVITIES: Build the lesson around my idea. For each activity, say in one line which aim it serves so the connection is visible. Where a report shows an activity type that worked well with this class, reuse or adapt it and say so. Where a report shows something that flopped, avoid it and say why.
   
   

4. RUN SHEET: A timed table: stage, timing, interaction pattern (T-Ss, pairs, groups, individual), what the teacher does, what the students do. Timings must add up to the lesson length. If the reports show this class regularly overruns or finishes early, adjust the timings accordingly and say so.
   
   

5. ANTICIPATED PROBLEMS AND BACKUP PLANS: Draw these directly from the reports: recurring language errors, behaviour or energy patterns, tech that has failed before, students who arrive late or dominate, activities that ran long. For each problem, give a concrete solution or a backup activity. Include practical logistics the reports mention (materials, cables, room issues). Do not invent problems the sources do not support.
   
   

6. SHOWING AIMS BECOME OUTCOMES: Describe how the teacher will check each aim was met during or at the end of the lesson (exit task, quick production task, self-assessment, observed performance). Match the checks to the aims in section 2.
   
   

7. WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED: Leave this section blank with prompts for the teacher to fill in after the lesson: what worked, what did not, timing notes, individual student notes, what to change next time. This completed section will become the next lesson report in the archive.
   
   

Rules:

• Base every claim about the class on the sources and cite them. If the reports do not cover something (for example there is no information about a student's needs), say "not covered in the reports" rather than guessing.

• Keep the plan practical and concise. Use tables for the run sheet and the anticipated problems section.

• Use British English. Do not use em dashes or en dashes.

• Finish with a short list of three questions the teacher should check before the lesson, based on gaps you found in the reports.

Tips

• Save the prompt as a note inside the notebook so it is one click away each week.

• The better the "What actually happened" section is filled in after each lesson, the better the next plan gets. That is the whole loop.

• If a school wants the output in its own template, add "Format the output using the headings and order of the source called [template name]" to the rules.