How to Create the Perfect ESL Lesson Plan (+ Sample Template!)

A well-prepared ESL lesson plan is the key to a smooth, successful class. While improvisation has its place, a TEFL lesson plan will provide you with all the structure you need inside the classroom. 

Having clear objectives and activities mapped out ensures your students get the most out of every lesson. With a little practice (and a TEFL certificate!) lesson planning will quickly become second nature.

Here are the key components and action items for creating the perfect ESL lesson plan! 

First and foremost, you’ll need to identify your lesson’s learning outcomes. Once you identify the goal, then you can work backwards to figure out how you can reach this objective. 

For example, if you’re following a set curriculum, your students may learn about geography. However, you’re not just improving your student’s general geographical knowledge, you’ll need to guide them towards specific objectives and target language. 

Depending on the level and class, key objectives may be “learn to describe mountains” or “debate the extent of climate change effects”, and the target language will be vocabulary words, syntax structures, or phrases related to the topic.

Once your objectives are clear, break the lesson into segments and choose activities that will help students master the goals step-by-step.

Read more: How to Teach ESL: Differences for Children and Adults

The warmer is the introduction section of the ESL lesson. Here, you’ll spend around 5 minutes introducing a new subject. Instead of jumping straight into bookwork, warmers are often playful, engaging, and evocative. 

Here are examples of warmer activities: 

• Hangman or Shark Attack: The highly popular game Hangman is an engaging way to introduce a subject or topic to students. Students guess letters to uncover the hidden word (or phrase). If you want a more “PC” version, you can opt for Shark Attack, which will also put your creative skills to the test!
• Word scramble: Writing a disordered sentence on the whiteboard will puzzle your students and have them thinking without directly asking them. When multiple players team up to the board, the first student to write down the word or sentence correctly wins points for their team. You can use words by mixing the letters or full sentences by mixing the words depending on the level.
• Pictionary: This charades-inspired picture game allows students to identify topics not only with key vocabulary words but also with pictures which helps memorization. Again, you can split students into teams to incite their competitive nature!
• YouTube video: Using YouTube in the classroom isn’t lazy. In fact, there are many useful resources on YouTube to introduce a subject to your classroom. Whether you use the Office US’ iconic fire drill scene to introduce the topic of “safety in the workplace” or an ABBA song for grammar points, videos can grasp your students’ attention instantly without boring bookwork.
• Board Race: Board race is a relay race game which will undoubtedly incite your student’s competitive side. Write a topic (e.g. “Sports”) on the board and split your class into teams, and the board into sections. Give a student from each team a pen. When the game begins, they must write one word associated with the topic in their section, before passing the pen to the next student on their team. The team with the most amount of correct words wins!

Presentation is the stage of the lesson where the teacher introduces or explains the rules of the target language. While TEFL courses should encourage as much student talk-time as possible, this is where the ESL teacher will do most of the explaining.

Your students may learn about describing people using adjectives or identifying different festivals around the world. Regardless of the topic, give them an overview of the rules and examples so they can understand how to use them correctly. 

Since every student learns differently, it’s important to mix up your presentation methods. You can use flashcards, pictures, videos, role play, and more to keep students engaged and personalize the lesson. Be sure to ask your students comprehension questions to check their understanding. 

Following the presentation, students will practice the new concept. Mistakes are frequent during this stage, so be sure to check their comprehension and address common errors! In fact, mistakes during this stage can help students learn what not to do and consolidate learning even sooner. 

You can practice through a range of methods:

• Pair work & role play: Call students to the front to practice in pairs. Ask other students what they did well or what they could improve on to check their comprehension. This will get the class to collaborate and reinforce the target language rules.
• Quizzes: Consider splitting students into pairs or groups and have them complete a quiz. This will help them consider a range of scenarios or examples in which this target language is used, helping them contextualize in different environments.
• Games: Don’t be afraid to use games during this stage! As long as they’re applying their knowledge and practicing the target language, games are a very effective tool in the ESL classroom. Board race can be an effective game here, but it’s important that you review the sentence structures or target language with the students after!

As the final P of the PPP structure, production is the stage where students exercise their understanding but with independence and autonomy. Without the guidance of the teacher (although, you can help when asked!), students will use what they’ve learned and previous examples to use the target language correctly. Be sure to provide feedback to students, this is where they can do most of the learning! 

Often, these tasks can come in the form of more traditional classroom activities such as book work, worksheets, and quizzes.

Try to spend a few minutes at the end of class to review what your students have learned. This can help students who have questions, and establish whether the lesson objective has been met! During the review, you should ask questions and elicit information from the students, as well as providing feedback and assigning homework to further learning. 

A lesson plan is integral to ensuring that the lesson goes smoothly and that objectives are met. Here are some helpful lesson planning tips to maximize your students’ learning:

• Get TEFL certified: It’s important to become TEFL certified, regardless of your teaching experience. This is because the TEFL classroom poses different challenges to teaching first-languages. A TEFL course will teach you about common issues and language barriers, and how you plan a lesson in-depth, gain experience, and view examples.
• Keep it interesting: Incorporate a mix of games, audio & visual content, projects, roleplay, and so on to engage students! While listening, reading and writing are integral to learning, it’s not the only way, and it can make your students uninterested.
• Use a template: Consistency is also important in the classroom. Follow a similar structure for each class, using the warmer, presentation, practice, and production template.
• Stay organized: Instead of discarding worksheets or lesson plans, use cloud storage apps like Google Drive to keep everything neatly filed away in one place. Bring a notebook into class so you can refer to your lesson plan whenever necessary.
• Be prepared: Things can go off-course in the classroom. In the event that an activity isn’t engaging enough or you still have time left over, make sure that you have backup activities up your sleeve.
• Don’t reinvent the wheel: There have been countless teachers and lessons before you. Don’t be afraid to take inspiration from them! There are tons of free online resources and materials to use; you don’t have to create everything from scratch.
• Notice trends: A finished lesson can still be useful! Keep a record of lessons that went particularly well so you can learn from the wins and build on success.

Read more: 10 Essential ESL Teaching Tools

There are plenty of TEFL and teacher resources available online. Whether you want to use videos, worksheets, or interactive games, here are some valuable online TEFL teacher resources: 

• iSL Collective is home to thousands of worksheets, powerpoints, and video lessons curated by experienced teachers. It’s free to use, meaning that you have an almost endless selection of TEFL activities for all levels.
• ESL Brains offers unique video-based learning-materials for ESL teachers who want to teach through speaking activities, critical reading classes, or more standard lessons. Users can choose between free and paid subscriptions.
• British Council offers a range of lesson plans spanning from pre-intermediate to advanced levels. From AI to climate change and challenges at school, British Council has a huge range of classroom resources and lesson plans.
• ESL games shares plenty of resources and ideas for games to facilitate learning whether it’s grammar, vocabulary, or discussion based activities.
• Kahoot makes learning interactive and fun through engaging activities such as interactive quizzes, polls, presentations and more. Cambridge English even has free-to-use Kahoot games which you can try in the classroom! It’s also a great way to overcome your student’s smartphone obsession by combining smartphone use with learning!
• Baamboozle is an interactive quiz game where you can create your own or use existing quizzes.

Read more: 10 Fun ESL Games and Activities for Teaching Kids English Abroad

Absorbing the different learning styles, abundance of activities, to the curriculum itself can make TEFL teaching seem overwhelming. That’s why even if you’re a seasoned professional in the classroom, you’ll still need to set time aside for lesson planning. But, with each day you’ll grow with experience and lesson planning will become the easiest part of your job. By following the PPP outline, your lessons will have a clear structure. The art of lesson planning will not only help you become a better teacher, but it’ll help your students enjoy and take something away from your lessons. 

Read more about teaching English abroad: 

• The 12 Best Online TEFL Courses
• Is TEFL Worth It? 6 Reasons to Get TEFL Certified Before Teaching Abroad
• 5 Lesson Plan Ideas for First-Time Teachers Abroad