Lesson Planning 101: How to Develop Meaningful ESL Lessons
So many new teachers spend hours at a time preparing for a lesson they believe their adult students will appreciate. And why would they not appreciate it—you think it is a great lesson!
Then you bring your lesson to class eager to present it, and to finish it. Why? Because you know it is what the class needs! But do they need this lesson you have laboured over, or do they need something more?
More, you say—I have just spent hours working on this lesson, and I will finish it! Yes, more. Have we ever stopped to ask the question, should I be teaching the lesson, or should I be using the lesson to teach?
Having a clear objective is the most important element to consider when developing an ESL lesson plan. Having a clear objective is the first building block to the planning and development process. It’s the thing (or things) that you want your students to learn and take-away from the lesson. Having a clear objective will guide the rest of your planning process. The objective can be expressed in a variety of ways, but, for organizational purposes, it’s easiest to use the same template for most lessons. For example, you could start your lesson plan with the following phrase: “Students will be able to…” and finish with the objective(s) for the day. A good rule of thumb to have is that if an activity doesn’t bring your students to (or closer to) your end goal, modify it or nix it altogether.
When you start out teaching, one of the hardest things to do is to see the wood (the whole course of study that your learners will work through) for the trees (the individual lessons you’ll teach that comprise this course of study). Nevertheless, thinking about things from this wider perspective is a must if you are to achieve a balance of skills and activities that take place, as well as making sure that what you do fits in with the other teachers who are also teaching your class. Here are some points to consider when planning for the longer term.
Writing, unlike speaking, is not an ability we acquire naturally, even in our first language: it has to be taught. In 
Our life is largely taken up with receiving information from outside sources, most of which enters our consciousness via our eyes and our ears. ESL lessons focusing on reading or listening require a variety of teaching strategies and activities, so there are many ways to design a lesson plan for these receptive skills. Despite the many ways in which reading and listening activities can take place, there are nevertheless general stages we can follow when planning.
Although it does not get as much attention as grammar, vocabulary is as fundamentally important in developing English language proficiency. The benefits of a wide-ranging vocabulary are many, as learners can’t express themselves effectively with grammar alone. Nevertheless, teaching vocabulary can be challenging and creating an effective vocabulary lesson plan is key to successfully equipping learners with new words.
While learning and understanding vocabulary is a vital part of language learning, all of these words lack any real sense of meaning without grammar; therefore, grammar is an essential part of language teaching and planning an effective grammar lesson is a necessary skill. This article will show you how to create a 
As a language teacher, you have so many things to think about all of the time. We’re constantly under pressure to get through materials in our coursebook and get ready for exams. With all the things we have to think about, it can sometimes be easy to forget the real reason why we are doing this: our learners. For this reason, planning lessons is a necessity, particularly at the start of your 
When you’re starting out as a language teacher, one of the biggest problems you’ll have is being nervous about the lessons you deliver. Adequate preparation is the one true solution to overcoming nerves. Preparation means one thing: effective lesson planning. Here are five strategies that will help you plan and deliver successful ESL lessons.