ESL Lesson Plans

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Adapted from Teaching ESL to Adults

Lesson Plan 2

(1) A main topic

(2) Objectives

(3) Study

(4) Student activities

(5) Evaluation

Main Topic
A main topic for each lesson is essential. Whether the lesson lasts for one hour or three hours, there should be one main ESL topic. For example, the main topic could be prepositions of place, modal verbs, the Simple Past, pronunciation, etc. Virtually anything that English language learners need to learn to communicate effectively could be the main topic of the lesson.

Objectives
Ask yourself what objectives you want to accomplish with your lesson. Objectives will help to limit the scope of the lesson. The number of objectives will vary depending on the length of the lesson and the main topic, but will probably range between two and five objectives. Even the best ESL lesson plans cannot cover every aspect of an ESL or EFL (English as a Second Language) topic.

Three Guidelines for Lesson Plan Objectives
(1) Lesson plan objectives should all relate to the main topic of the lesson.

(2) Each of the objectives should be measurable.

(3) Each objective should be student-centered.

Here are some examples of objectives for lesson plans covering the main topic of the Past Perfect verb tense.

1. By the end of the lesson, students will be able to distinguish Past Perfect sentences from Simple Past sentences.

2. By the end of the lesson, students will be able to demonstrate knowledge of the proper form of the Past Perfect by writing five sentences in the Past Perfect.

3. By the end of the lesson, students will be able to demonstrate correct usage of the Past Perfect by speaking (or writing) three sentences correctly using this tense.

You'll notice that these are all related to the topic of the Past Perfect tense. They are all measurable. The teacher should not have to guess whether the ESL students have met the learning objectives.

An objective that states, "By the end of the lesson, students will understand the Past Perfect," cannot be measured. (How do I know if the students understand it if they don't somehow demonstrate what they have learned?)

Lastly, all of the objectives are student-centered. Objectives in the best ESL lesson plans do not look like this: "Teacher will teach the Past Perfect."

Study
The best ESL lesson plans will have a limited amount of time devoted to this element. The "study" part of the lesson plan can be the steps the teacher carries out to teach the lesson. It could be a short presentation by the ESL teacher or it could be study from a grammar book, etc. It can also include students working on their own or in groups on a task, such as paraphrasing, vocabulary, or answering questions by writing down answers. The more time students spend on actually speaking and conversation tasks, the more is gotten out of an ESL lesson.

ESL Student Activities
The best ESL lesson plans will have the most time devoted to this section of the lesson. This is the part where students practice the topic of the lesson and use what he or she has learned from the "study" part of the lesson. Students will be active participants in speaking English activities. This will give students practice with their English under teach guidance. Activities should be as creative and interesting as possible to peak students interest in learning and participating. For lower English levels, teachers should improvise and even some body language and acting may be involved. Activities could include discussions, ESL games, writing, speaking, role playing and more.

Evaluation
The purpose of an evaluation is to check to see if the students have met the lesson plan objectives. The type of evaluations used in the best ESL lesson plans will depend on the format of the class, the length of the class, the topic of the ESL lesson, and other factors. Evaluations can range from informal to formal.

If you are tutoring ESL students one-on-one, the evaluation could be as simple as listening to the student using the subject of the ESL lesson during a conversation. If you are in a classroom, there could be a written quiz at the end of the class. Or it could be as informal as the evaluation for one-on-one tutoring.

These steps can be used to write all of the best ESL lesson plans, including lesson plans for reading, writing, speaking, listening and grammar.

Adapted from Teaching ESL to Adults

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