The Statue of Liberty was stolen last night sometime between 6pm and 8pm. At 6pm commuter Jack Brown says he saw it glinting in the sunset and at 8pm, NYPD officer Maria Guevara went to check on the Statue and found it missing. Every one of your students is a suspect and they have to come up with alibis to demonstrate where they were.
Alibi is a fun lesson plan that gets students talking and asking questions. Find out who your future CIA or KGB agents are by seeing how seriously …Continue

Yet another post just to promote a lesson plan on this site and to reward myself for converting it from html to WordPress post (not as grueling as I pretend it is).
Culture Shock is another topic that all students have something to say about. This lesson plan is accessible to students who have never left their own country because it focuses on different behaviors and asks if they are normal or rude in the students’ cultures. Gets students talking about whether they shake hands or bow to greet someone, …Continue

Now that I have some time to reflect on my recent IELTS lessons, I’m putting together some resources to help prepare students. While there are a lot of good resources out there, some texts I felt didn’t cover everything I wanted or cover it in the way that I thought was best for my students. One big area where I found some good isolated exercises and ideas, but not one integrated series of lessons was in teaching Writing.
So I’m starting by putting together lessons on writing the IELTS task 1 …Continue

Another work related lesson plan and one that kids love is Odd Jobs. In every country and culture every kid wants to grow up to be a fireman or a policeman or the President or maybe a businessman. But who wants to be a bus announcement reader? Or a circus cleaner? Who gets these jobs and what do these people really do every day?
This lesson plan gives students the chance to play the role of someone with a Truly Odd Job and imagine what they do every day, in the …Continue

Help students find a new career with an entertaining lesson plan that asks students to take a personality test and then finds out which job is suited to them. The test is loosely based on a Myers-Brigg test but adapted for ESL students and also made a little more fun. Make sure students know that this is just for fun and not serious, but it’s a great way for students to practice taking a test in English, thinking about their personality, and about what factors are important for them in …Continue

Settlements is a lesson plan that asks students to think about why people migrate to new countries or areas both historically and logistically. After discussing explorers and colonists in theory and in their own countries’ history, students must look at a map and decide where the best place to live is–in caves, in the forest or near a river. An interesting lesson plan that lets students think about issues they don’t normally consider like why is their hometown located where it is and it also gives artistic students a chance …Continue

Students love role plays and interesting situations. Everyday English is important but students often react well to unusual situations too. Survive! is a lesson plan that makes students imagine that they have survived a plane crash and must decide which items they will need to survive. Of course the fun of the lesson is that different students have different ideas of what survival means.
Does it mean finding their way to civilization? Keeping comfortable until wild animals kill them or they die of hunger? Or waiting it out til rescue planes …Continue

Corruption is a serious problem around the world so it’s something students can talk about. It’s also an important topic because often students from corrupt countries never examine their attitudes toward giving and taking bribes–either they think it’s very bad or they think it’s very normal. My Corruption Lesson Plan has students think about what corruption really is, how to stop it, and whether or not it is a serious problem by presenting real life situations, a realistic story and even a scientific and slightly offbeat study of corruption by …Continue

Beauty Inc is a fun role play for students involving a meeting between a large corporation and victims of its faulty products. Great for large or medium sized classrooms and a great way to get students talking, particularly more advanced students who get bored with drilling and answering exercises. Encourages students to be creative while introducing a real life situation. What do you do when a company sells bad products that don’t work? Or worse, turn you into a freak?

Ever since ESL Flow, I’ve been getting a lot of traffic to my lesson plans. One of the most popular lesson plans is called culture shock and gets students talking about different habits and manners in different cultures.
Since it’s getting so many hits, I’ve typed up a related lesson: Cultural Role Play, which is basically adapted for ESL lessons from a Peace Corps exercise.
It’s a fun exercise where you give students one of two different cultural roles to play with very different standards of behavior and ideas of what …Continue

Another fun vocab building lesson plan, the School Slang Lesson Plan teaches American school traditions and socialization while also introducing kids to teenage slang and terminology like freshman, sophomore, detention, midterm, prom and jock. A lot of your students have been exposed to American teenage movies, and they will love to discuss exactly what all the slang they’ve heard means.
Also this lesson uses pictures to teach idioms which is a great tool to help kids remember new vocab and phrases. Because idioms don’t translate literally, and sometimes metaphors don’t …Continue