One of the big issues I have as an English tutor, particularly when I do private lessons, is that I never know where that line is between meeting the students’ needs and just doing whatever they want. For example, right now I’m teaching an IELTS course. I firmly believe that studying every day (6 days a week) for one and half hours, is too much for an IELTS prep class. Students need time to reflect and do other things with their brains. Plus I find that 75% of students who …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

The Food lesson plan is one that goes over very well with students. It’s accessible to everyone. Beginners can handle describing their native dishes simply and you can push more advanced learners to describe detailed recipes. The lesson also has a multicultural aspect as the teacher can introduce common foods from his/her home country. Finally, the plan moves on to discussing holiday meals, which means this lesson can be used for any holiday, especially holidays that have associations with special foods: Christmas, New Years, May Day, Nauryz, Easter, Ramadan, Passover.
Or …Continue

One of my favorite lesson plans to teach is At the Restaurant. I compiled it from a series of sources like The British Council and TEFL.net and edited the activities and worksheets to make them more fun and accessible and so that everything relates together into one big lesson.
So if you’re looking for a complete lesson plan about food and restaurants that features vocab building, discussion, reading, cultural notes and a great role play that can be targeted to beginners, intermediate or advanced learners, take a look at At …Continue

I put up a new article on English Advantage for ESL teachers onwhy and how to plan a lesson. As I say in the article, the most important reasons to have a plan are so that you have clear goals set out for your lesson. Otherwise you are just filling up time and/or entertaining students; both of these can be important too but without a goal, you aren’t really educating. Also students don’t respect teachers who try to improvise everything or aren’t prepared to answer their basic questions about a …Continue