Tips and Strategies For Improving Your ESL Lesson Plans

At least a few times during the school year, you willwords, the principles of creativity should be applied but
hear yourself or other teachers talk about how thewithin a frame. Always make sure you have a pre
lesson for your English language learners didn't go well.(prepares for the main part of the lesson),while (the
For ESL activities to be largely successful, a teacherlesson itself) and post (the summary) sections of the
needs to find ways to motivate the students sincelessons.
some students may not love learning English as much- Catering to different types of students including
as you enjoy teaching it.different learning styles.
Here are some issues that make up good and sound- Make sure your lesson plan is integrative for the
methodology and the transfer to lesson planning a bitsubject matter you are teaching. With regard to
smoother.teaching ESL, make sure you include at least two of
Issues of Lesson Planningthe four skills. These skills should also complement
- Participation - how to involve all the students?each other. Listening and reading are receptive skills
- Organization - how to organize an activity in terms ofwhile speaking and writing are productive skills. There
group work, full classes and activities.should one of each and the student should be
- User-friendly - Is the activity inviting? Is it easy enoughconstantly active. For example, a teacher can have a
to understand?learner listen to a dialogue and then that learner uses
- Cost effectiveness. Maximum profit for minimumhis or her knowledge of speaking skills to sum up what
cost. Can you use an activity again and again fors/he understood.
different purposes?- As a teacher, you can find creative ways of how to
- Flexibility. This involves reading the classroommotivate your students. For example, if a majority of
atmosphere and responding accordingly especiallyyour students like Michael Jackson's songs, you can
when discipline problems can be on the rise. In someuse the song "Heal the World" as a lead-in to
cases, you may need an SOS kit, which requires twodiscussing about social awareness and social actions
important ingredients from the teacher: organizationto teach issues such as global warming, poverty,
and tolerance. This could result in an alternative pathnatural disasters and other theme related lessons.
for hyper kids.You may have found already that these issues vary
- Providing guided activities using the gradation modelfrom different learning situations.
from using easy to more complex activities. In other