Middle School Past Tense ESL Review Lesson

This is a really fun lesson for middle school students to review the past tense. The three videos I use get the students really excited and allow them to use a high number of past tense verbs they are likely to know. The introducing vocab part of the lesson is based on my textbook but it includes really common/basic verbs so I'm sure it would work in most classes. Alternatively you could add the verbs that are used in your textbook to the PPT.

World Festivals Advanced English Lesson Plan

I did this lesson as part of a mini vacation curriculum with my advanced level class. I was surprised as my high level class was able to guess all the festivals without me getting to the final clue. I was very impressed! I also adapted it for my lower level class by changing some word of the words in the word grid, and by giving the students the sentence structure to use when answering the conversation questions. By doing this you could also potentially do this class in a middle school lesson, although middle school students may not be as familiar with the festivals.

6 Things That Learning a Second Language Has Taught Me About Teaching English.

As teachers of English a lot of us are in the very fortunate position of living in a foreign country. I, like I'm sure a lot of you have done, have used this fantastic opportunity to get involved in the local culture and also to try to learn the local language. As well being incredibly useful in my daily life, I believe it has also made me a better and specifically a more understanding teacher. Here is a list of things that I believe learning a second language has taught me about teaching English.

6 Ways to Really Motivate Your ESL Students

Keeping your students motivated, especially if you are teaching at a public school (ie. children that have not chosen to study English) is one of the most important things that you have to do as a teacher. A motivated class are much more likely to listen carefully to what you say, get actively involved in the lesson and therefore they are much more likely to learn English. Here are some ideas about what you can do keep your high school students' motivation sky high.

Middle School Sherlock Holmes ESL lesson

Hopefully your students will have more fun than these two..

This is a middle school esl lesson I did during an England themed summer camp. For the other lessons in the series please go here. The lesson teaches the phrase 'How many .... are there?' and 'There are ..........' and it is Sherlock Holmes themed. The lesson has lot's of activities testing the students problem solving and observation abilities and they really enjoyed it.

How to give a good presentation ESL lesson

This is a lesson I did before my schools English presentation competition. It is designed to give the students an overview of what makes a good presentation and how to give a good presentation. It also has a couple of activities to help them with what they learn and to build their confidence. Even if your school does not have an English presentation competition I think it is a good lesson to teach as the students can learn a useful life skill whilst learning English.

Middle School Lesson Plan - Olympics

As well as teaching in high school, I do 4 lessons a week at a middle school. Whilst the lessons are usually straight from the textbook, I had a summer camp during August and I had to create my own lessons. This is the first of the four lessons that came under the general theme of Great Britain. Both parts of this lesson got really good reactions from around 10 different classes and the students all use a lot of English during this lesson. 

Simple Vacation ESL lesson

This is a very simple lesson that you can use post vacation that gets all the students speaking and most importantly doesn't involve writing a ' My Vacation' diary! The students also really loved trying to guess things about their classmates in the last activity. I would advise changing the first activity to things that your students are likely to have done over vacation or it could be over very quickly. This lesson will also segue nicely into my next two lessons to form a mini vacation/travel inspired curriculum.