This is the fourth in the series of lesson plans I promised to put up after my CELTA course. Listening lesson are generally among the easier kinds of lessons we have to teach. Listening is part of the ‘skills lessons’, along with speaking, reading and writing. The other two kinds of lessons – Grammar and Vocabulary – fall into the Language lessons category.

{{To directly download this message, go to the bottom of the post}}

Generally, Skills lessons are far easier to plan and execute, mostly because students need to do a lot of work themselves and do not need to depend on the teacher for the most part. Of course, the ESL teacher still has to do their part in ensuring the lesson interests the students. Especially in the case of children and teenagers, if the topic of the lesson is not interesting enough, students begin to fidget pretty soon.

I was presenting it to the Upper Intermediate level ESL students at St. Giles International in San Francisco, the same place I did my CELTA course (Read why I chose the CELTA and not one of the hundreds of TEFL/TESOL courses available).

Read More…

No Comments | In: ESL Lesson Plans | tags: CELTA, elementary students, ESL, ESL Lesson Plans, esl teacher, language lessons, lesson plan, listening lesson, skills lesson, st giles international, target language, tesol courses, upper intermediate level. | #

Here’s the second in the series of lesson plans I promised to post. These are all lesson plans I made during my CELTA course, which I did at St. Giles International in San Francisco. You can see the rest of the lesson plans here. If you want to download the lesson plan, there is a link at the bottom of this post.

So this was the second lesson I presented to my group of ESL elementary students. I didn’t know it then, but I would grow really fond of some of the students in the weeks to come. But on that day, I was a nervous wreck. I was teaching the Present Perfect Tense. I’d heard of the dreaded thing before but I hadn’t really examined it in my life, never having needed to teach it to anyone before!!

Read More…

No Comments | In: ESL Lesson Plans | tags: CELTA, efl, ESL, ESL Lesson Plans, esl students, find someone who, lesson plan, present perfect tense, semi controlled speaking activity, teaching, tesol courses. | #

Here’s the first of the lesson plans I promised.

Most people who think of doing the CELTA or similar TEFL/TESOL courses soon find out that a major part of the course involves teaching. And not just dummy students! It’s really daunting to think about standing in front of a classroom of students, all of whom stare at you expectantly, and there’s no way out for you but to deliver. If you think you can wriggle out of the situation without much preparation, you’re either fooling yourself or you’re an experienced teacher. These students will have questions – lots of them. And unless you’ve anticipated their questions and found all the right answers, you’re gonna end up looking like a fool.

So here’s my advice – day one. Just Be. Don’t worry. However much you prepare, the nervousness of that first afternoon facing the students can’t be overcome by anything else.

Since the CELTA is a Cambridge University course and is carefully structured, most schools expect CELTA trainees to present only a simple 20 minute lesson on the first day. You will be given the topic of the lesson the day before. Mostly, the 20 minute lesson is a game like a Crossword puzzle or something similar using the Target Language (TL) which you have to teach your students.

Read More…

No Comments | In: ESL Lesson Plans | tags: CELTA, crossword puzzle, efl, english, ESL, ESL Lesson Plans, lesson plan, lessons, students, teaching, tesol courses. | #