How to Make an ESL Lesson Plan
A lesson plan is not a form to fill in for an inspector. It is the set of decisions you make before the lesson so that you do not have to make them in front of thirty people.
Why bother
This guide takes you through those decisions in the order they are actually made, with the wording to use, the two mistakes that cause most weak lessons, and a blank plan you can copy.
1. Start at the end: what will they be able to do?
Write the aim as something learners will be able to do, not as something you will cover. "Present perfect" is a topic, not an aim. "Learners will be able to ask about and describe life experiences with Have you ever ...?" is an aim, because you can see whether it happened.
The test is simple: at the end of the lesson, could you point at a learner and say whether they can do it? If not, the aim is too vague to plan from.
In practice
Write the aim first and the activities second. Most weak lessons are a list of activities with an aim added afterwards.
2. Decide what the language actually is
Take the language you are teaching and look at three things before the lesson, not during it: what it means, how it is formed, and how it sounds.
Write two or three questions that check the meaning without using the grammar name. For the past simple: Is it finished? Do we know when? These are concept-checking questions, and they save you from the answer every teacher has heard - yes, teacher - when you ask "do you understand?"
Then write down what your learners will get wrong, and what you will do about each one. A problem you have predicted takes a minute to fix; one that surprises you takes ten.
In practice
If you cannot say what the language means in one plain sentence, you are not ready to teach it yet.
3. Choose a shape for the lesson
PPP - presentation, practice, production - suits a new, small piece of language: you show it, they practise it, they use it. It is the easiest shape to control with a large class.
Test-teach-test suits language learners have met before: let them try it first, see what is broken, teach that, then let them try again. Better than PPP when the class half-knows something.
Task-based suits a class that needs to do something real - make a plan, solve a problem - with the language taught where it is needed. It gives the most speaking and needs the most confidence.
Whichever you choose, controlled practice comes before free practice. Learners cannot be accurate and creative at the same time.
In practice
One shape per lesson. Mixing two is how a lesson loses its direction halfway through.
4. Give every stage a time and an interaction pattern
Beside each stage write the minutes and who talks to whom: whole class, individual, pairs, groups, mingle. Two lines in a plan, and they prevent the lesson where the teacher talks for forty minutes.
Add up the times. If the total is longer than the lesson - and it will be, the first few times - cut a stage rather than hurry all of them.
Aim to have learners speaking to each other for at least half the lesson. In a class of forty, that is the only way most of them speak at all.
In practice
Plan the change of pattern, not just the activity: "in pairs" written down is a decision; decided in the moment, it becomes "work with your friend" and chaos.
5. Write the instructions you will say
Write the three or four sentences you will actually use to set each task, in the shortest words you can. Long instructions are the commonest cause of a class not doing what you asked.
Then write one instruction-checking question for any task that could be misunderstood: Do you write or speak? Do you work alone or with a partner? How long have you got?
Plan to demonstrate rather than explain wherever you can. Doing one round with a strong learner is worth three sentences of description.
In practice
Give the instruction, then hand out the paper. Do it the other way round and nobody hears the instruction.
6. Plan how you will know it worked
Decide before the lesson how you will check the aim: an exit task of two or three sentences, a question round the room, or a task you collect. Without this, "they seemed to understand" is all you will have.
Keep it small. Three sentences written in the last four minutes tell you more than a page of homework marked a week later.
Plan the feedback too: note mistakes while they speak, put four sentences on the board at the end - two right, two wrong - and let the class repair them. Nobody is named, and everybody learns.
In practice
Whatever your exit task is, it should be in the form the aim describes. If the aim was questions, the exit task asks for questions.
7. Plan for the class you actually have
Too many learners: turn any mingle into rows - ask the four people nearest you - and collect written work from one row each lesson rather than all of them.
No photocopier: put the text on the board before the lesson, or use dictation; learners write in their notebooks. Almost no good activity truly needs paper.
Mixed levels: plan one support - a list of the verbs, a sentence frame - and one stretch - an extra question, a harder round. Two lines in the plan, and both ends of the class have something to do.
The lesson runs short: keep one five-minute speaking activity in your pocket that needs no materials. The end of a lesson is not the time to invent one.
In practice
A plan that ignores your real class is a plan you will abandon in week two.
A blank plan to copy
Everything below fits on one side of paper. A plan you cannot see at a glance is a plan you will not look at while teaching.
| Part | What goes in it |
|---|---|
| Class and date | Who, when, how long |
| Level | CEFR level, or the course level |
| Main aim | By the end of the lesson, learners will be able to ... |
| Subsidiary aims | One or two, in the same form |
| Target language | The sentences themselves, not the grammar name |
| Meaning, form, pronunciation | Concept questions; the patterns; the sounds |
| Anticipated problems | What they will get wrong, and your solution for each |
| Materials | Everything you must bring or prepare |
| Stages | Stage, aim, time, interaction, what happens |
| Support and stretch | One line each |
| Checking learning | The exit task |
| Homework | If any |
Five mistakes that weaken a lesson
| The mistake | What it looks like, and the fix |
|---|---|
| Planning activities instead of an aim | The lesson is busy and pleasant, and at the end nobody can do anything they could not do before. Fix it by writing the aim first, and asking of every activity: does this serve it? |
| Too much teacher talk | The plan has no interaction patterns, so everything defaults to teacher-to-class. Write the pattern beside every stage and count the minutes learners speak. |
| Free practice too early | Learners are asked to use language they have not yet used accurately even once, so they avoid it. Put a controlled stage in between. |
| Instructions invented on the spot | The class does the wrong thing, and five minutes disappear. Write the words, demonstrate, and check with one question. |
| No way of knowing whether it worked | Plan the exit task when you plan the aim, not when the bell is about to go. |
Questions teachers ask
How long should a lesson plan be?
One page. A plan you cannot see at a glance is a plan you will not look at while teaching. Everything on the blank plan above fits on a single side.
Do experienced teachers still write plans?
They write shorter ones. The thinking does not go away - the aim, the problems, the timings - but it takes ten minutes instead of an hour, and much of it stays in the head. New teachers should write it all down, because that is how it gets into the head.
What if the lesson does not go to plan?
That is normal and not a failure. Keep the aim and drop a stage; the plan exists so that you know which stage can go. Note afterwards what happened, in one line, and your next plan will be better.
Should the plan be in English or my own language?
Whichever you think in. The plan is for you. Only the target language and the instructions you will say need to be in English, and those should be written exactly.
About this guide
Written by RCF English to the RCF English international standard: levelled by the CEFR, original throughout, and suitable for classrooms in any country. Last reviewed 22 September 2026.
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