A curriculum built specifically for adult learners
Adults in a language class are beginners at English, and at not much else. They manage teams, raise children, argue with insurance companies and have opinions on most of the topics in a course book. Children's worksheets fail with them mainly because of how they feel. No adult enjoys being asked to label a cartoon animal at forty, and students can tell what that says about how their teacher sees them.
That is why our adult ESL curriculum is built on life skills and workplace topics, and on subjects adults bring up themselves. There are lessons on buying a used car, reading road signs in a new country and asking for a raise. Another covers study habits that fit into ninety minutes a week next to a full-time job. Across the topic categories, adults find lessons on money, relationships, health, work and technology.
There is no childish content in the ESL lesson plans for adults, and the filter makes sure of it. The age filter keeps adult material apart from middle school and high school material, so every plan in this list was written with adults in mind. The grammar and vocabulary targets are the same at all three ages. Only the situations change, and for adults the situation often decides whether they come back the next week.
Lesson plans by level, from beginners to advanced
The bands of the adult ESL curriculum cover the CEFR levels A1 to C1, and it helps to see them as steps on one path. When an adult finishes a lesson and asks what comes next, knowing the path makes the answer easy.
| CEFR level | What the student is learning to do | Example lesson topic |
| A1-A2 | Get through everyday situations with fixed phrases, present tenses, and the language for asking a stranger to repeat something | Total Beginner, where students talk about new skills, plans and what they find hard |
| A2-B1 | Handle everyday life alone, using past and future forms, comparisons and enough vocabulary to describe a problem | Study Smarter, on study habits that last through a working week |
| B1-B2 | Cope with the unexpected, using narrative tenses and modal verbs to explain and negotiate | Roadside Problems, on breakdowns, warning lights and what to say in an emergency |
| B2-C1 | Choose how they sound, using conditionals, hedging, register and implication | Or So They Say, on distancing language and reporting a claim you do not fully believe |
Choose the ESL lesson plans for adult beginners with the most care, because A1 is where many adults give up. In the first lessons, stick to situations your student will face that same week, and let the grammar come in through those situations. The placement test places a new student on the CEFR scale within a quarter of an hour.
Lesson sets group three to five connected plans at one level, which is the closest thing in the adult ESL curriculum to a unit in a course book. With a set, you don't have to decide what comes next for about a month.
Activities built for adult classroom dynamics
Adults don't join in just because an activity is fun. They join in when it seems worth the awkward moment of speaking a language they haven't mastered. The ESL activities for adults in these plans are designed so that the effort pays off.
The discussion questions assume your students have opinions and experience to draw on. In the role plays, both sides want something different, so students can't finish the task simply by agreeing. The pair work uses a real information gap, which makes Student A and Student B ask each other questions. We use competition rarely, because a scoreboard may motivate a fifteen-year-old but tends to embarrass a forty-year-old.
The same thinking sets the pace of these ESL activities for adults. Adults get tired of an activity sooner than teenagers do, so the plans move on while the task is still going well. The plans work for one-to-one and group classes without any rewriting. In a group, the pair activities run as written. One to one, you play the second role, which is also a natural way to model the language without lecturing, and the teacher version marks where you need to do that.
Try a free sample lesson before you subscribe
You can see the material before you pay for it. A number of plans are marked Free, and they open without a paid subscription. If you were looking for ESL lessons for adults free to try before you commit, that filter is the place to begin.
The best test is to teach one of them to a real student. Reading a plan tells you less than using it in class, because you only find out how good it is when the students start talking. Pay attention to the free-practice stage at the end. If students keep talking without you feeding them questions, the plan works. One lesson is usually enough to tell.
Downloadable, printable lesson plans in PDF
Every plan downloads as a PDF. Teachers who search for ESL lesson plans for adults PDF usually want a file they can print and keep, and that is the format you get here.
Each file contains the student pages, the teacher version with the answers, and Teaching Tips notes for the stages that need some setup. You can print only the student pages for a class set. Teaching online, put the PDF up on your screen and move down it task by task. The printable handout section has shorter sheets with a single task, for the weeks when you don't need a full lesson.
On the Pro plan, every lesson also has a Miro board, which is handy when you want to move things around on screen with your students.
Get full access to the adult ESL lesson library
The ESL lesson plans for adults have no separate price. One teacher subscription opens the full library of more than 400 lessons, which grows by six to eight a month, with Quizlet sets throughout and General and Business English side by side. The yearly price is 72 dollars on Standard, 120 on Plus, where homework is included, and 144 on Pro, where you also get interactive homework, revision games and a Miro board per lesson. Monthly billing is an option, and a school can set up one account for its whole team.
Frequently asked questions
Where should I start with a new adult student?
Start with the placement test, then choose the band just below the result. Adults often score higher than they speak, because a multiple-choice test gives them time to think and a conversation doesn't. A first lesson that feels a little easy is a good first lesson.
Do these work for one-to-one lessons?
Yes. In most of our ESL lesson plans for adults, a pair activity works just as well with you and your student as the pair, and the task stays the same. The teacher version shows where you need to do this. Role plays often work better one to one, because you can push back harder than a classmate would.
Is there a way to try the material before subscribing?
Yes. Filter the catalog by Free Lesson and teach one of the lessons. That shows you the structure, the teacher notes and the level better than any description.
How is this different from material written for children?
The grammar is the same, and almost everything else is different. The topics come from work, money, travel and health. The pages have no cartoons, and the ESL activities for adults assume your students have real lives to talk about.
Can I use these with a mixed group of adults at different levels?
Yes, if they are all in the same band, because the bands overlap on purpose. If the group spans two bands, teach one topic at two levels.