What is inside the ESL lesson plans library
The library holds more than 400 ready-to-use lesson plans, with six to eight new ones published every month. Every plan comes with a Quizlet set for the vocabulary it teaches. Most carry teacher notes under a Teaching Tips label, so you can see the intended sequence before spending an hour of class time on it. It is a working set of ESL lesson plans for teachers who are in class every day.
The ESL teaching resources here are sorted by type as well as by subject:
A full sequence for a 60 minute class built around one text or theme.
Single-focus handouts for practice inside a longer lesson or for homework.
For working adults who need English for meetings, email and negotiation.
For groups, where the point is talk time rather than new grammar.
Built by named teachers from outside the core team, which gives the library a second voice.
Open without a subscription, so you can teach one before deciding.
ESL lesson plans by level
Every lesson is built for a 60 minute class, so what changes between bands is not the running time but the shape of the hour, how much you model before students speak and how long they can hold a turn. Levels run in four overlapping bands rather than five separate steps, because a student is usually finishing one level and starting the next rather than sitting neatly on a label.
| Level Band | Structure and Focus |
|---|---|
| A1-A2 | Core sentence patterns and functional vocabulary. Heavy modelling, short controlled tasks, and speaking with the words still on the board. |
| A2-B1 | Moving from set phrases to sentences of their own. Longer reading, the first hypothetical questions, and written output that starts to count. |
| B1-B2 | Topic-based lessons that build fluency and tidy up accuracy in the structures a student already half knows. |
| B2-C1 | Register, nuance, discourse markers and precision. Speaking-heavy, with correction aimed at style rather than error. |
If you are starting a group from nothing, the beginner section is the place to browse. Those plans assume no shared classroom language and carry far more modelling than the rest of the library. At the other end, a B2-C1 plan hands you a text and a set of questions and expects you to steer the conversation yourself. Choosing one band too high is the most common way a good lesson fails, so when a student sits between two bands, take the lower one and move faster.
ESL lesson plans by topic
A student who understands everything and says nothing needs a different hour from one who talks fluently through the wrong tense. Both of them might test at B1. Level tells you how hard a lesson is, and topic and skill tell you whether it is the right lesson at all.
Discussion, role play and Speaking Club plans. Best for groups, and for the student who understands far more than they produce.
One structure per lesson inside a context, instead of a rules page followed by drills. Best for students who can name their own gaps.
A dozen or so items on one theme with recycling built in. Best for the student who has plateaued on the same few hundred words.
Authentic articles from the BBC, Forbes, The Atlantic and the New Yorker, cut to a length a class can get through in ten minutes.
Meetings, complaints, salary conversations and cross-cultural situations at work, for adults who need this language on Monday.
Sentence stress, hedging, apologising, setting boundaries. Often the lessons students remember, because the gap was obvious to them before you named it.
What a single lesson plan includes
This is the part worth checking before you subscribe to anything, because a lesson plan can mean a page of bullet points or a full teaching pack. Every plan here follows the same ESL lesson plan template, so once you have taught two of them you know where to look for everything.
Lead-in
Two or three questions that get students talking about the theme before any new language appears, so you hear their starting point.
Target language
The words, chunks or structure the lesson teaches, presented in context rather than as a list to copy down.
Controlled practice
Exercises with a right answer, usually as a printable handout you can share on screen instead.
Main material
The text, video or scenario the lesson is built on, with comprehension work attached to it.
Speaking task
The stage where the target language has to be used rather than recognised, in pairs, in groups or as a whole-class round.
Homework
A follow-up task plus the Quizlet set, so the vocabulary comes back before the student forgets it.
Teacher notes and answer keys
What to expect, where students usually stall, and the answers, so you are not solving the exercises live in front of a class.
Lesson plans for online and in-person classes
Every plan downloads as a PDF, so the same file works in a room and on a shared screen. That is the practical test for ESL materials for teachers who move between the two in a single day. Teachers who search for ESL lesson plans pdf usually want exactly this, a file that does not need an app, a login or a stable connection to open.
Online, put the material on screen share and move through one stage at a time rather than sending the whole file at the start. Students who have the PDF in front of them read ahead and stop listening. In a room, print the handout and keep the reading text separate from the questions, so nobody answers while skimming.
One-to-one classes need one adjustment. Group tasks that depend on comparing answers work if you take the second role yourself, and the pair discussion becomes a conversation where you also give an opinion. That is a change to how you run the stage, not a reason to look for different material.
Lesson sets for a full unit
You can teach a good lesson on Tuesday and still have nothing to say when the student asks what comes after it. A set is a unit rather than a course, three to five lessons that hold together, and building one yourself means checking that the language in lesson three really depends on lesson two. The lesson sets have done that already.
Each set sits inside one level band and is built around a theme a student can name as a goal. Job Search runs from first contact to first day, and Workplace Communication 101 covers meetings, messaging and collaboration. Stack two or three and you have a term, but one set alone is a few weeks of work with a clear end. They also help with a student who is wavering about carrying on. They can see where the next few weeks end, instead of booking into an open-ended run of lessons.
How to choose the right lesson for a new student
The first lesson with a new student is mostly a diagnosis, and you will teach it better if you have narrowed the choice beforehand. Four steps get you close enough:
Check the level before you meet
Send the placement test with the booking confirmation and you will have a CEFR band before the first lesson instead of guessing through it.
Take the lower band
If the result puts someone between A2-B1 and B1-B2, start lower. It is easy to speed up and awkward to climb down.
Pick the topic from why they are learning
Ask what they will need English for in the next three months and choose the category that matches, not the one that looks most interesting.
Choose a plan with a speaking task early
You need to hear them talk in the first lesson, because a placement test measures what they recognise and not what they can produce under pressure.
Plans and access
All of these ESL teaching resources sit behind one teacher subscription. Standard is 72 dollars a year and covers the full library of more than 400 lesson plans, the monthly additions and a Quizlet set for every lesson. Plus, at 120 dollars a year, adds homework. Pro, at 144 dollars a year, adds interactive homework, interactive games and a Miro board for each lesson.
All three plans include the whole library, so the difference is what your students get outside the lesson rather than how many lessons you can open. Standard is the right starting point if you teach mostly in the room, and Pro earns its price if you set homework every week. Monthly billing is available, and a school can ask about access for a whole team. There are free lessons in the catalogue if you would rather teach one before deciding.
Frequently asked questions
Can I download the lessons as PDF?
Yes. Every lesson plan downloads as a PDF with the student pages and the teacher notes, so you can print it or open it on a shared screen. Nothing depends on being online during the lesson once the file is on your computer, which is worth knowing if you teach in a room with unreliable wifi.
Do the lesson plans work for groups?
Yes, and some are written for groups specifically. Speaking Club plans assume several students and plenty of talk time. Standard lessons work either way, with a note in the teacher section on how to run pair tasks one to one.
How often are new lessons added?
Six to eight new lesson plans go up every month, plus new lesson sets. Recently published material appears first in the catalogue, so you can see what is new without filtering. Existing lessons are also revised rather than left alone, so a plan you taught last year may have a cleaner handout now.
Is there Business English material?
Yes. Business lessons are a separate lesson type and cover meetings, email, complaints, negotiation, salary conversations and working across cultures. They are written for adults using English at work rather than studying it for an exam.
Can I use the materials in a language school?
For your own classes, yes. If several teachers in one school need access, ask about a team plan rather than sharing a single account, because the individual subscription covers one teacher.
Which levels are covered?
Four bands, A1-A2, A2-B1, B1-B2 and B2-C1, which together cover CEFR levels A1 to C1. Every lesson shows its band in the catalogue, and the level filter combines with topic and skill.