Grammar

What is inside the grammar lesson library

You will not find half-finished templates here. Each lesson names its structure and its level band, and the Teacher's Version has the answers, so you never have to write your own key. We also give every structure a reason to be there. Students meet the past simple while talking about their family history, and the zero conditional while reading odd facts about nature.

The library has five kinds of material:

• Full grammar lessons, where the structure appears in a text, a dialogue or a video and gets practiced in stages
• Short ESL grammar worksheets on one point, such as prepositions of time or make and do collocations
• Student A and Student B pair tasks, where each partner holds half the information and needs the target structure to get the other half
• Lead-in questions that work as grammar warm-ups, getting students to use the structure in the first five minutes, before you mention a rule
• Printable grammar worksheets with the answer key included on a separate page

The level band is printed on every lesson card, so you can see it before you open anything.

Grammar lesson plans by level and structure

Filter the ESL grammar lesson plans by level first. If a structure comes one band too early, the lesson usually stalls in the first five minutes. The catalog uses four overlapping bands, A1-A2, A2-B1, B1-B2 and B2-C1. Inside the grammar filter you can then narrow by tense or by structure and go straight to conditionals or modal verbs.

The filters combine. If you want B1-B2 ESL grammar activities on the present perfect, you can have them in two clicks. For a new student whose level you don't know yet, the placement test gives a CEFR level in about fifteen minutes.

At every level, keep the ESL grammar practice tied to something real. Students find tenses and conditionals dull as rules, and they use them happily when the sentence is about a regret, a car that broke down on the highway, or a crime that was never solved. That is why each of these lessons opens with a story or a problem.

Grammar worksheets and exercises

Speaking practice tells you whether students can use a structure while you help them. A worksheet tells you whether they can do it on their own. Our ESL grammar worksheets pick up the structure the lesson has just taught, starting with controlled items and ending with an open task.

The ESL grammar exercises always come in the same order, so you know where you can stop. First gap-fill and sentence transformation, then error correction, and last a short piece of writing where students have to choose the structure themselves because the task doesn't name it. The answers are on their own page. Print the student pages for the class and keep the key.

Any ESL grammar exercises you don't finish can go home as homework, and checking it makes an easy start to the next class. The printable handout section has these sheets next to the vocabulary and reading ones, for the weeks when you want to spend the whole hour on printable grammar activities.

How a grammar lesson runs

Grammar lessons tend to go wrong at the same point. The teacher writes the rule on the board before students have heard the structure in use, so they memorize a formula with nothing attached to it. Every one of our ESL grammar lesson plans follows the three stages below, whatever the structure.

1. Set the context, about ten minutes. Students read a short text, listen to a dialogue or watch a clip that uses the structure. Your questions are about what happened, and grammar doesn't come up yet. Most students notice the form without being told to look for it.
2. Work out the rule, about ten minutes. With guided discovery questions, students look at meaning, form and pronunciation and put the rule together from examples they already understand. The Teacher's Version lists the questions and the answers you want to reach.
3. Practice in stages, about thirty minutes. Students do controlled exercises first, then a freer task, then free use in a role play, a decision in pairs or a short piece of writing. If they still use the structure correctly at the end, they have learned it. If they drop it, go back to the controlled exercises next week.

The free stage at the end is where grammar becomes conversation. For more speaking-based ESL grammar activities at that stage, see the speaking lesson section.

ESL grammar games for revision

Most grammar lessons in the library come with a revision game built in Genially. Depending on the lesson, it is an escape room, a quiz or a tic-tac-toe board, built around the structure the lesson has just taught. They are no-prep classroom games, so you open the link and play. These ESL grammar games work as a warm-up at the start of the next class or as a ten-minute close once the controlled practice is done. Students can also play them at home. The Quizlet set adds game modes such as Match, for quick ESL grammar practice on a phone. Many lessons also end with a speaking task that plays like a game, where partners can only finish by using the structure correctly.

Teaching grammar online and one to one

The pair tasks and other ESL grammar activities are written for groups. In a one-to-one lesson, you play the second student. Take Student B's half of the task and answer using the target structure, which gives your student a model without a lecture. It also helps to make the odd mistake on purpose. Quiet students will often correct their teacher in a full sentence when they wouldn't answer a question at all.

Online, share the PDF on your screen and show one exercise at a time, which keeps your student from reading ahead. On the Pro plan, each lesson also has a Miro board with the plan already laid out. You and your student can drag sentence halves around and fill gaps together, much as you would with paper cut-ups on a desk.

Get access to the grammar lesson library

You can't buy the ESL grammar lesson plans on their own. They are part of the teacher subscription, which also gives you the rest of the lesson library, a Quizlet set for every lesson, and both General and Business English. Standard is 72 dollars a year and includes all the lessons. The higher plans add tools for the time around the lesson. Plus, at 120, adds homework. Pro, at 144, adds interactive homework, revision games and a Miro board for each lesson, and it suits you best if you teach mostly online. You can also pay monthly, and schools can buy access for a whole team.

See the plans

Frequently asked questions

Do the grammar lessons come with an answer key?

Yes. The answers to the ESL grammar exercises are on their own page in the Teacher's Version, so you can print copies for the class without giving the key away by mistake.

Do these lessons work one to one?

Yes. The only change is that you play the second student in the pair tasks. The rest of the ESL grammar practice works as written.

Which level should I start with?

Pick the band just below where you think your student is. If the structure is too hard, the lesson is usually lost. The placement test gives you a CEFR level if you'd rather not guess.

Can I use only the worksheet without teaching the whole lesson?

Yes, the ESL grammar worksheets work on their own. Give students a few minutes of context first, though. Without a situation around it, a structure turns into a list of words to learn, and students stop thinking about the grammar.

Are these suitable for teenagers as well as adults?

Yes. The age filter splits the catalog into adult, middle school and high school material, and most of the ESL grammar lesson plans carry the high school tag too. The grammar is the same at every age, so only the topics change.