Recently in Lesson Plans & Handouts Category

There are going to be some major updates to our Lesson Plans page. Alex Case (publications) has started contributing to the site, and our aim is to have a long-term collaboration. The first batch are available now and we will be updating the page frequently.

Supplementary Teaching Resources for EFL/ESL Teachers for teaching privates and small groups of students

The e-book "Supplementary Teaching Resources for EFL/ESL Teachers for teaching privates and small groups of students" embraces many aspects of teaching English and is based on the author's experience of teaching English overseas. It is an essential resource for anyone who is teaching privates and working with small groups of students.

'There is/There are' are used to state the existence or presence of something or someone.
Here are some examples:

There's a clock on the wall.
There are six desks in the classroom.
There are four students in the class.
There are two whiteboards in the classroom.

Getting your student or students to talk about their daily routines is a good way to introduce or review the simple present tense. For homework, you could get your students to describe a typical day in their life or that of their father, mother, or friend. They can start off using these examples, "I get at 7 am. I dress. I eat breakfast." Here's a questionnaire I give my students to get them to think about their daily routines.

Here's a handout I give to my students on how to use the Present Prefect tense.

Present Prefect

• You use the present perfect (not the past simple) when talking about general experiences.

I've never been to Kyoto.
Have you seen this film?

Lesson Plan

Target Language: What does s/he do? S/he's a (occupation).

Vocabulary: Teacher, Farmer, Doctor, Cook

Target: Young Learners

Greetings and Warm-up: Greet the class with a good-morning or good-afternoon depending on the time of day. Have the class stand up and respond to your greeting and do a warm-up. Ask the students, "Do you want to sing a song?" Usually, they'll nod and/or begin to twitch and move their bodies. Some will respond with a yes. Songs I teach young learners include the "Eensy Weensy Spider", "Head & Shoulders, Knees & Toes", "The Alphabet Song", "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star", "Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush," "Ring Around The Rosey", and "Row, Row, Row Your Boat".

Lesson Plan

Target Language: How old are you? I'm (number).

Vocabulary: Numbers 1 to 12

Target: Young Learners

Greetings and Warm-up: Greet the class with a good-morning or good-afternoon depending on the time of the day. Have the class stand up and respond to your greeting and do a warm-up. Ask the students, "Do you want to sing a song?" Usually, they'll give a body language signal by nodding and/or twitching and/or moving their bodies. Some will respond with a yes.

Here's a handout on nouns which I give my students to help them understand irregular plural noun forms.

In English, nouns are divided between the singular and plural form. To make a noun plural, an 's' is usually added to the singular but there are several exceptions to the rule.

Here's a handout that I use to help my students practice and learn how to pronounce the 'th' sound. First, I show them how to make the 'th' sound. Then, I go through the words line by line. I have the students first listen to me pronounce the word and then I get them to repeat after me. I go through Part 1 several times. After that, I test their listening skills by doing part 2 of the handout. They have to circle the word they hear me say.

Here's a handout that I've used to help students practice useful classroom English - How do you spell (noun) in English?

I explain that when they don't know how to spell a word in L2 they can use this useful interrogative sentence. I then do a little bit of drilling and then do some examples e.g. "How do you spell (inu) in English?. It's D-O-G. How do you spell (nihongo) in English? It's J-A-P-A-N-E-S-E. How do you spell (empitsu) in English? It's P-E-N-C-I-L.

Next, I distribute the hand out to the students and explain what they have to do. I demonstrate doing several examples on the board. For example, a cat is an animal. Can you think of some other animals? What animals do you like? As students are completing the handout and are unsure as to how to spell a word, they can ask me, their friends or the Japanese English Teacher using the sentence pattern.