Simple no-prep ideas for ESL classes

How’s your January? New year, new you? Are you ready to rock your classes, feeling creative and adventurous?

If this is not the case and you might use some extra help, I have some simple lesson plans you can use whenever you want – especially now, at the beginning of the new year:

Responsibility vs Spontaneity – it’s a lesson plan based on a short film by Walt Disney Animation Studios, Inner Workings. I think it may work really well as a January class, when your students can talk about more or less realistic resolutions… and how important fun is! Your students will revise vocabulary connected with parts of body and daily routine, will work on narrative tenses, conditionals and modal verbs as well as giving advice and plans for the future.

Let’s plan our learning – this is a great lesson for those who want to focus on serious education! It will help your students understand the idea of planners, and maybe even create their own study planners! You can start the new year with some real resolutions that will help your students learn better and more efficiently.

The Power of Useless – this simple lesson not only makes students revise the language connected with technology and presentation, but also help them learn something really important: you can really find joy in doing something seemingly useless, even as an adult; and that’s probably the most important lesson for January, right?

Storytelling: How to Start – it’s a great lesson plan for those who haven’t tried storytelling yet! Students will create their own stories, and this lesson plan can be used on various levels and in various age groups – believe me, adults love storytelling at least as much as kids do! Start the New Year with a new activity and let it change your classes.

But Wait! It Gets Worse! – it’s a lesson plan that will make your students not only laugh but also complain to their hearts’ content (I recommend this lesson for more mature students, though). Students will revise vocabulary connected with daily routine, disasters and catastrophes, will work on creating fluent dialogues, popular expressions, complaining and develop creativity, lateral thinking and empathy. It may be a great antidote for all the New Year hype, after all a little bit of complaining never hurt anybody.

Aliens vs Humans – this simple lesson plan shows your students that learning a language is pretty much like discovering aliens, getting familiar with them and trying to communicate with them. It may help them understand that sometimes you just need to try and communicate instead of trying to sound grammatically perfect.

I hope you’ll find these lesson plans useful!

Enjoy!