A panoply of teaching resources.
This is week 9 of the semester. Last week the ESL students had a mid term exam so we could check their speaking skills and assess their ability to learn English.
Teaching English requires a panoply of skills. One of them is preparation. ESL teachers need a good supply of ready to go materials when the inevitable surprise comes up. Like when a lesson finishes early and you want to fill a gap with a useful activity.
Consider adding these 5 activities to your collection of back pocket activities, fun language-focused exercises, video lessons and pair work discussion builders that require little prep.
Most of the activities are geared towards a conversation class (high beginner+), but can easily be adapted for writing classes with some imagination.
This lesson helps ESL students improve the quality of their writing, speaking and thinking by understanding the differences between correlation and causation.
Learning these vital concepts helps students write logical stories and essays by avoiding post hoc fallacies. It also helps them develop critical thinking skills and an ability to express complex ideas in writing and conversation classes.
Developing an ability to identity and evaluate cause and effect relationships is not easy for students, especially those coming from an education system that emphasizes rote memorization. Finding causality requires a degree of imagination and a willingness to inquire, to dare and explore ideas.
In that sense, imagination fosters understanding.
By the end of this lesson, ESL students will:
Every ESL teacher needs a reliable set of quick ESL class resources and activities ready to use at any moment. Classes often run into unexpected time gaps, early finishers, or energy dips that call for a simple change of pace. A flexible toolkit ensures that students stay engaged while they build real English writing and speaking skills in short, meaningful bursts.
This post shares practical ESL classroom activities that help learners strengthen vocabulary recall, improve writing accuracy, and build conversational confidence. These ideas include printable worksheets, vocabulary reviews, conversation prompts, and pair work tasks. Each activity maximizes learning opportunities without requiring long preparation time.