
Find online lesson plans on many topics or use the useful external links to create your own lessons for your ESL beginners (CLB 1-4).
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THIS WEEK’S FEATURED POST
Week of May 11/26
Most Canadians celebrate Queen Victoria’s birthday on or around May 24. This lesson plan focuses on Victoria Day as part of the history of the monarchy in Canada.
We will also learn and sing…
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ESL DIRECTIONS, A TOOLKIT
About ESL Directions
This website for ESL teachers offers online lesson plans and multimedia materials tailored to beginner ESL students.
You will also find curated lists of links to external digital tools for generating custom flashcards, video and audio files, and interactive games.
What’s on this website?

Health
- Parts of the body and illnesses
- Calling 911
- At the doctor
- Going to the dentist
- At the pharmacy
- At the eye doctor
- Calling 811 (in Alberta)
- Understanding the Alberta health care system

Food, food shopping, and restaurants
- Buying groceries
- Talking with the grocery cashier
- Ordering food in a restaurant
- Ordering takeout

Meeting people
- First day of class
- Small talk
- Greetings

Your home and community
- Family
- Gardening
- Visiting the public library
- Your local school (parent-teacher interviews)
- In a clothing store and winter clothes

Work
- Finding and applying for a job
- Job interviews

Alberta
- About Edmonton
- Regions
- Hstory and culture

Canadian culture and environment
- Culture
- Geography
- Seasons and months
- Weather forecasts
- Winter weather

Canadian holidays
- Victoria Day
- Canada Day
- Thanksgiving
- Halloween
- Remembrance Day
- Christmas

Introducing Canadian citizenship
Introduce your beginner students to some topics related to Canadian citizenship through simplified and shortened lesson plans.
- Who we are
- History
- Regions
- Symbols

Transportation
- At the airport
- Driving
- Taking the bus

All about numbers
- Cardinal and ordinal numbers
- Canadian currency and making change
- Banking vocabulary and using an ATM
- The Canadian tax system
- Telling the time

Understanding grammar: The building blocks of language
- Parts of speech
- Verb tenses
- Pronouns

ESL videos
Find all of the short ESL Directions videos in one place. Use these short videos on their own or as part of a longer lesson plan.
Topics include:
- Alberta
- Canada
- Health
- Numbers, money, and banking
- Work
- Your home and community
RELATED PAGES
Find digital ESL resources for beginners
Here are some digital-friendly and mostly free websites I use to find resources for my ESL beginner students (CLB 1-4). The…
Keep readingCreate digital ESL resources for beginners
Here are some free digital-friendly websites I use for beginner ESL students (CLB 1-4). The sites include audio resources, vocabulary flashcards,…
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Click the small arrow on the right below to see all of the ESL Directions videos, or visit the ESL Directions: Learning English YouTube playlist.
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ABOUT ESL DIRECTIONS
ESL teacher, movie buff, constant reader, and former editor and communications pro. Now a graduate of the Teaching English as a Second Language program at the University of Manitoba and an ESL teacher in Edmonton, Alberta, I specialize in teaching online classes of beginner ESL students.
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