ESL teachers need to ensure that they have all of the necessary tools before stepping into a classroom. English learners require lessons and assessments that cater to their language abilities. ESL teachers need to engage their students with warm up activities to get the students thinking in English and not their native language. Comprehensive lessons can be constructed to include a 10 to 15 minute warm up activity to get the students speaking, writing and listening in English.

Lesson Plan
Every ESL teacher needs to have a lesson plan outlining the activities, aims and learning outcomes for her lesson. Language lesson plans are designed to fit the English level of the student or class. As shown under Lesson Template on the Project SHINE website, a lesson plan should have a lesson focus, a list of materials, the date and the name of the student or class listed on the top. A table can be made with the column titles: "main activities," "method," "skill areas" and "timing." The "main activities" column describes what will be taught, including warm ups, a review of previous lessons and new material to be introduced in class. The "method" column explains how the lesson will be taught, including group work, independent work, steps and resources used to teach. The "skill areas" column focuses on what the aim or goal of the lesson is, and how the student is improving his English. The "timing" column lists the length of time that each activity takes to complete.

Student Assessment Criteria
It is important for ESL teachers to develop relevant assessment criteria to grade a student's English ability. A good assessment item for an English learner requires all areas of language to be evaluated. The criteria used to grade a student's performance can be used for report cards and feedback. First, a student needs to be assessed on her effort and participation in class. The teacher needs to judge whether a student has been making an effort to learn English and has participated fully in class time. Vocabulary can be assessed to determine if a student is working on broadening her vocabulary. Pronunciation and reading are indicators of a student's oral language ability. Some other criteria to use during an evaluation are behavior, writing, listening and rate of improvement.

Warm Ups
Warm ups are an excellent method of grabbing a student's attention and getting him involved at the start of a lesson. For English learners, it is important for teachers to use activities and games to promote student engagement. One game that can be used to promote English literacy is "Two Truths, One Lie." To play this game, ask your students to write two true sentences and one false sentence on a piece of paper. Tell the students to read their three sentences out loud, and have the class vote on which sentence they think is the lie. This activity promotes both oral and writing skills. Another good warm up is "Where In the World." To play this game, write the name of a continent on a piece of paper for each table. Write the headings "food," "clothes," "famous people," "drink" and "animals" on the board. When the students come into the class, tell them to quietly discuss the features on the board that correspond to the continent on their table. This allows you to guide a discussion about world cultures and issues.