Whether you are teaching English at an elementary school, middle school, high school or college, the process of planning your lessons is largely the same. Basically, the more detailed your plan, the better, as you will be more confident that you know what teaching activities to engage in at every stage of the lesson. When planning for your English class, however, always assign a time frame for each classroom activity, based on your estimates and previous experience.

Define the objective of what you need to teach at the next lesson. If you have a plan of what you will teach each lesson so that you comply with the curriculum of your institution, use it to set the objective for the upcoming class. The objective, or objectives, should be clear and concise. For example, "Teach the Present Perfect Continuous tense to 10th-grade ESL students. Explain how to write a simple English composition, including the introduction, body and ending. Check homework (comprehension of the text Alice in the Wonderland, abridged)."

Identify the teaching methods and activities you can use to fulfill the objective of the class, defined in Step 1. The teaching methods may include a lecture, discussion or classroom assignments that allow students to learn by doing certain tasks, for example, reading an English text. The activities you can use can vary greatly. For example, you can ask students to debate a certain topic, recite a poem or answer questions about English grammar.

Plan your assessment of how well the students are learning what you are teaching. The learning-teaching process has two parts and it is important to get continuous feedback from your students. Prepare questions that will allow you to gauge whether the students have understood the concept you have just explained. For instance, if you have explained "Hamlet" to your students, you can ask them, "Why did Hamlet kill Laertes?"

Prepare the homework you will give to your students. Homework is essential, as it allows students to revise the material you have covered in class and gives them a chance to broaden and deepen their knowledge about the topic. Also, provide students with sources of where they can get further information on the topic, if they are interested.