These are the best ESL teaching resources for primary school, in the classroom and also at after school clubs.

After school clubs are incredibly tiring because it takes a lot of energy to teach the kids after a day at school, but you can do it. On the other hand, morning lessons on a Saturday or Wednesday are easy. Either way, for these extra-curricula lessons, class time must be fun or the kids won’t want to come.

I did after school and Sat morning clubs and it was great. The kids enjoyed it and parents were keen to keep their kids coming. I put on a show after every term so parents could see what their kids had been up to. Sometimes that meant parents piling into my living room and sometimes it was on a stage at a school – either way, it was great for everyone.

ESL Teaching Resources Games & Skits

I would get “176 Games for Children”either in paperback from Amazon or from me in download.

I would also get my plays and skits for kids. You might be better off with the download version from me because that way you can print off a script should you want to. I never give out the scripts, but sometimes you can give a copy to the best pupil, if they have the leading role, so they can mug up at home – that is for motivated pupils. For most of them, they are worse off if they have a script.

I will send you a lesson plan to go with one of the skits and lots of tips on how to prepare kids, so you know the ropes.

ESL Teaching Resources Stories

Initially, you can do everything with just the plays and the games book, plus a few songs from YouTube. And in fact you could get started like that. However, if you want a ready made curriculum and more resources at hand, then I would get one of my story sets. They come with lesson plans made of games, and flashcards, even some worksheets. I don’t do much in the way of writing during after school clubs but one worksheet per lesson can be good. It quietens the kids down and gives them a record of what they are learning.

You could get one set for the six year olds who will be total beginners. The first story set is for absolute beginners and builds very slowly. The stories are super basic, but you can act them out and there are matching songs. Those are great for ages 3-6. But teachers use them with age 7 too.

The advantage of that is you can follow the method and there are plenty of activities to use up all your lesson time and make sure the kids learn well too.

However, to save you buying loads of stuff before you even start, I will give you the first story and you can use that for the first couple of lessons with the 6 and 7 year-olds;

And I’ll send you a school story from my ‘about me’ set that you can use for the 8-9-10.

Variety

In a lesson you want to start with language games and teach any new words or grammar while kids are fresh. Then you spend some of the lesson putting a skit together, and a part on a song. And 5 minutes on a worksheet. And tell a story with actions. The hour will soon go by, especially once you know lots of games.

So, for me the essential purchases are the games book and the skits. The flashcard set is handy because it has all the vocab from all 30 skits in my book. That said, you can get kids to draw them if you want to save money, and play games with the flashcards they make. Either way, you definitely need flashcards for all lessons because many games use them.

Then, once you get going and you have numbers and money coming in, get some story sets so you have more lesson plans at your finger tips.

Story gifts to get you started

Younger crowd 3 to 6

LESSON PLAN I’m Hungry

STORY I’m Hungry

You get bingo, the flashcards and various other things with the full resource but this is plenty to get you going for the first couple of lessons. The 6-year-olds will probably need two lessons per story. Then you start story two, while revising story one and song, and start on a skit in lesson three. The skit will take all term to put together doing 10-15 minutes in each lesson. Towards the end of the term they know the skit so at that point you run through it a couple of times each lesson, adding some props at the end.

Download the story pictures

Download the story text for beginners

SONG I’m Hungry
Play this as background for games like musical flashcards. Then put mimes together and kids act each animal, and shake hands on the how are you?

Go to the song

Older crowd 7 to 10

The best ESL teaching resources for ages 7 to 10 are my Skits, About Me, Daily Life and Special Days stories.

Here is a free sample to use in the first lessons.

https://teachingenglishgames.com/school-story-lesson-plan/
https://teachingenglishgames.com/school-flashcards/
https://teachingenglishgames.com/school-story/

I’ll be here to help !

All the best
Shelley Ann Vernon