How to tell the time
Overview
This ESL lesson plan is designed for beginners and focuses on teaching them how to tell the time in English. Students will review asking for and expressing time and leave the class equipped with the necessary language skills for real-world, time-related interactions.
The lesson begins with a suggested boardwork example that introduces the target language. Next, students will take part in a series of low-resource activities consisting of speaking and writing tasks, allowing them to apply their newly acquired knowledge. Finally, the lesson ends with a classroom game designed to reinforce the concepts learned and provide students with a fun and interactive experience.
Classroom activities
Use of the board
The students review a diagram to express time phrases before learning a simple dialogue.
Complete the diagram first, then move onto the dialogue. Elicit as much as possible using the colour-coded text as a guide.

Times
A speaking activity where students have to tell the time from clocks drawn on the board.

Show me the time
The students add times to the board while the rest of their classmates have to respond with the correct time expression.

In the evening
For this writing activity, students will use the target language to write several statements about their evenings.

My partner's evening
In this speaking activity, students will swap notebooks with a partner and answer some questions.

Classroom games
What's the time
Players have to pretend to be a clock and signal the time to their teammates.

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750+ Low-prep classroom activity ideas
1100+ Printable ESL flashcards
180+ ESL lesson plans
8 Distinct language levels
Offline access through the TEFLHandbook app
Reduce your planning time and improve the way you present and teach English grammar.
