What are Lesson Flows?
We understand that selecting the right ESL Brains lesson can be a bit overwhelming. With over 600 unique lessons, it’s hard to know where to start. That’s why many of you have been enjoying Lesson Sets, our short lesson sequences of 2-3 worksheets connected by the same topic or function.
So, we wanted to come up with something more comprehensive: Lesson Flows!
Lesson Flows are a much larger sequence of lessons, designed to take your student on a particular learning journey. Lesson Flows contain 15 lessons per sequence, with additional ‘follow up’ lesson suggestions. The Flows are compilations of pre-existing ESL Brains lessons, but with a new purpose of helping teachers navigate learning in a more structured way.
Who should use Lesson Flows?
Lesson Flows are useful for:
- teachers starting with a new student(s) and want a structured learning plan to follow
- teachers who are new to ESL Brains and need help navigating the lesson database
- teachers wanting to teach using ESL Brains lessons exclusively
- teachers looking to try out a new curriculum instead of a standard textbook structure
How do Lesson Flows work?
Think of a Lesson Flow like a loose curriculum. We provide a suggested sequence of pre-existing ESL Brains lessons that take your students on a language learning path, allowing them to build skills as they go. The lessons are sequenced to ensure a smooth transition between topics, and each lesson provides a new objective in terms of vocabulary, grammar, or functional language. We’ve selected 15 lessons that we think students will benefit from the most. Each lesson flows seamlessly into the next, allowing students to build on what they’ve learned previously and reinforce their skills as they progress.
By the end of a Lesson Flow, students should feel that they have advanced in their language usage and gained new skills, and you should feel that you’ve successfully guided through a structured learning experience.
The best part? You don’t need to stress about planning each class and ensuring logical transitions between lessons. Weeks of planning is all done for you!
What Lesson Flows are available?
At the moment, we offer two lesson flows: A2 General and A2/B1 Business.
Our A2 General Lesson Flow takes students on a journey in which they revise basic tenses (e.g. Present Simple, Present Continuous) and useful grammar structures (e.g. defining relative clauses). Students learn vocabulary for functional purposes, such as expressing opinions and ordering at restaurants. They also learn useful phrases for asking questions, talking about time, and describing their feelings. They have lots of speaking practice and gain vocabulary to talk about topics like travelling, shopping, and their homes.
Our A2/B1 Business Lesson Flow allows students to talk about what they do, discuss other workplace matters (e.g. benefits, motivations), and discuss cultural differences with global business partners. They learn a lot of vocabulary and useful functional language, such as phrases to express agreement, airport and travel plan language, and ways to make workplace requests. They also practise useful grammar structures such as modal verbs (e.g. must, might) and tenses like the Present Perfect to describe experiences.
NEW: B2/C1 Flows!
We’ve added B2 and C1 Flows as a result of the positive feedback we’ve received.
Read our blog post about B2/C1 Flows here.
Our B2 General Lesson Flow helps students learn upper intermediate tenses (e.g. Future Continuous, Future Perfect) and useful grammar structures for specific purposes (e.g.’used to’, reported speech, expressing regret). Students learn functional language to help them make small talk, be polite, and express opinions. They also learn upper intermediate-level vocabulary to talk about preferences, eating and cooking, money, travel, and productivity. Students do lots of work to improve speaking skills and can take advantage of our useful follow-up lessons for extra practice.
Our C1 General Lesson Flow helps students revise advanced grammar structures (e.g. conditional tenses), as well as teaching some new concepts (e.g. understanding ellipsis, expressing probability, using conjunctions). Students learn functional language to help with clarifying and checking understanding, as well as taking part in pronunciation activities. They learn to talk about everyday concepts (e.g. family, personality traits, emotions) in an advanced, nuanced way. Students get a ton of new vocabulary while discussing abstract topics, such as copyright and AI, ethical dilemmas in science, space exploration, challenges and achievements, survival skills, and humour. Like the B2 Flow, students work heavily on conversational skills and have many useful follow-up lessons for extra practice.
We’re hoping to compile more Flows for different levels and purposes, but we need your feedback to help us make them as effective as possible. Let us know if you find them useful and we encourage any feedback you might have to improve the flows.
So, what are you waiting for? Try out one of our Lesson Flows today!
absolutely fabulous, well done guys.
Thanks so much, we’re thrilled you like it 😊
Great Idea! Axiously looking forwstd tô using them
Thanks! We’re excited for you to try them out too. If you have any feedback or suggestions, we’d love to hear them!
That’s why we love you guys!
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Finally. Thank you! Level-specific Flows with coherent progression of skills-building lessons will help those who lack experience in methodology and course organisation. Perhaps, short reviewing activities, sprinkled here and there would make a Flow as a whole more effective?
Thanks for the feedback! Glad you like the Lesson Flows 😊 Adding short review activities is a great idea – we’ll look into it!
I totally agree! It’s important to have some short pop-up quizzes or tests to recap the vocab or grammar. I’d also provide some extra homework material that a teacher could choose from. Otherwise, great job, guys!
oh my goodness what a fabulous job! Super job! Extremely useful!
Thank you! We’re so glad you found it helpful.
we love it! thanks for your effort to keep us satisfied 😉
Thank you! We’re so happy to hear that! 😊
Great! Great! Great!
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This is awesome guys! Thank you so much!
Thanks! Your support really motivates us 🙂
You guys never cease to amaze me! Thanks for enabling me to teach English on a high level with your incredible lesson plans. Cheers from Brazil!
Thank you so much! Cheers from our team, and all the best in Brazil! 🌟
I’ve been making these types of ¨flows¨ on my own for the past year, so this is going to be very helpful!
Awesome! We’d love to hear your thoughts on our Lesson Flows and how they compare to your own 🙂
I loved it! Maybe a grammar flow for students that just want to review the verb tenses for example?
Thank you! And thanks for the suggestion 🙂 Keep them coming!
Can’t wait to start using these, excellent idea ! Keep them coming ! Maybe one for different grades of ESL learners at school 🙂
Thank you so much! Let us know how it goes and what you think once you start using them! 😊
This is what I needed at the beginning of school year! Thank you guys. I’m hoping to see more of them at different levels of English
We’re so glad to hear this came at the perfect time! Thank you for your feedback, and we’re definitely planning to offer more at various levels. So stay tuned!
this is great! thank you so much, it’s going to save me so much planning time! Looking forward to the higher level ones as well.
You’re very welcome! We’re happy to hear it’s helpful and saving you time 🙂
Fabulous. Thank you
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I love this idea. I can’t wait to try them.
We’re thrilled you love the idea! Can’t wait to hear how it goes.
What a great idea! Thank you! These flows are going to save me a lot of time organizing and planning. Thanks again!!!
Great, saving time on planning is exactly what we had in mind!
this is so helpful!! thank you. Will there be a Rollout for B2 and C1 students as well?
We’re so glad you found it helpful! 😊
wonderful! looking forward to the next ones!
Thank you so much! We’re excited to share more with you soon. Stay tuned 🙂
What a brilliant idea!
Thank you! We’re glad you think so 🙂
I was thinking it would be great if you could allow sub folders in the”saved lessons” section to allow us to save our own lesson flows. That way, we could prepare some course programmes in advance and save time. What do you think?
Thanks for the suggestion! We’ll consider it!
Hi wow, these are great !!! more please – suggestions if I may 🙂
Can you do lesson flows on tenses, ( particularly the top 5 most used, and the sequence for using them – i.e a life story or a travel story), the conditionals, modals ( a flow in story format would be awesome – i.e how to use modals in everyday life), and then past modals and how, tenses, conditionals, and modals are connected. Flows on reported speech ( and the uses of the tenses and modals within reported speech). Can you do flows on questions: WH, Subject, object, tag, yes/ no, prepositional questions, etc, Fows on auxiliary verbs would be great – and the uses of auxiliary verbs in tenses/ modals. I use another platform too, (no names mentioned ) (it’s just becoming too costly, but it has a step-by-step curriculum) – but I find that B1 – B2 students need these types of lessons I have mentioned more than anything. I would gladly pay more here for structured groups of lessons.
Thanks for your suggestions! We actually have lesson sets that cover some of those topics already. Please check them out here.
I was looking for something like this, organized. I think I will make the most of it for my new students 🙂
Great, we’re so glad you found it helpful! 😊
Great … an idea worth expanding and developing. Well done.
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Wooow guys, GREAT JOB! You make my life so much easier! Thank you so much!
Thanks so much! We’re happy to make things easier for you! 😊
I’m trying the A2 general Flow with a new student; it’s going really well and it’s helped me a lot. Of course I’m adjusting it to the student’s interests and level, but I’m saving loads of time in my lesson planning.
That’s awesome to hear! 🎉 We’re glad the A2 General Flow is working well for you and saving you time. Thanks for sharing! 😊
Love them, can we have B1/B2?
I’m eager to see the A1 General Flow
We’ll make it happen as soon as we publish enough A1 lessons 🙂
The lesson flows are fantastic! It would be brilliant if you added revisions and tests to it as well! <3 Love your work!
Thank you so much for your kind words! 😊 Make sure to check out the two new Lesson Flows we just published – one for B2 and another for C1 students.
This is amazing, looking forward to A1 Lesson Flow! That’s my biggest demand 🙈
Thanks, it’s definitely coming, but we need to publish a few more A1 lessons first to make it as comprehensive as possible. Stay tuned!
Thank you so much! Having these Lesson Flows will save so much time and help me feel confident on how I’m leading my student’s progress!
Thank you! 😊 We’re so glad to hear that!
hello Ellii
Do you have something for A1?
Best,
Hi there! You can find our A1 lesson here.