Time-Wasters vs. What Actually Works: How to Plan ELL Lessons That Save You Time and Boost Student Success

Top 5 Lesson Planning Time Wasters ELL Teachers Should Avoid (And What to Do Instead)

Planning lessons for English language learners (ELLs) can feel like a never-ending task. You want to meet the needs of your students, but often find yourself buried in hours of prep that doesn’t lead to lasting results. In this post, we’re breaking down five of the most common lesson planning time wasters — and better, smarter alternatives that help you work less and teach better.

1. Creating New Slides for Every Lesson

Yes, visuals are important for ELLs, but making unique, Pinterest-perfect slides for every lesson? That’s style over substance. Instead, use a set of editable templates you can plug new content into each week. Your slides will look polished, but your focus stays on teaching, not designing.

2. Planning Separate Lessons for Every Language Level

If you’re juggling multiple language levels or grade spans, trying to write individual lessons for each group is a fast track to burnout. The solution? One strong lesson with scaffolded access points. Use tools like sentence stems, visuals, or tiered output expectations to meet each learner where they are.

3. Forcing a Monolingual Curriculum to Work

Many ELL teachers waste hours trying to adapt a curriculum that wasn’t built with their students in mind. Flip the approach: start with your students—their needs, their language levels, their interests—and adapt the curriculum to them. Use tools like the WIDA Can Do Descriptors to guide your planning from a student-first perspective.

4. Trying to Teach Everything in Every Lesson

When you’re limited to 30-minute sessions, cramming in all four domains (reading, writing, speaking, listening), vocabulary, and content objectives just leads to confusion. Instead, focus on one clear objective per lesson. You’ll see better retention and more engaged learners.

5. Using Activities That Don’t Build Language

Worksheets, coloring pages, and cut-and-paste tasks can be tempting — especially at the end of a long week. But if your activity doesn’t require language output, it’s not moving the needle. Replace busy work with interactive tasks like picture prompts, partner games, and vocabulary discussions that get students talking and thinking.

So What Does Work?

Start with a language objective, not a topic
Repeat routines that reinforce key skills — don’t reinvent weekly
Use systems, not just strategies, to streamline your planning

Inside the Equipping ELLs Membership, you’ll find everything mentioned in this episode — from co-planning frameworks to warm-up routines — all designed to save you time and boost your confidence.Connect with Beth:

More about Equipping ELLs:

We all know that teaching isn’t easy, but it doesn’t have to be this hard. Equipping ELLs is a podcast for both ESL specialists and homeroom teachers who are looking for effective and engaging ways to support their English Language Learners without adding to their endless to-do list. Tune in each week to hear tips, strategies, and inspirational stories that will empower you to better reach your ELL students, equip them with life-long skills, and strengthen relationships with colleagues and parents.

Your host, Beth Vaucher, is the founder of Inspiring Young Learners. She is an ESL certified homeroom teacher with over 10 years of experience teaching in the US and internationally. Her background of M.Ed in ESL and Curriculum and Instruction combined with her experience has led her to develop a bestselling newcomer curriculum that has sold in over 90 countries around the globe. She brings a different perspective to teaching ELLs from her years teaching and living abroad and working with ELLs from around the world. You will walk away from each episode with the ideas and tools you need to transform your experience as a teacher and cultivate a thriving and welcoming environment for your ELL students.

Beth

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