Lessons can, and should be, informative and fun.

Quite simply, a TEFL Lesson is a set period of time where you – as a TEFL teacher – work with your class in learning English.
It is part of the hierarchy of learning English where the yearly syllabus is divided into short periods:

English > Syllabus > Lesson > Activity

TEFL Lesson Length

The length of a typical TEFL Lesson is usually either 60 minutes or perhaps 90 minutes; this is usually set by the school but if you are doing private TEFL lessons and can set the length of the lesson yourself then often 90 minutes is the best option.

It is often difficult for students to concentrate for periods longer than this so if you are required to teach for, say, 120 minutes, it’s well worth either allowing for a 5 minute break in the middle of perhaps including a simple, fun, different, type of activity in the middle to refresh the class and serve as a short break.

TEFL Lesson Content

As per the hierarchy above, there will usually a syllabus for the year (or term) set by the school. This is divided into lessons and you may well have 2 or 3 lessons per week with a particular group (or many more with more intensive courses).

Although there are no hard and fast rules, a typical lesson should have a lesson target. This is the focus of the lesson and all activities and exercise in the lesson head towards this. A lesson would typically be divided into:

1. An introduction: where the lesson target is introduced.
2. A few activities where the lesson target is practiced.
3. A closing activity where the lesson is summarized.

Often lessons end on a lighter note with perhaps a 5 minute ‘fun’ activity for the class.

Of course the content of the lesson will have been prepared beforehand by the teacher!