A great English lesson has clear learning objectives, well-structured lesson plans, opportunities for practice, a fun learning environment, personalization, and real-world applicability. 

Let’s explore each element in more detail.

Clear Learning Objectives

A learning objective is what you hope your child will learn or take away from a lesson. It keeps your English lessons relevant and tied to specific outcomes.

For example, your learning objective for a lesson on articles in English might be “By the end of this lesson, my child will be able to identify the three types of articles in English and use them in sentences.” 

A Well-Structured Lesson Plan

A structured lesson plan gives you much-needed clarity and direction. You’ll know what to cover, how to cover it, and how to assess your child’s learning. 

It also ensures your lesson content has a logical flow, which boosts your child’s comprehension and retention. 

For example, a solid lesson plan structure will ensure you do a warm-up first, then present the topic and move on to practice later—instead of immediately starting with practice. 

Amble Opportunities for Practice

Speaking of, Teagan Evans, a Novakid teacher, says that great English lessons provide “plenty of opportunities to practice speaking, listening, and reading so that learners can actively apply what they have learned.” 

Regular practice also enhances vocabulary retention, grammar comprehension, and fluency development, according to an academic article published in the Journal of Knowledge Learning and Science Technology. 

Fun Learning Environment

No one wants to sit through a boring lesson, including your kid. Just think back to your schooldays when you spaced out as your teacher droned on about parts of speech. 

Evans frames the benefits of engaging lessons this way: “When students are having fun, they become intrinsically motivated, which leads to deeper learning and greater long-term progress.”

Personalized, Contextual Learning

Personalized learning “adapts to the individual learner’s needs, pace, and interests,” explains Evans. It’s because of this personalization that 63.9% of Novakid teachers think individual lessons work better for children, according to our 2025 survey.

Contextual learning—or connecting learning to the real world—is also important because it helps your child draw connections between lessons and their everyday lives, increasing comprehension.

By ensuring your English lessons have these elements, you can create highly engaging and effective learning experiences for your kid. 

You don’t need a degree in education to create quality English lessons for your kid. Just follow these tips to make their learning fun and effective. 

1) Analyze Your Child’s Needs

Before creating English lessons for your kid, Teagan Evans says you should “start by understanding your child’s current level and specific needs so you can target the right skills.”

For example, where does your kid rank in English proficiency? Are they A0, A1, or A2-level? And where do they excel or struggle (grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation)?

Once you determine that, you can create tailored lessons that meet your child where they are and grow their skills to where they need to be.  

2) Determine Learning Objectives

Use your needs analysis from earlier to establish clear learning objectives. 

Evans says your objective can be “something simple like learning new vocabulary, practicing a grammar structure, or [anything] to give the lesson direction.”

You can use the following framework for your learning objectives: 

“By the end of this lesson, my child will be able to [describe desired action or behavior].”

If you were doing a lesson on the present simple verb tense, your learning objective would be: “By the end of this lesson, my child will be able to define the present simple verb tense and use it correctly in a sentence.

3) Choose Your Teaching Tools and Materials

The right teaching materials and tools will bring your English lessons to life. They’ll also keep you organized so you can teach efficiently.

Here are some resources you can use to execute your lessons: 

• Google Slides and Canva to create lesson slides
• Google Drive to organize your digital content
• Children’s books and online reading passages to build your child’s reading comprehension and vocabulary 
• Teachers Pay Teachers and Twinkl to find printable worksheets
• Quizlet, Kahoot!, and other online learning platforms to practice language skills
• YouTube to incorporate audio and video into lessons 

4) Create Structured Lessons

Well-structured lessons keep content and activities aligned with learning objectives and make sure your child achieves desired learning outcomes. 

Evans recommends a simple structure: “warm-up, presentation, focused practice, and a short review.”

For example, for a lesson on collocations (e.g., make your bed, do homework), you might start with an activity connected to collocations, transition to introducing the topic, let your child practice collocations, and then recap the lesson. 

Other ESL lesson planning frameworks include:

• Presentation-Practice-Pronunciation (PPP)
• Test-Teach-Test (TTT)
• Engage-Study-Activate (ESA) 

5) Make It Fun 

Your lessons should engage your child, not put them to sleep. Evans adds, “When lessons are purposeful but fun, children stay motivated and build lasting confidence in English.” 

Add the following elements to make your English lessons more enjoyable and interactive: 

• Educational videos
• Songs
• Online and hands-on games
• Role-playing activities 
• Read-alouds 

With a clear roadmap for creating great English lessons, you spend less time stressing over logistics and more time tailoring your content to your child’s specific interests and needs.   

Here are some general strategies to use for your English lessons to enhance your child’s learning:

• Speak slowly and be patient: Speak carefully and enunciate words so your child can follow what you’re saying. Give them a few extra seconds to process and respond. 
• Start with basic words and phrases: Focus on greetings, introductions, essential nouns (family members, colors, numbers), and basic verbs (eat, sleep). Use pictures and visual aids when you can. 
• Read to your kid daily: Read children’s books aloud in their native language, translate the text into English, and indicate words that are similar in both languages (e.g., family and familia). Let your child practice saying the words in English. 
• Increase talk time: Ask your child questions and have them respond in English so they apply their knowledge and build confidence. 
• Check for understanding: Do a short quiz or activity after every lesson to see if your child understands the content or needs more practice. 

Ultimately, Evans says parents should keep one key principle in mind when teaching their child English: consistency.

“Language learning is built through repeated exposure and use over time. Therefore, trying to create small daily opportunities to hear and speak English can make a significant difference,” she says. 

Here’s a sample English lesson that uses the PPP method and focuses on greetings in English: 

Yes, you can use AI tools like ChatGPT to create English lessons faster and make your content more personalized and engaging.

Evans recommends using AI to: 

• Generate lesson ideas
• Create vocabulary lists
• Design simple quizzes
• Suggest conversation questions
• Organize structured lesson plans around a specific topic,
• Provide quick explanations of grammar rules or examples that are tailored to a child’s age and level

However, you shouldn’t use AI to replace one-to-one teaching, simply because AI tools can’t substitute empathetic, human instruction. In fact, our survey found that 62.4% of teachers said that AI can only support—not replace—human teaching. 

That’s because “children need feedback, patience, and genuine conversation to build confidence and communication skills, says Evans. 

She adds, “While AI can help parents save time and feel more organized, the most meaningful learning still happens through supportive guidance and real-world practice with a parent or teacher.”

Teaching your child English becomes much easier when you have expert-backed advice to rely on. But even with our step-by-step guidance, you might find that your child requires deeper expertise and more targeted intervention than you can provide. 

In that case, we recommend signing your child up for expert-taught English lessons. Fortunately, we offer interactive lessons taught by certified, native-speaking teachers. Book a free lesson today to see how Novakid can help your kid learn English twice as fast.