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ESAEngage, Study, Activate (ESA) is one of many types of lesson planning frameworks. It is the most basic lesson following the straight arrow plan, ESA. There are other possibilities, like the boomerang, EA?SA? or patchwork plan, ES?A?S?A?. As long as the lesson starts out with an Engage and ends with an Activate activity, the teacher can do whatever activities in between, allowing for flexibility to tailor the lesson to the students needs. The first activity, the Engage stage is designed to warm students up. Often this stage will start out with a warming activity, a light game or activity that involves the whole class. The goal of this stage is student participation. Participation is an important facet of class unity and the Engage stage offers the student a chance to participate without the fear of making a mistake because the focus is on communication. Mistakes, if made, will be addressed later. The Study stage is the more traditional teaching stage. It is often more of a lecture, teacher to student communication but a teacher can still plan in opportunities for student participation. During the study stage, grammatical structure is taught, new vocabulary is introduced, when and how to use a new language aspect is reviewed. After the student is taught something new, it is important for the teacher to have some type of activity that is a controlled practice of the new material, activities like matching or gap-fill. During this stage accuracy is the focus; the teacher should encourage the students to self correct or seek a fellow classmate for comparisons/corrections. The last stage is the Activate stage. The Activate stage is when the students are able to take what they have studied in a controlled way during the Study stage and present/apply it with freedom to learn what does and doesn?t work. Because this stage relies on student input and ideas, it can cause the activity to stall or slow if the students are too shy to come up with ideas of their own. It is important to model the end product of an Activate activity so that the students know where the activity is going. If the class is still stuck for ideas, have some available for them to work with, but when possible, let the students do their own work. Corrections should be made at the end of this stage, after the student has finished presenting. This stage is another important opportunity for students to participate with each other to build a warm classroom dynamic. The ESA model is a simple way for a teacher to ensure that students have opportunities to participate, practice and apply what they have learned and it builds in variety to the lesson plans which increases student and teacher enjoyment. The model is structured enough for a first year teacher but can also be tweaked for continued use by a more seasoned teacher as well. It also saves a teacher time; it?s a recipe that at minimum needs three ingredients, in a general order to create a fun and productive learning experience.
