Free ESL Lesson Plan: Life in Canada

Are you looking for a fun lesson plan to use in your next ESL class? Look no further as you are in the right place. This lesson about living in Canada is the perfect addition to your online ESL library. Continue scrolling to download this free lesson plan and to find some useful teaching tips. 

When to use this lesson on life in Canada

This is a great lesson to use with your pre-Intermediate students that are looking to practice speaking, reading and grammar skills. Also, this is a fantastic lesson to use as a review with students moving to the intermediate level. Since this resource involves several speaking activities, you can rest assured that it is useful in larger classroom settings and for one on one tutoring.

 It is important to note that this lesson contains lots of information about Canadian culture, you might want to introduce it to students that plan on moving there. It is also a great lesson to use when you want to introduce some new actions and vocabulary words related to animals, food and geography. Though in general, I have noticed that most students are excited to learn about a new country— especially one that is home to so many different nationalities. 

You can download the free lesson plan here:

What skills wills students learn in this lesson?

This lesson contains several different activities that prompt students to speak and read in English. In this lesson, students will answer questions that ask them for information; these questions start with the words who, where, what, which, when, why and how.  They will also work on personalizing situations that are presented to them. Finally, they will learn several vocabulary words to use in a variety of situations. 

What will students learn about life in Canada?

This lesson plan on life in Canada is not only informative but interesting. As mentioned prior, students will learn to answer questions and new vocabulary words. These words and questions will revolve around Canadian geography, animals, foods, activities and general culture. More specifically, students will learn about the city of Toronto (Canada’s largest city). 

As a Toronto resident, I can attest to the fact that this lesson outlines the different cultures existent here in such a beautiful way. My favorite part of teaching this lesson is showing my students all the different cultural zones in Toronto like Chinatown, Koreatown and The Annex. This lesson gives an accurate depiction what life in Canada is like, especially in Toronto.

How to teach this lesson

This lesson is used to develop speaking, vocabulary, reading and listening skills in English. With this, the lesson is densely packed with pictures and text. This is not to say the lesson is overwhelming, the text portions are short and the pictures are especially useful as references. With that being said,  this lesson is conversational and different students answer questions in a variety of ways. My biggest suggestion is to use the warm up as an opportunity to gauge your students’ understanding of the content and then scaffold skills accordingly; start small and build up. Be sure to use the question prompts but also explain concepts that students are uncertain of. In any case, provide constructive feedback and encouragement throughout your time together. By the end of the lesson, students should be able to answer questions using their opinions and vocabulary derived from the slides. 

For even more helpful information on how to teach this lesson on life in Canada, be sure to download a free Off2Class account. This will grant you access to useful teacher notes and hundreds  of other free resources to use in your classroom. Please feel free to let us know if you and your students enjoyed this lesson, it is a pleasure to hear from teachers like you. In any case, happy teaching and have fun with this lesson on life in Canada!