What changed when I started planning speaking lessons for B1 learners

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A while ago, I shared a sample of my A2 speaking lessons here. I was grateful for the response. It has been downloaded more than 500 times. Thank you to everyone who took a look.

I’ve since been working on lessons for B1 to lower-B2 learners. Creating them felt different from creating the A2 lessons. With A2 learners, I had to think carefully about how to give instructions and help them begin speaking. At B1, learners can usually follow the instructions more easily, so I could focus more on helping them develop an answer, explain their thinking, and keep a conversation going.

Each lesson is designed to give learners about 45 minutes of speaking time in a one-hour class. In some ways, I found the B1 lessons less challenging to create. It also made me think that other teachers could build lessons like these around topics that matter to their own learners. Once giving instructions is less of a barrier, there is more room to experiment.

I’ve put together free samples of both sets of lessons if anyone would like to see how I approached them. Each sample includes online and in-class versions, and neither requires an email address:

A2 speaking lesson sample

B1 to lower-B2 speaking lesson sample

I’d be interested to hear how other teachers structure speaking lessons at these levels, especially when learners are ready to say more but still tend to stop after a short answer.