Sunday night, 11 PM: the bare face of my lesson-prep desk

The cursor blinks on the laptop screen, brightness turned all the way up. The Word document title reads only "Monday L3, Present Perfect vs. Past Simple," and below it, nothing but blank space. The coffee left in my mug has long gone cold, and next to it, a half-opened granola bar wrapper sits halfway on top of a book. Sunday night, 11 p.m. Ten hours until tomorrow's 9 a.m. class, and here I am, muttering aloud to myself about the nuance between "already" and "yet."

Fewer people than you'd think know what preparing for an ESL class actually looks like. Neatly organized lesson plan templates, colourful Post-its, pretty planners. Those pictures exist on Instagram. The reality on my desk is far more dismal.

Desk Archaeology

If I were to describe my desk right now as an excavation site, it would go something like this. The bottom stratum is a worksheet I printed last week but never ended up using. The topic was conditional sentences, but on the day of the lesson I realized the students' level was lower than expected and made a hasty pivot. On top of that sits a note scrawled in red pen: "TOO HARD." Next to it, Raymond Murphy's grammar book lies open and face-down, with a receipt wedged between the pages in place of a bookmark. The receipt shows I spent $6.75 on a latte at a café near Granville Island last Friday. I'd gone there telling myself I'd come up with lesson ideas. Of course, nothing came to me.

The next stratum up. Three highlighters rolling around without their caps, and on one Post-it note: "phrasal verbs, as a game??" The two question marks are an honest display of my lack of conviction. And right beside the laptop, at the very top stratum, is a clump of fur left behind by my cat, Mochi. Mochi invariably climbs onto the keyboard the moment I start prepping for class. It's something like a weekly Sunday ritual.

A Night of Solo Grammar Debates

The biggest time sink, surprisingly, isn't making worksheets. It's the argument I have with myself over how to explain a grammar point. Today's topic is the present perfect. When I sit there agonizing over how to explain the difference between "I have lived in Vancouver for three years" and "I lived in Vancouver for three years" to a beginner, before long I start doubting whether I, a native English speaker, can even explain this properly.

Googling "present perfect simple explanation ESL" returns hundreds of thousands of results. The problem is that the explanations all differ in subtle ways. Some sites emphasize "experience," others emphasize "connection to the present." I open about seven tabs to compare them, and in the end I just write my own example sentences. "I have eaten sushi" vs. "I ate sushi yesterday." But then, writing these sends my mind wandering. Where was that decent sushi place in Vancouver again? There was one somewhere around Robson Street.

This is the essence of lesson prep at 11 p.m. Focus scattering in every direction.

The Art of Compromising with Perfectionism

In the beginning, I tried to prepare every lesson flawlessly. I'd make slides, create game materials, even write out answers to anticipated questions in advance. Spending four or five hours prepping a single lesson was normal. I know now that no matter how much you prepare, a lesson never goes according to plan.

The moment a student suddenly asks, "Teacher, what is the difference between fun and funny?" the day's lesson plan disintegrates. Honestly, those derailed lessons often turn out better. You end up covering what students are genuinely curious about. So these days, my prep method looks like this: two core activities, one backup activity, and one "if everything falls apart" emergency plan. The emergency plan is usually just conversation topic cards. Print out some "Would you rather" type questions and at the very least, the students will open their mouths.

Inside my desk drawer, I always keep a stack of these emergency cards. The most popular question was "Would you rather have the ability to speak every language or play every instrument?" That week the lesson had gone completely off the rails, but that single card carried me through 45 minutes. Have you ever had a backup plan that worked better than the actual plan?

I glance at the clock: 11:47 p.m. Tomorrow's worksheet is half-finished, the slides have nothing but a title, and instead of writing present perfect examples, I'm searching for lists of classic sci-fi novels. My excuse is that maybe I could use a short story by Ursula K. Le Guin as a reading passage. I know full well that assigning Le Guin to Level 3 students is absurd.

In the end, I half-close the laptop and pull Mochi onto my lap. I tell myself I'll wake up early tomorrow morning to finish, but I'm well aware of the success rate of that particular resolution. I head to the kitchen to brew one more cup of coffee. Tomorrow's class will work out somehow. It always has.