Make your lessons easier to plan and easier to follow! Give your lessons a basic format that you can follow more or less every day. You can write this list for your students each day and cross off each one as you finish that part of the lesson. Even if students can't read all the words on the list at first, it will serve as a visual tool for the progression of activities.
Just an example (for a Beginner Level Class)
Hello!
ABC's and Numbers
Date and Calendar
Classroom
New Words
New Activities
Review
Have a nice day!
Each of these can have variations that you introduce when students seem comfortable enough to wiggle around in each category. See examples below:
Hello, how are you?: Practice basic greetings in detail, add new words for small talk once students have it down
ABC's: Try to stick with no more than 5 or 6 new or difficult letters per lesson, have students spell their first or last names, other times practice spelling their street name or children's names, play a letter matching game. There are many ways to approach the alphabet besides just reciting it!
Numbers: Counting, matching, pointing, and asking, "What number is this?" playing with a deck of cards, using fake money.
Date: Look at a calendar together, ask: What is today? What was yesterday? What is tomorrow?
Classroom: Practice learning language related to the classroom or learning environment such as "Can I have a pencil?" "Where is the clock?" "Can you close the door?" "What does this mean?"
New Words: Introduce new vocabulary and question/answer pairs.
New Activities: Practice new vocabulary through activities, dialogues, and picture descriptions.
What to review: A simple, clear direction for what exact words to practice from this lesson.
Have a nice day! Practice consistent leave-takings, at this point students are often language fatigued and want to return to a familiar language exchange such as "Have a nice day!" Choose something that they can always use to end a lesson warmly and confidently.