Telling Time in Adult ESL: Not Just Reading Clock Faces

“But everyone has a phone now.”

You think this every time someone mentions spending class time on telling time, right? And look, I get it. When you’re scrambling to cover conditionals and the nightmare that is present perfect, dedicating class time to clock faces feels unnecessary.

Here’s the thing. Numbers don’t come up much in everyday conversation except for addresses, phone numbers, and telling time. Your students might be comfortable with written numbers, but hearing “thirteen” versus “thirty” in fast speech? Completely different challenge.

And understanding that “four-fifteen,” “fifteen past four,” and “a quarter past four” all mean the same thing? That’s not intuitive. Your students can read 4:15 on their phone. They just have no idea what ‘quarter past four’ means when someone says it out loud.

Why Time-Telling Deserves Class Time

Let’s say your student’s boss leaves a voicemail: “Can you come in tomorrow? We need you here by quarter to seven.” Your student only catches “seven” and shows up at 7:00. The shift started at 6:45. They’re 15 minutes late on their second week of work.

What about when a clinic receptionist calls and says, “Your appointment is at four-fifteen.” Your student hears “four-fifty” and writes down 4:50. They show up 35 minutes late. Or let’s say your students are taking a citizenship test. They need to track their time, but looking at their phone certainly isn’t allowed. The only clock in the room is analog, on the wall. They can’t read it. They run out of time. The dentist’s office says, “We close at noon on Fridays” and your student doesn’t know “noon” means 12:00 pm, they waste time off work showing up at the wrong time.

Two Real Time-Telling Challenges Your Students Face

Put saying what time it is to the side and your students still have two challenges:

Hearing Numbers in Time

This is the big one. In regular conversation, we don’t use numbers much. But in telling time, they’re constant. And some numbers sound horribly similar:

• thirteen / thirty
• fourteen / forty
• fifteen / fifty

When someone says “I’ve been here since four-thirteen” but your student hears “four-thirty,” that’s a 17-minute difference. When the doctor’s office says “Your appointment is at two-fifteen” but they hear “two-fifty,” they’re 35 minutes late.

The problem is the disappearing /n/ sound at the end of the “teen” numbers. In fast speech, “thirteen” can sound almost identical to “thirty,” especially when speakers pronounce the “ty” with a /t/ sound instead of the more common /d/ sound. Your students hear “thir-tee” or “thir-ty” and can’t tell which one was said.

Understanding Multiple Ways to Say the Same Time

In English, we have several ways to express the exact same time, like, for example, 4:10. There’s four-ten, ten past four, & ten after four. And for 3:45, there’s: three forty-five, quarter to four, & fifteen to four. English speakers jump between different phrasings all the time, and students need to recognize all of them.

Oh, and we only say “o’clock” when there are NO minutes. “Six o’clock” works. “Six-fifteen o’clock” does not.

Beyond the Numbers: Other Essential Time Skills

Numbers are just the beginning. Students also need to master these foundational time skills.

Can They Tell Time With an Analog Clock?

Yes, digital clocks are everywhere. But, forgive me for a moment of melodrama here, but don’t you agree that analog clocks give a visual sense of time passing that digital never quite captures? But reading them is a dying skill. We’re going to end up with whole generations growing up unable to do it. Maybe it’s worth making sure your students aren’t part of that statistic.

But analog clocks show up in classrooms (important during tests when no phones are allowed, courtrooms, and government offices.

If your student can’t glance at an analog clock and know it’s 3:47, they’re at a disadvantage during any timed situation where phones aren’t permitted.

Do They Know Which Prepositions to Use to Tell Time?

These tiny words matter:

• AT 6:30 (specific time)
• IN the morning/afternoon/evening (but AT night) (general period)
• FROM 2 TO 4 (time range)
• BY 5 PM (deadline)

Students who say “I’ll meet you in 3:00” or “The store is open at Monday” sound off. These prepositions have rules, and breaking them signals non-native speech immediately.

What About the Numberless General Time Periods?

We don’t always use clock time. Beyond clock numbers, students need:

• (at) dawn/sunrise/noon/dusk/sunset/night/midnight
• (in the) morning/afternoon/evening

Oh, and when the heck does afternoon end and evening begin? We native speakers cannot even agree on this. We use “morning” until noon, then “afternoon” until… 5 pm? 6 pm? When the sun sets? There’s no firm rule. “Afternoon” generally extends until somewhere between 5-6 pm, then “evening” takes over. But it’s fuzzy and context-dependent. Your students will ask about this, and they likely won’t find the answer satisfactory.  The answer is: it’s complicated, and even native speakers disagree.

Five Ways to Teach Time-Telling

You don’t need to blow a whole week on clock worksheets. Weave time-telling into what you’re already teaching with these five approaches.

Drill Number Discrimination

Students need to HEAR the difference between thirteen and thirty. Don’t assume they can.

Auditory Discrimination practice: Create exercises where students listen and mark which number they hear:

• 13 or 30?
• 14 or 40?
• 15 or 50?
• 4:13 or 4:30?
• 2:15 or 2:50?

Then have them practice SAYING both. Exaggerate the pronunciation.  two-fifteeN.  two-fifDEE (if that pronunciation is natural in your region)

Real-time dictation: Say times out loud. Students write what they hear:

• “The meeting starts at four-fifteen.”  (students write 4:15)
• “Be there by quarter to six.” (students write 5:45)
• “Your appointment is at half-past two.” (students write 2:30)

Check their answers. When they get it wrong, identify the confusion: Did they hear the right numbers but not understand “quarter to”? Did they mishear “fifteen” as “fifty”?

Phone message practice: Record voicemails with time information. Students listen and write down the exact time mentioned. This mimics real life where they can’t see the speaker or ask for clarification. If you don’t have a lot of students, this is fun to do by leaving messages on their phones. But for more of a time saver?  Record fake messages you can play for the entire class and reuse when new groups of students.

Teach All the Ways to Say Times

For each time, teach multiple expressions:

Create matching exercises where students connect all phrases that mean the same time. This reinforces that English speakers use these interchangeably.

Grammar integration: When teaching simple present for routines, require students to use different time expressions:

• “I wake up at seven o’clock.”
• “I eat breakfast at quarter past seven.”
• “I leave for work at seven-thirty.”

When teaching yes/no questions, mix in time comprehension:

• “Does the store open at half-past nine?” (Students look at a sign showing 9:30 and answer yes)
• “Is the meeting at four-thirteen?” (Students see 4:30 on a schedule and answer no)

My Telling Time task cards already have this built in for simple tenses practice.

Practice Analog Clock Reading

Don’t skip this. Analog clocks matter in real-world situations where phones aren’t allowed. I learned not to be surprised at how many students had no idea how to tell time on an analog clock even if they wore watches (as fashion accessories).

Start with the basics:

• The short hand points to the hour (it moves gradually between numbers)
• The long hand points to the minutes
• Each number represents 5 minutes (1 = 5 minutes, 2 = 10 minutes, etc.)

Common confusion points: When it’s 4:50, the short hand is almost at 5. Students might say “five-fifty.” Teach them to notice which number the short hand has PASSED, not which one it’s approaching.

Practice activities:

• Show analog clock faces. Students write the digital time.
• Say a time. Students draw it on a blank clock face.
• Mix analog and digital times on a handout. Students match them.
• Timed drills: “How fast can you read these 10 clocks?”

Real-world application: During practice tests or timed activities, put an analog clock on the wall. Students get used to glancing up and reading it quickly.

Memorize Prepositions with Time

These need explicit teaching and lots of practice.

• AT for specific times: at 6:30, at noon, at midnight, at quarter past three

• IN for general periods: in the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening, in the summer (seasons), in July (months)

Note the exception: AT night (not “in the night”)

• ON for specific days: on Monday, on Tuesday morning, on weekends, on January 5th

• FROM…TO for ranges: from 9 to 5, from Monday to Friday, from morning to night

• BY for deadlines: by 5 pm, by the end of the day, by Friday

Create fill-in-the-blank exercises:

• “I wake up ___ 6:00 ___ the morning.”
• “The store is open ___ Monday ___ Friday ___ 9 am___ 6 pm.”
• “Please finish this ___ 5 pm.”

Students who master these sound significantly more fluent.

Give the Gift of Vague Time Options

Beyond clock numbers, students need the vocabulary for general times of day.

Create a visual timeline with photos:

• dawn – the sky is getting light but sun isn’t up yet
• sunrise – sun is coming up
• morning – after sunrise, roughly 6 am- noon
• late morning – approaching noon, roughly 10 am- noon
• noon / midday – 12:00 PM exactly
• afternoon – after noon, roughly 12 pm- 5 or 6 pm
• late afternoon – roughly 4 pm- 6 pm
• dusk / sunset – sun is going down
• evening – after sunset or late afternoon, roughly 5 or 6 pm- 9 pm
• night – dark outside, roughly 9 pm- midnight
• midnight – 12:00 AM exactly
• late night – very late, roughly 10 pm – 3 am 
• early morning – this gets really confusing, any time from just after midnight to around 6 or 7 am

Acknowledge the overlap and fuzziness and assure them that it’s just how English works.

Practice with daily routines: Students create schedules using BOTH specific times and general periods:

• 6:30 am/ early morning: I wake up
• 7:00 am/ morning: I eat breakfast
• 12:30 pm/ afternoon: I have lunch
• 10:00 pm/ night: I go to sleep

Giving them vaguer time options is a gift. Some students get anxious about precision. Being able to say “I usually go to the gym in the morning” is less stressful than pinpointing “at 6:45 am.”

Put It Into Practice with Mini-Dialogues

Dialogues let students practice real conversations where time matters.

Making appointments by phone:

• Student A: Receptionist offering appointment times using various phrasings (“We have an opening at quarter past two” or “How about half past four?”)
• Student B: Patient confirming they understood (“So that’s 2:15?” or “Four-thirty in the afternoon?”)

Give Student A specific times to offer but require they use different phrasings: “half-past,” “quarter to,” specific numbers.

Clarifying vague time phrases:

• Student A: Manager saying “Come in tomorrow morning” or “Finish this by end of day”
• Student B: Employee asking for specific times (“What time in the morning?” or “So by 5 pm?”)

This teaches students to ask for clarification instead of nodding and hoping they understood. Reassure them that this is something native speakers have to do as well all the time.

Planning to meet:

• Student A: Suggests meeting using vague phrase (“Let’s meet tomorrow afternoon”)
• Student B: Nails down exact time (“What time? Two? Three?”)

Students negotiate from vague to specific, using both general periods and exact times.

Understanding schedule changes:

• Student A: Announces “Your shift moved from seven-fifteen to a quarter to eight”
• Student B: Confirms they understood the exact times

After each dialogue, have observers identify: What specific times were mentioned? How did they confirm understanding? Did anyone mishear numbers?

Add Time Idioms Gradually

Don’t overwhelm beginners, but for intermediate and advanced students, time idioms come up constantly:

• “Time is running out!” (deadline approaching)
• “You beat the clock!” (finished just in time)
• “In the nick of time” (just barely made it)
• “At the last minute” (waiting until almost too late)
• “Better late than never”
• “Time flies when you’re having fun”
• “A stitch in time saves nine” (fix problems early)

Drop one per week into your teaching when relevant moments arise. Students remember idioms best in real context, not on isolated lists.

Want a ready-made collection? I created a time-related idioms freebie. Click here to subscribe to my newsletter and grab it.

Don’t have time to create time telling material?  

When I couldn’t find adult-appropriate materials, I made my own. Years of teaching showed me what actually reduced confusion: hearing times spoken naturally, seeing them written multiple ways, practicing with real-world contexts.

That’s my Telling Time for Adult ESL resource. It’s for adult newcomers who need real-world practice with audio, not kid-focused worksheets.

You need more materials but you’re also managing everything else in your life. Ready-made resources give you back hours. The time you save is redeemable every time you teach time-telling again.

The Bottom Line

Your students will forget some grammar rules you teach. They might never fully master articles or present perfect. That’s okay.

But time? Time affects whether they show up to the right place at the right moment. Whether they understand their appointment confirmation. Whether they can track time during a test. Whether they catch what their boss meant.

That’s it from me.  See you in the next post!

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