A first lesson after a long summer break should be about discussing what you and your students have done since last time you met. It’s a great opportunity to exchange experiences, create a great group dynamic and revise simple past forms in positive, negative and interrogative sentences. So, here’s a quick idea for a welcome-back lesson:
December 2020 – This is a multi-skill lesson plan teaching and revising vocabulary linked to the topics ‘gym’ and ‘work-out’. It follows the methodology of the so-called ‘flipped classroom’. Students are expected to do some pre-lesson task and the lesson is based on this pre-study.
December 2020 – This is a simple group writing task I learnt from New Headway Pre-Intermediate some years ago. I find the exercise excellent to improvise a quick group-writing session about any topic even with lower level classes/students.
December 2020 – When I started teaching online, I first stuck to the course books I had been using for years. I had been familiar with the online extensions, I had already worked on the Cambridge LMS and used all multimedia materials available to my favourite course books. I had even had experience with e-books. However, very soon I realized that online teaching offers way more possibilities than only a digital copy of a face-to-face lesson.
December 2020 – When I started teaching online I kept going back to one website to test my students’ grammar knowledge in test-teach-test approach. At the beginning, it was a simple blog, however, it has grown up to a prodigious test bank. Today, I invite you to visit the TEST-ENGLISH website.
December 2020 – THIS IS a Warm-up/Lead-in exercise you can print and use in your next grammar/conversation lesson. The task is to complete the questionnaire (by giving two answers to different questions) and then mingling around in the classroom to find someone who has these two things in common (which is not as easy as it seems).
November 2020 – Third conditional is a tough grammar point and it’s also difficult to make students practise it, since it is not so often used in real life situations. Doing automatized exercises seems to work for the moment, but fails on the long run. To help students memorize the structure, you might want to spend some time making them do different engaging activities over a couple of lessons. Here are some ideas how they could practice third conditional sentences.
November 2020 – Students at B1 level are required to be able to write emails, compositions, short stories; furthermore, simple essays, reviews and articles. In this interactive exercise, you see an example how you can introduce the first three genres to your intermediate students.
November 2020 – This is a lesson plan teaching and revising regular and irregular verbs in simple past. Students need to be at high A1-A2 level, but you can also use this lesson for a revision lesson at B1 level. The lesson plan is written for an online lesson.
November 2020 – Songs are an evergreen possibility to lead into a new topic or introduce a new grammatical structure, they can be an excellent exercise to wind down a lesson and even in between two exercises, they are good for making students relax and prepare for the next task. In this post, I would like to show you some interactive worksheets to do while listening to some great classics and also some newer hits – with embedded YouTube videos.
When we think about reading, we picture books, newspapers or magazines. However, your students probably read daily texts that are shorter, more about consumption and not (only) about entertainment or current affairs, and are more packed with information. Let me give you a simple example how to train them to find and read this type of texts in real life and some tasks to customize for your lesson, with the aim to improve reading for details.
Films offer a wide range of benefits to students: even if they have already seen the film in their first language, by watching it in another language will teach them how to listen and catch first words, then phrases, finally complete sentences. With subtitles, they teach vocabulary and pronunciation patterns, however, it becomes more a reading task. With a quiz, it can be even done in self-study mode. This time a romantic comedy for Christmas: THE HOLIDAY.
BULLETPOINTS: Level: B1/B1+; Age: teens, adults; Group size: any; Aim: to write a review; Skill: writing; Grammar: passives, would + infinitive; Vocabulary: strong adjectives; Length: 60+ min; Preparation time: none; Material: computer or mobile phone with internet connection.
BULLETPOINTS: Topic: Aunty Emma; Level: pre-intermediate to advanced; Time: 30-60 min; Material: whiteboard and marker; Preparation time: none; Skill: speaking; Function: (dis)agreement, negotiating; Group size: min 2 students.
BULLETPOINTS: Topic: Problems and suggestions;Level: A2+;Time: 60 min;Material: whiteboard, marker;Preparation time: none;Skill: speaking;Function: Giving advice(You should/could …, Why don’t you …, You might want to consider V-ing…, etc., depending on the level of the students);Grammar/Vocab: Modals – should, might, could, I’d suggest that you …;Group size: 4+.