Here is another great TED Talk I used in class with my students. It is short, funny and most people find it very relevant. This class involves speaking, listening and writing about the topic of success. We all want to know what the secrets of achieving success are so this TED Talk is universally liked and students find it easy to relate to its content. It also opens up some interesting topics for discussion, which all makes for an engaging and dynamic English lesson.
CAE
The Real Rain Man: video activity about Kim Peek
The Real Rain Man video activity offers students the opportunity to practice their listening and speaking skills. They watch a short video and answer some questions, and then discuss the content of the documentary. I came up with the idea for this activity while looking for more engaging ways to approach the chapter in the book entitled “Secrets of the mind”.
Lifetramp lesson plan
Lifetramp lesson plan offers listening, speaking and writing practice. The aim of this class is to talk about different jobs and compare authentic job descriptions. The idea for this lesson came to me after stumbling upon this amazing website. I found the idea of Lifetramp really interesting and decided to introduce my students to this online community.
Parental decisions speaking activity
Parental decisions speaking activity offers plenty of opportunities for your students to discuss various problems, negotiate, agree, and disagree. This is a pretty engaging speaking activity for both teenagers and adults. It works best with levels intermediate and above. Continue Reading …
Same way question tags speaking activity
This activity aims at providing the students with real life context for using same way question tags. I encountered this grammar point in the coursebook, there was absolutely no context to it and my students took very little out of this class. Learning from my mistake of not offering extra speaking practice, I devised this brief speaking activity.
Past modals lesson plan: deduction and speculation
Past modals lesson plan deals with a pretty important grammar point for the FCE and CAE students: using past modals for deduction and speculation. It is also suitable for upper-intermediate and advanced students. Past modals lesson plan might also be used for conversation or 1-1 classes as it offers a lot of speaking practice and works well with both smaller and bigger groups.
Wish/If only lesson plan: unreal present and past
This is an idea for a lesson discussing the use of wish/if only to talk about unreal present and past. As this tends to be a tricky grammar point, I decided to move away from coursebook tables in favour of a more deductive approach using a Prezi presentation. My students responded really well to this visual way of presenting information and the fact they were the ones responsible for discovering the grammar rules made them more alert and engaged.
Environmental bike lesson plan
Environmental bike lesson plan focuses on the issue of eco-friendly transport and introduces the idea of benefiting from traveling by bike. Continue Reading …
Connect 4 word formation game
Connect 4 word formation game offers the opportunity to practice forming nouns from verbs using appropriate suffixes. It is very helpful for FCE and CAE students preparing for their exams, especially Use of English Part 3 paper. It is played in pairs and encourages competition and strategic thinking.
