This speaking activity helps students practise using third conditional to talk about the past and imagine what would have happened if…
It is suitable for any learners who are already familiar with third conditional and need more speaking practice. It is also a great activity for conversation classes and 1-1 lessons.
The aim of this word stress maze pronunciation game is to practise word stress in three syllable words, with the middle one stressed (o O o). It works best with more advanced groups, mostly because of the vocabulary. I enjoy including some pronunciation practice in my conversation classes and this one has worked really well.
The aim of this speaking activity is to come up with solutions to various school problems affecting teachers and students. Some school problems are analysed from the point of view of students or teachers. This allows our learners to change their perspective and think outside of the box. It is very engaging for teenage students and compliments nicely coursebook chapters about school life.
The aim of this excuses speaking activity is to come up with an explanation in 10 different situations. It requires quick thinking and creativity from the students and might easily be introduced as a game where whoever invents the best excuse gets a point.
Small talk lesson plan aims at familiarising the students with the concept of small talk and some appropriate ways to overcome socially awkward situations in English. Students work in groups and try to make small talk on a number of topics. It might be used as a speaking activity or a game, where learners are timed and get points depending on how well they manage to engage their partners in small talk. It is a perfect fit for conversation classes.
The aim of this activity is to help students practice using structures like I would rather / I would prefer / It’s time + past simple when talking about something we want somebody else to do. It is a great activity to offer more grammar practice, but it can also be used during conversation classes to guarantee a lot of student talking time.
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.
I planned this LinkedIn lesson with my adult Business English students in mind. It combines speaking, listening and writing in the context of using LinkedIn, one of the fastest-growing social networking services for professionals. It is a great lesson to use with corporate clients, who often have an extensive and impressive knowledge of business networking and find this topic really interesting and engaging.
This TED Talk deals with the topic of learning English around the world nowadays, focusing on China and comparing language learning to a mania. This lesson is based on the TED Talk by Jay Walker. TED Talks are a great source of listening/reading materials as well as inspirations for class conversations and written assignments. I try to choose Talks shorter than 10 minutes (ideally 4-8 minutes long) and topics which are relevant to specific interests of my students.
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”.
