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.
Speaking practice
Excuses speaking activity
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.
I would rather / I would prefer / It’s time speaking activity
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.
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.
Reported speech speaking activity
The aim of this activity is to practice using reported speech in the context of gossip. Reported speech lends itself quite nicely to be used in such context (repeating what somebody else had said) and the activity encourages a lot of creativity in students. It is suitable for levels pre-intermediate and above.
Talking about regrets lesson plan: unreal past
This lesson plan encourages students to use unreal past in the context of talking about regrets, using wish and if only. The idea for this mini-lesson came from a great video to a great song by an awesome band: Eels and their Mistakes of My Youth. The clip is pretty literal and lends itself perfectly to some grammar practice using wish and if only when talking about regrets.
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.
Facebook lesson plan
Facebook lesson plan offers a lot of Facebook-related vocabulary practice, grammar practice, and speaking. It was inspired by the video What’s on Your Mind which went viral and inspired some discussion about the way we use social media to create our online persona. It is suitable for pre-intermediate and intermediate students and compliments well coursebook chapters about technology or media.
