This lesson plan focuses on the issue of combating throwaway culture by giving tax breaks to people who decide to repair their broken possessions instead of throwing them out. It is based on an actual initiative of the Swedish government and is based on the article published by The Guardian and the video issued by World Economic Forum. I would recommend it for B2/C1 students, especially adults. The lesson takes around an hour to complete and it comes with a worksheet for the students and an answer key for the teacher. Continue Reading …
speaking
My 3 favourite Christmas videos and activity ideas
Let me share with you my favourite Christmas videos and some ideas how to use them in the classroom. I prepared these for my teenage and adult students, levels B1 – C1.
More back to school icebreakers
Today I’d like to share three more activities that have worked great for me as icebreakers for the first class with groups of teenage students. All the games help students get to know each other better and promote discovering what they have in common.
Small talk improv speaking activity
In this activity, students improvise situations in which they are forced to make small talk with random people they bumped into in random places. It is a great game to start or finish your more advanced classes. It helps students work on their fluency and think on their feet in English.
5 ways to end your class on a high note
In this post, I am describing 5 ways to end your English class on a high note. I have been using these ideas with my young learners (11 and 12) but, hopefully, some of them may resonate with other age groups as well.
Elementary speaking activity
The aim of this speaking activity is for the students to learn bigger chunks of language to be able to talk about themselves and/or other people. The activity is based around 5 verbs: be, have, work, go, and like. It is something I came up with for my 1-1 classes with beginner / elementary adult students in order to get to know them better.
My day in four skills: #4skills1day
The idea for this post came from Joanna’s wonderful blog and I’ve been meaning to write it for a couple of weeks now. Once I sat down to it and looked at these first couple of days after coming to Berlin from my Christmas break in Warsaw, I realized that each day I’ve been juggling as many languages as skills. Yesterday was no exception.
New Year’s Eve traditions activity
The aim of this brief activity is to talk about different New Year’s Eve traditions from around the world. It is a great idea for the first class after the holiday break and is suitable for all ages and levels. It is based on this Buzzfeed article.
5 Icebreakers for the first day of class
5 Icebreakers for the first day of class is a mini collection of activities to be done with a new group of students. Icebreakers are a great way for the teacher to get to know the students and for the students to get to know each other. It is important to keep things light on the first day and focus on communication. Continue Reading …