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September 11th Teaching Resources
Inspired by a recent feature on The Guardian website, which invites readers to share their memories of where they were and what they were doing (click here for more detail), I was thinking about...
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First Lesson Aims: Dave Tucker Guest Post!
If you’ve had time to look at recent posts on this blog, you’ll have noticed a series of “first lesson” ideas and activities… after all, it’s September, we’ve all got “back-to-school-itis”! Stepping...
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Teaching Resources: Steve Jobs
It’s not until someone goes that you realise the impact they had on your life – Steve Jobs was one of those public figures who inspired belief and achievement in others. One of my classes was asking if...
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Say that again? avoiding repetition & developing paraphrase
Trying to come up with new and interesting ways of saying the same old thing is a skill that taxes most of us on a daily basis: ”I like your hair.” ”Your hair looks nice.” ”Wow! Have you had your...
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The Twelve Days of Geekmas: Five Favourite Things
On the fifth day of Geekmas, some blogger gave to me: FIVE FAVOURITE THINGS Welcome to the teflgeek Christmas celebration! Themed around the classic Christmas carol – but going backwards, mostly...
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The First day of Geekmas: A short talk on using Poetry…
On the first day of Geekmas, some blogger gave to me: a short talk on using poetry….. It’s the last / first day of the teflgeek Christmas countdown and it’s been a fun, somewhat introspective, quite...
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Santa’s Xmas Present Swap – an activity for all ages!
And compliments of the season to you all! This is my xmas present to anyone still teaching out there – but equally, this could make a really good first lesson back in the new year activity. Santa’s...
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All is not what it seems – The Little People Project
Back in December I posted on “nine pretty pictures” – ways of exploiting images with learners. I recently came across “The Little People Project” – though unfortunately I can’t remember where – it...
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#ELTChat Summary: Teaching at a Discourse Level
How can we focus language teaching more at discourse level rather than sentence level? The first #eltchat of 2012 attempted to answer this question! I wasn’t actually there and didn’t take part in the...
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Is reading allowed, aloud?
Many years ago I had something of a disagreement with a colleague who, in a class I had watched, had the learners read aloud from a chapter of Roald Dahl’s autobiography “Going Solo”. Paragraph by...
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Warmer: Don’t make me say it!
This is a vocabulary revision activity that I used as a warmer with my classes last week – from intermediate to proficiency. I went back through the previous couple of units of the coursebook and chose...
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What is “good speaking”?
We are approaching the end of the first semester in our school and this is typically a time when we review our assessments, give out our grammar and vocabulary tests and write all the reports. Like...
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The WHY Game – for practicing clauses of reason and purpose
This is an activity I did with with an intermediate group of young learners – who absolutely loved it. It led to what was easily the longest conversations they’d had in English all year. It...
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PechaFlickr – exam speaking practice
One of the common complaints students have about exam speaking is that they never know what to say. In practice sessions, I’ve had students dry up completely and embarrassedly freeze half way through...
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Say what you see – vocabulary and images
This is an activity that I used as a warmer with my classes last week with great results! It works really well for vocabulary review, with lower levels, but also with extending and developing the...
View ArticleGreat site for conversation classes
Running a conversation class can often be a difficult thing for teachers, especially if there is no syllabus or course plan to follow, or if the class has been going for a number of years with largely...
View ArticleFirst (FCE) Speaking Video Lesson
This is a lesson I put together for my class, who are rapidly approaching their exam dates and who need to review what goes on in the Cambridge English: First Speaking paper. I ran this as a bring your...
View ArticleRediscovering PechaFlickr – Exam Speaking
PechFlickr is something I actually wrote about five years ago as a useful classroom tool for students who have to deal with pictures / imagery in their speaking exams. I'm thinking here more about the...
View ArticleAlphalists – promoting speaking
I was working with one of my exam classes last week and we were focused on Part 4 of the speaking when one of my students said that she always worried that she wouldn't have anything to say on the......
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