Basic Reading Recipes

These tried and true lesson activities will help you get your students to read and communicate in English. The recipes work with most teaching scenarios and situations. Just modify the basic recipe with your own basic ingredients … Read More ....

There are so many things you can do for Xmas lessons. Xmas movies or videos. Write Xmas cards. Give imaginary gifts. Play Xmas games like bingo or Jeopardy. Decorate the class. Sing carols, even karaoke. Hum and guess the carol! … Read More ....

This is an easy but fun lesson to practice geography, question making and language skills.

1. Choose one student who comes to the front of the class.

2. The student writes in big letters on a piece of paper with … Read More ....

This is a great game that is easy to start/finish.

1. Get students in small groups.

2. Select 3 categories. Ex. Food  / Country  /  Verb

3. Select a letter from the alphabet.   Ex. G

4. Students have to write … Read More ....

This is a standard game and can be played to practice a variety of language forms (or just for fun!).

I use it to practice the difficult “have/has been …” present perfect tense.

Put the forms on the board.   The … Read More ....

This is a fun activity to do at the beginning of the school year or course. But works any time.

Ask students to bring in 5 photos with family and friends in them. Have some of your own to provide … Read More ....

Here is an activity for vocabulary revision. This activity works well with the students who need constant control for vocabulary revision.

First, we need to make sure that we have spent enough time on teaching vocabulary, then we can divide … Read More ....

Asking your questions
TEACHING NOTES

ACTIVITY
Students get a chance to ask each other questions, then try to guess the original questions based on a handful of answers.

GRAMMAR/VOCABULARY
Questions

LEVEL
B1 – above

TIME
30 minutes

WHAT TO DO… Read More ....

I have used this recipe to hilarious effect over my teaching years. Always a winner!

It focuses on the present perfect continuous tense and gets students practicing this form/conjugations.

Come to class dressed up kind of looking like Mr. Bean. … Read More ....

This is a pair activity for practising giving advice. Make ten problem cards. Choose ten students who will tell their partner about his/her problem. Then the partner will give them advice.  

These cards  can be used for practising second conditional … Read More ....