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 hair done?”  ”That new style really suits you!” For language learners, it’s obviously even more difficult.  For learners preparing for exam classes, ...

Following on from the success of the recent Radio 4 series “A History of the World in 100 objects“, linguist and novelist David Crystal attempts to do the same for the English language.  An interesting read for any and all language teachers and language historians out there! From Riddle to Twittersphere: David Crystal tells the story of English ...

In 2013 the CPE exam is not only celebrating 100 years of tormenting language learners and confusing their teachers, but will also be metamorphasising into its latest incarnation.  This post takes a look at what changes are being made and what it all might mean!  The full post is also available as a downloadable pdf. The big news is that the Use ...

I just came across, during a further exploration of the Pearson ELT Community site, their idioms discussions space. There doesn’t seem to be much in the way of discussion, but they have posted a set of mini-videos which purport to explain English idioms and expressions.  The videos are very short (about a minute) and are followed with a ...

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 back from the plethora of great teaching ideas to fill the class time, today our guest blogger, Dave Tucker, looks at some broader learning and ...

Back in July I posted a selections of 20 ideas and activities that might be worth trying out as you get to know your new classes this school year – and since then there’ve been a couple of additional ideas to throw into the mix: First Lesson Ideas / Warmers First Lesson: Find Nobody Who… First Lesson: I don’t know what you did last ...

A very quick alternative to the standard composition task “What I did on my Summer holidays”. Essentially, you ask the learners to write the composition (100 words? I guess length will be age & level dependent) about somebody else in the class. I think I’ve blogged a similar activity at some point before, but not sure when.  Anyway, the key to ...

This is an alternative approach to the inevitable “what did you do on your holidays” conversation.   Many first lesson activities and ideas are based on the premise that nobody knows anybody else but often the students in your classes have come up through the levels together and the only new person in the group is you… It should also combat those ...

The Vortex Game.  This is a game I’ve created that can be used with any age or level – for pretty much any purpose.  It came out of a conversation with a colleague (thanks Sarah!) who was looking for an idea to help learners with minimal pronunciation pairs, but it can be used with pretty much anything! I can’t claim complete originality here ...

This is an entry for everyone currently working at an ELT summer school somewhere in the world!  It’s not always easy and there’s a lot of hard work – hopefully this post will help out a bit!  I’ve been fortunate enough to enjoy my summer school experiences immensely over the years and one of the things I’ve enjoyed doing most has been the project ...