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 ...

Just a quick lesson overview rather than a full plan etc today:  this is an idea for helping learners with comparisons / comparatives. Basically it starts out with the activity “Tea or Coffee”, follows up with the language input stage, invites comparisons between learners’ home country and the UK / USA etc and finishes off with an oppostion ...

This is a great activity that you can use as a warmer or as a fun practice task in a number of situations. I should acknowledge that I originally saw my Dip tutor Peter Moran do this during a lesson in Wroclaw in 2006 – in various forms it’s been one of my staple activities ever since! I can’t remember why Peter did this – though as I recall he ...

A relatively simple way of dealing with multiple choice cloze tasks in the classroom: Take one multiple choice cloze task, possibly one like this FCE style task found via a google image search, or just one from your coursebook. Before the class, you’ll need to type out the multiple choice possible answers onto A4, print a single copy and then ...

The visual thesaurus was pointed out to me some time ago as a great alternative to the standard online dictionary search, and also as a great way to help learners broaden their vocabulary, particularly with higher level students who have a tendency to rely on a more limited than necessary lexical resource. But….  I’ve tended not to use it because ...

State of the World’s Mothers 2011 Statistics and Facts – Save the Children - thanks to Greg Fuller for posting this on facebook….. There’s a lot of information here and obviously the most interesting thing for any class to do would be to pull out all the statistics that relate to their country and decide whether or not they agree with them, why, ...

Thanks to Tommy Holt for spotting this and mentioning it on facebook! Primary pad is an online synchronous editing tool – learners can access and edit the same document at the same time. This is the first tool I’ve come across that allows synchronous editing and as such is quite an exciting development!  It’s free and requires no registration, ...

“Teacher No!”  “Teacher, I have three tests this week!” Chances are, you’ve probably experienced the chorus of protest and dismay as you blithely announce the homework task of the day.  Or alternatively as you ask your learners to present the task you set last lesson, you find that half the class hand it in while quarter of the class hand in ...

This is a lesson that aims to increase the range of linking devices / expressions learners have available to them, and in particular focuses on five relatively simple devices:  In order to  /  so that  /  as  /  in case  /  otherwise. The lesson as given would probably be best for Intermediate, Upper Intermediate and maybe FCE as a revision ...

This website has the potential to be an invaluable online teaching tool and is worth checking out! I only came across this the other day, but they’ve been around for a while and further research reveals that Larry Ferlazzo mentions this site in a post from 2009! Kubbu offers a “free account” to teachers who register, which allows you to create ...