This is a good an excuse as any to listen to a good song, and, at the same time, be reminded of the suffering the great nation had to endure earlier this year. Why not use this video as a springboard for a class discussion on natural disasters, for example? You might like to read this post on activities using songs.

This is indeed a sad day for many, and whether you're an Apple fan or not, I'm sure it must have affected you. There's nothing I can add to what has been said before, and what is still being said now, so I'll let Steve speaks for himself.

When Sir Ken Robinson speaks, one usually listens. He's a wonderful storyteller, a great speaker. He has no need for notes, merely relying on his memory, his experience, his passion. And, he's funny. Talking about passion is his passion. Recently, in March, to be exact, he spoke in Conway Hall, London; he spoke about finding our purpose in life. ...

I've always loved this song (written by Jagger/Richards, and released on the Stones' Let It Bleed album towards the end of 1969), and, as you probably already know, I'm very fond of Playing for Change, too. They are good enough reasons for me to link it here in this blog.But how can we use it in our lessons, you might ask. Well, think about it and ...

Ted Talks has a speaker with a difference - he isn't going to speak! Don't worry - it isn't a silent video, lol. Jackson Browne is one of my favourite singer-songwriters, and he has written many powerful songs in his long career, this one here being no exception. What I would like you to do first is to watch and listen to the song, and try to ...

In We Are The Champions, I wrote about several ideas you could do with songs in the classroom, so if you'd missed it, you ought to take a look now. Warm-up Play the video, freeze it when Paul McCartney can be seen. Ask if anyone knows him, what they know: the group he belonged to, the instrument he plays, the period the song was written, ...

A lot of teachers who use songs for ELT restrict themselves to a gap-fill activity plus a singalong, but there are, however, many other activities you could do besides those, some of which I've set out below, and I also created a quiz incorporating some of them. Due to copyright problems, I'm not allowed to embed the video here, but click on the ...

The Khan Academy happened almost by accident. It all started when its creator, Salman Khan, made a video tutorial for his cousins. You can find out what happened after that by watching this video. Khan, quite rightly, received a long standing ovation, and I must admit I haven't been so thrilled about education since Sir Ken Robinson's talk. Khan's ...

By now you must have heard about the triple catastrophe that hit Japan: earthquake (measured at 9.0 on the Richter scale, it was the biggest to have hit Japan), giant tsunamis, and nuclear crisis. There are, obviously, numerous websites where you can get up-to-date accurate information, but here are some of my favourite from which you can find ...

Find more videos like this on School of TEFL Thanks to David Deubelbeiss for bringing this truly inspiring award-winning documentary to our attention. It's really heartwarming to see that there are teachers like Toshiro Kanamori who attach as much importance to human values as academic knowledge. What about you? Have you got any similar ...