Once in a while I read something and I find myself thinking, ''Now, why didn't I think of that?''. Well, Richard Gresswell had such an idea. He started a blog, called it ELTBITES, and challenged us: ''Describe an activity that requires no more than the teacher, students, and possibly making use of the board, pens, and paper. Describe the activity ...

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.

Most learners very quickly grasp the concept of the difference between adjectives ending in -ed and those ending in -ing. They would have been told that adjectives ending with -ed describe our feelings and those ending with -ing describe what cause the feelings in the first place. Compare: We were bored out of our minds in today's class. Today's ...

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 ...

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 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 ...

Following on from the recent blog challenge on raising awareness of disability access issues, I came across the Leonard Cheshire Disability campaign whilst watching Shaun the Sheep dvds with my daughter. The campaign is called “Creature Discomforts” and has very similar aims to the blog challenge – namely to get people to think about the way ...

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 ...

Read my analysis of emergent language based on lessons using the above image in my guest post for Barbara Sakamoto's Teaching Village. Thanks, Barb, for the invite. Related posts: Speaking lesson using close-up imagesPhotos + Mindmap = Ideas on a silver platterCokey Monkey lesson planEvery picture tells a story - let the students speak!