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ESL English Language Learning - Adult Literacy - Listening & Reading - Audiobooks - Stories

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ESL English - Adult Literacy - Listening, Reading, Audiobooks, Short Stories, Songs, PET exam

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Over the course of human history, thousands of languages have developed from what was once a much smaller number. How did we end up with so many? And how do we keep track of them all? Alex Gendler explains how linguists group languages into language families, demonstrating how these linguistic trees give us crucial insights into the past.

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lino is an online web sticky note service that can be used to post memos, to-do lists, ideas, and photos anywhere on an online web canvas. lino is a completely free service that runs on all popular web browsers.

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CNN 10 is an on-demand digital news show ideal for explanation seekers on the go or in the classroom.

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Spot the vocabulary Collocation pelmanism

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Analysis of the language consists of two sub-stages, often known as highlighting and concept checking.

Highlighting is taking the model sentence and showing, telling or eliciting what the problems are in terms of form, function, and phonology.

Concept checking is checking the understanding of difficult aspects of the target structure in terms of function and meaning. Concept checking is vital, since learners must fully understand the structure before any intensive practice of form and phonology is carried out.

Ways of checking understanding

Learning to construct concept questions

Ways of checking understanding
Concept checking is normally achieved by the use of a set of questions designed to ensure comprehension of the target language, raise awareness of its problems, and to indicate to the teacher that the learners have fully understood.

The question 'Do you understand?', or the remark '' do not achieve any of these aims, and are unlikely to receive a truthful answer from all the learners. Concept questions are one way of checking understanding, but are often used in combination with other methods, often visual, depending on the nature of the target language involved. Here are some other methods:

Time lines to establish tenses. Time lines are not a substitute for concept questions.

Truth lines to establish probability e.g. must be / could be / might be / can't be.

Reality lines to establish degree of reality or imagination e.g. conditional sentences

Clines to show grades or scales e.g. yellow-amber-orange, frequency adverbs

Pictures to distinguish between similar objects e.g. cup / mug, lane/ road / highway

Discrimination to check function and register e.g. Do I say 'hey!' to my boss?

Negative checking e.g. Do I say 'I were'?

Translation (where appropriate and possible).

Extensions to consolidate understanding. Homework often reveals lack of understanding, as do guided practice exercises.

Concept questions
Concept questions themselves are often difficult to construct since they involve clarifying function and meaning using simple language but not the target language itself.

Apart from their classroom value, thinking of good questions also helps inexperienced teachers to understand the complexities of form, function and meaning, and to practise grading their language. Some basic tips for good concept questions are:

Make sure the questions are simple and that no difficult language is required to answer the question. Yes/no questions, either/or questions and simple 'wh' questions are particularly effective

Don't use the new (target) grammar in your questions

Don't use unfamiliar vocabulary

Bring out basic concepts such as 'time' and 'tense' in your questions

Use as many questions as possible to check various aspects of the language and to cover as many learners as possible.

Some examples
These examples show how concept questions could be used to help differentiate between the main functions of the present simple and present continuous.

Target sentence: Look! They're painting the wall

Target sentence: She's a shop assistant. She works in a shop

Checking questions

Is this the past, present or future?

Present, but also past and probably future.

This example shows how concept questions can be used to clarify the meaning of more complex structures:

Target sentence: If I won the lottery, I'd buy a new car

Learning to construct concept questions
One way of beginning to think about concept questions is to break the meaning of a word or structure into components. A vocabulary item might be diagramatically represented. Here are some examples of the concepts included in the word ' bed-sit'

Questions may be of different types:

Yes/no questions. 'Is a bed-sit a room?', 'Are there other rooms in the house?', 'Can you sleep in it?'.

50/50 chance questions. 'Is it a room or a building?', 'Is it cheap or expensive?', 'Do you buy it or pay money every week or month?'

Information questions. 'Who lives in it?', 'How many people live in it?'

Discrimination questions. 'Do you only sleep in it?', 'Can you cook a meal in it?', 'Is it the same as a flat?'

Shared experience questions. 'I s there a bed-sit in this building?'

Life experience/culture questions. 'Have you ever lived in a bed-sit?' 'Are there bed-sits in your city/country?'

Another way of constructing concept questions is by writing a sentence containing all the elements of the concept, from which questions can be formed. This is a useful method when distinguishing between two functions of the same structure, particularly where those functions would be expressed by different forms or tenses in other languages. For example:

'He's been eating garlic.'
Concept: He isn't eating garlic now, and I didn't see him eating it, but I know he was eating garlic because I can smell it.

'Harry's been working here for two years.'
Concept: He started working here two years ago, he's still working here, and he'll probably continue working here.

Conclusion
The value of concept questions should not be underestimated, but many teachers either forget to use them or find them difficult to construct. Teachers are often satisfied that the learners 'seem to understand' on the basis of their performance in practice exercises. A few important points to remember are:

Concept questions are particularly valuable after the presentation and explanation of an item, and may be asked at any stage during a lesson. They are valuable after guided practice, particularly if the learners seem not to have grasped the target language fully, and at the end of a lesson, as a final check and review.

Time lines and other devices are not substitutes for concept questions. They are aids to explanation, but do not necessarily check understanding. Concept questions, however, may be used to elicit a timeline from the learners.

Concept questions are particularly valuable where a concept does not exist, or is different in the mother tongue (e.g. the perfect aspect, ways of expressing the future), and where a language item is culturally loaded as in the case of the word 'subway' which has very different meanings in British and American English. In such cases, concept questions often form part of the initial teaching process.

Concept questions are also useful for raising awareness of association and connotation, and for drawing attention to collocations and fixed expressions. They are also good listening practice for learners, and can even lead on to class activities such as guessing games in which the learners write their own questions.

The teacher does not have to concept check every new item. In many cases, function and meaning are clear because the language has been presented in a meaningful context.

When learners perform poorly in guided or less guided practice, it is often because they are not clear about the function or meaning of the target language. This may well be because the teacher has asked 'do you understand?' or 'is that clear' rather than good concept questions.

Further reading
Graham Workman - Concept Questions And Time Lines; Chadburn Publishing, 2006.

Steve Darn & Ian White, Izmir University of Economics, Turkey

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Analysis of the language consists of two sub-stages, often known as highlighting and concept checking. Highlighting is taking the model sentence and showing, telling or eliciting what the problems are in terms of form, function, and phonology. Concept checking is checking the understanding of difficult aspects of the target structure in terms of function and meaning.

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© British Council
The United Kingdom's international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities.
A registered charity: 209131 (England and Wales) SC037733 (Scotland).

ICP#: 10044692

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© British Council The United Kingdom's international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities. A registered charity: 209131 (England and Wales) SC037733 (Scotland). ICP#: 10044692

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Create quiz

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Kahoot! | Learning games | Make learning awesome!

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Kahoot! is a game-based learning platform that brings engagement and fun to 1+ billion players every year at school, at work, and at home.

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and connected speech

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Connected Speech

What is connected speech?
When we speak naturally we do not pronounce a word, stop, then say the next word in the sentence. Fluent speech flows with a rhythm and the words bump into each other. To make speech flow smoothly the way we pronounce the end and beginning of some words can change depending on the sounds at the beginning and end of those words.

These changes are described as features of connected speech.

Sounds link
Linking is a way of joining the pronunciation of two words so that they are easy to say and flow together smoothly. In English there are different ways that this happens.

Consonant to vowel linking - when the first word ends with a consonant sound and the second word begins with a vowel sound. SeeRadio Programme 1

Vowel to vowel linking - when certain vowels come next to each other an extra sound is added to make the link smooth. SeeRadio Programme 1

Linking 'r'
In standard British English (RP) the letter 'r' after a vowel sound at the end of word is often not pronounced. However, when the following word begins with a vowel the /r/ sound is pronounced to make a smooth link. SeeRadio Programme 2

Sounds disappear
When the sounds /t/ or /d/ occur between two consonant sounds, they will often disappear completely from the pronunciation. SeeRadio Programme 2

Sounds join together
When a word ends in a consonant sound and the following word begins with the same consonant sound, we don't pronounce two sounds - both sounds are pronounced together as one. SeeRadio Programme 2

Sounds change
When a word ends in a consonant sound and the following word begins with a consonant sound, depending on the particular sounds, the last sound of the first word or both the last sound and the first sound of the next word can change. See Radio Programme 3

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BBC Learning English | Pronunciation Tips

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Connected Speech What is connected speech? When we speak naturally we do not pronounce a word, stop, then say the next word in the sentence. Fluent speech flows with a rhythm and the words bump into each other.

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Pronunciation site

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Practical Discovery of English Pronunciation

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by Adrian Underhill

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Introduction to Teaching Pronunciation Workshop - Adrian Underhill (COMPLETE)

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I got my first teaching job in 1984, working at a large boy's secondary school in El Obeid, Sudan. This experience made it very clear to me that there's a lot more to teaching English than just being able to speak the language! I returned to Britain and did a very inspiring teacher training course at Pilgrims, Canterbury. I then went on to teach in Turkey, and then Brazil, and then Spain, with a further teacher training course at International House, London, and finally a masters course in Teaching English with Aston University.

My book writing career began during my time in Brazil, with the publication of Pronunciation Games. I followed up with another photocopiable resource book Singing Grammar. After that, I started writing course books and other study materials, including English Pronunciation in Use, Pen Pictures and the four-level adult course English Result. These last two titles were written in collaboration with Annie McDonald. My most recent books are Authentic Listening Resource Pack (again with Annie) and PronPack 1-4.

For more information, visit my Linked in profile page

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I got my first teaching job in 1984, working at a large boy's secondary school in El Obeid, Sudan. This experience made it very clear to me that there's a lot more to teaching English than just being able to speak the language!

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With transcripts.

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AudioBooks, level 2 - intermediate, Top no BBC, Top Series

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Easy readings

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Educator Center Overview - Microsoft Learn Educator Center

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Microsoft Learn for Educators takes the best of Microsoft Learn online learning paths and helps you to bring instructor-led training materials from Microsoft into your courses. This program provides members with access to Microsoft ready-to-teach curriculum and teaching materials aligned to industry-recognized Microsoft Certifications.

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You can now get LearnEnglish apps on your mobile phone and tablet! Download our Android, iPhone, iPad and Windows Phone apps to help you learn English.

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Videoclips about British culture

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© British Council
The United Kingdom's international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities.
A registered charity: 209131 (England and Wales) SC037733 (Scotland).

ICP#: 10044692

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Do you want to improve your grammar and learn about the UK and its culture? Watch our Word on the Street video series for intermediate or upper intermediate level learners.

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Bookmark this page so that you can find and follow all of our dramas.

Dramas on this page include The White Elephant, serving up lots of functional English phrases as it follows the story of a brand new restaurant and the people who work there. Will they ever have any customers?

You can also listen to our versions of:

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BBC Learning English - Dramas from BBC Learning English

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Bookmark this page so that you can find and follow all of our dramas. Dramas on this page include The White Elephant , serving up lots of functional English phrases as it follows the story of a brand new restaurant and the people who work there. Will they ever have any customers?

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Teaching reading and writing is a nine-part series of videos and tasks to help you explore different ways of developing reading and writing skills with your students.

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What a student may need to know about an item

Ways to present vocabulary
What a student may need to know about an item
Alternative ways of teaching vocabulary

Introduction
With hundreds of thousands of words in the English language, teaching vocabulary can seem like a very daunting prospect. Remember though that the average native speaker uses around only five thousand words in everyday speech. Moreover, your students won't need to produce every word they learn, some they will just need to recognize. Selecting what to teach, based on frequency and usefulness to the needs of your particular students is therefore essential. Once you have chosen what to teach, the next important steps are to consider what students need to know about the items, and how you can teach them.

Which of these areas you choose to highlight will depend on the item you are teaching and the level of your students. Now it's time to think about how we can get the meaning across.
Alternative ways of teaching vocabulary
Give your students a few items of vocabulary and tell them to find the meaning, pronunciation and write an example sentence with the word in. They can then teach each other in groups.
Other things to consider
Review the vocabulary you teach through a game or activity and encourage your students to do the same at home

Encourage autonomy in your learners. Tell them to read, watch films, listen to songs etc and note the useful words

Have a section of your board for vocabulary items that come up as you are teaching. Use different colours for the word / the phonemics / the prepositions / the part of speech

It is a good idea to teach/learn words with associated meanings together

Encourage your students to purchase a good dictionary and use class time to highlight the benefits of one

Teach your students the grammatical names for the parts of speech and the phonemic script

Always keep a good dictionary by your side in case a student asks about a word you don't know

If you don't and have never heard of the word, tell the student you will check and get back to them. Do get back to them

Give extra examples sentences to the students if they are unsure and encourage them to write the word in an example sentence (maybe for homework)

Prepare worksheets and ask your students to match words to definitions.

Ask students to classify a group of words into different categories. For example, a list of transport words into air/sea/land.

Ask students to find new vocabulary from reading homework and teach the other students in the class.

Ways to present vocabulary
There are lots of ways of getting across the meaning of a lexical item.

Again which you choose will depend on the item you are presenting. Some are more suitable for particular words. Often a combination of techniques can be both helpful and memorable

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What a student may need to know about an item Ways to present vocabulary What a student may need to know about an item Alternative ways of teaching vocabulary Introduction With hundreds of thousands of words in the English language, teaching vocabulary can seem like a very daunting prospect.

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Before ChatpGT went dark for me (can you get in right now? I keep getting told it's at capacity), I gave it a run at a bunch of writing prompts to see how well it handled them. I was actually surprised at how well it handled many of them, but there were some of them that it really did not handle well.

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Lower Levels

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Motivating speaking activities for lower levels

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Planning time has been shown to increase production in speaking tasks.

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by Stacia Levy 521,222 views

When other teachers, even other ESL teachers, hear I'm teaching an ESL conversation class, they often say it sounds "relaxing," or "fun" or "easy." Most teachers will smile at this, of course, recognizing that any teaching, while it may be fun, is almost never "relaxing" or "easy."

And while the conversation class may certainly be less rigorous than, for example, an advanced writing class, it has its own set of problems. In a writing class, I know what the students need, and the title "Advanced ESL Composition" alone suggests the curriculum: course readings and several student essays on related topics over the course of the semester, in drafts increasing polished and focused on structure, grammar, and punctuation. A conversation class, however, is less defined. What exactly is a conversation class? What is the curriculum? Sometimes there's not even a course text available. Despite this initial lack of clarity, however, there are general principles of best practice that a conversation class can be built around.

9 Basic Principles of Teaching Conversation Classes

1. Focus on communication and fluency, not correctness

I'm always surprised when in the first days of class students turned to me or ask their classmates if they are holding the conversation "correctly," if it is "right." Rarely even in our native languages do we concern ourselves if the conversation is proceeding "correctly"; the point is if our meaning is coming through. This is what should be emphasized to students: it's not a matter of "right" but whether or not your classmates understand you and can respond to you!

2. Student directed: student choice of topics

There are few things more uncomfortable than being in a conversation on a topic you either intensely dislike or have nothing to say on. Most native speakers will excuse themselves from such conversations as soon as possible. Teachers should be wary of assigning controversial topics such as the legality of abortion or same sex marriage without gauging the climate of the class and having an idea of how receptive students will be to such topics. Some classes are perfectly capable of holding a mature conversation on these topics, others not depending on their language and cross-cultural and interpersonal skills. Teachers should ask themselves the following: Are my students capable of listening to their peers on the topic without erupting in anger? Can they advance their own opinions without undue embarrassment? One way around this concern is allowing students to come up with their own topics to use over the course of the term. Have them work in groups, write agreed-upon topics on index cards, and collect them. They do not have to be " academic" topics like the validity of global warming but almost anything students are interested in and can discuss for an extended time, such as favorite music. One class session or part of one in brainstorming topics will likely yield enough topics for the term, and the instructor can just draw an index card to use during discussion time.

3. Teach vocabulary

It seems elementary, but it is often forgotten that students may not be participating because they simply don't have the vocabulary to enter a specific conversation. Introducing some key phrases and words related to the topic will help this. For example, on the topic of different types of vacations today, students should learn words like " condo," " time share," " hotel," " motel," " extended stay," " business class," and " coach."

4. Grade on degree of participation and understanding of conversation. Assess informally.

Because the focus of instruction, and of conversation itself, is on communicating meaning rather than on correctness, students should be assessed mostly informally. The instructor can walk around the class, sit in on conversations, and get an idea this way on the degree of participation of each student. Students can also be asked to hold a conversation in front of the teacher or class and be assessed by a rubric on the degree of responding to and advancing topics, on use of strategies and vocabulary, and so forth. Finally, more formal quizzes and tests can also be given in the form of listening to taped conversations and answering questions about topic, vocabulary, responses, strategies, and so on.

Teaching conversation can seem challenging because at first blush it seems as if there are few principles to guide the instructor.

However, keeping in mind such strategies as preteaching vocabulary, establishing small groups, and teaching conversational strategies, there is plenty to teach and do in the conversation class!

P.S. If you enjoyed this article, please help spread it by clicking one of those sharing buttons below. And if you are interested in more, you should follow our Facebook page where we share more about creative, non-boring ways to teach English.

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How to Teach Conversational English: 9 Best Practices

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by Stacia Levy 521,222 views And while the conversation class may certainly be less rigorous than, for example, an advanced writing class, it has its own set of problems. In a writing class, I know what the students need, and the title "Advanced ESL Composition" alone suggests the curriculum: course readings and several student essays on related topics over the course of the semester, in drafts increasing polished and focused on structure, grammar, and punctuation.

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Here you can find a wide range of lesson plans to use in your adult classroom. All of our activities are designed around themes engaging and relevant to adult learners and can be used to complement your course curriculum, giving students an opportunity to develop their English language and skills in motivating and enjoyable ways.

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esl jokes elt english humor humour learn teach

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ESLjokes.net - Jokes for learning and teaching English

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The aim of this blog is to provide information and foster discussion that could help teachers and learners of English (though ultimately of any language) to explore and experiment with new and more...

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Home " ELT Materials " Pronunciation materials

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Quizzes for subtitled Youtube videos

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Instant quizzes for any subtitled Youtube video

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Learn sentences through films

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Whether it is better to use the students' first language (L1) in class or have an English-only policy is something that has been much debated and that has seen many changes of fashion over the years. It seems, therefore, that the only sensible reaction an individual teacher can take to this controversial subject is to neither accept nor reject the use of L1, but simply to search for an ideal level of its use in each individual class- maybe changing its use as the class progresses in level or changes in other ways. Here are some tips to help you spot if you have found your own perfect level of L1 use in your classes and how to adjust the level if you haven't reached that point yet.
Possible signs that there is too much L1 in your classroom

1. People say things in L1 that they could say in English

2. The use of L1 means that students get less practice of English

3. There is lots of use of L1 without any clear purpose

4. Students use L1 because they are convinced they cannot communicate most of what they want to say in English

5. The amount of L1 is going up as the term progresses rather than going down as students' level improves

6. Students saying the same thing in L1 in class all the time does not result in them being taught to say those things in English

7. Students use L1 even to say things that have been studied recently or the target language for this lesson

8. You don't respond to L1 use in any way

9. Most of the student talking time is in L1

10. Most of the teacher talking time is in L1

11. Students who leave your class and join an English-only class cannot cope in the new class

12. Students in one class need to be ready to study in an English only class, e.g. to study in a university abroad, but there is the same amount of L1 as in your other classes

13. The teacher uses L1 because he or she doesn't know how to say something in English or lacks confidence

14. When translating, the class end up discussing the grammar etc of L1 when they could be more usefully discussing English

15. Students don't listen to explanations in English because they know that it is always followed by an explanation in L1 or they can always ask for one

16. Students can't cope with explanations in English because they are only used to listening to them in L1

17. Students don't know common classroom language in English like "How do you spell...?" and the names of classroom objects because they always ask those things in L1

18. Students find doing textbook listenings a shock because most of the class up to the point when the recording starts has been in L1

19. Well over 20% of all the speaking in class is in L1

20. You rarely have English-only periods in class

21. Having English only periods in class doesn't work because students are too used to being able to resort to L1

22. Some students complain that the other students speak too much L1

23. The constant chatter of other people speaking in L1 means people can't concentrate on what they are doing in English

24. More control of when they can speak L1 would make it easier to keep discipline

25. Students who were trying very hard to speak English as often as they could at the beginning of the course give up and speak mainly L1 like the rest of the class

26. The students think it is strange or amusing to ask the teacher a question about the language in English

27. The teacher and the students never end up using the English "incidental language" (e.g. "It's your turn") described in the teacher's book, in the box by the side of a speaking task or in the instructions for a photocopiable activity

28. You often have to change the lesson plans in the teacher's book etc because it is designed for an English-only class

29. You or the students often break the school rule on L1 use in class

30. If you don't tell students whether they can use L1 or not, they always assume they can

Possible signs that you could usefully have more L1 in your classroom

1. Never being able to speak in L1 makes the students stressed and unhappy

2. Not being able to speak in L1 leads to long periods of silence, and those periods do not get shorter as the term progresses, rather than use of English

3. The time saved from using L1 rather than English to explain something could lead to a substantial increase in the amount of time you could spend on more useful language, e.g. in a short course with very specific needs

4. The language the students would need to be able to take part in a grammar elicitation etc successfully is well above their present level

5. Simplifying what you are saying to the level that students could understand in English would lead to you saying something that is not a good explanation, e.g. an oversimplified grammar explanation that does not hold true for all the situations in the book

6. You never use L1 to save classroom time

7. Students are still not understanding explanations of vocabulary, grammar rules, game instructions etc even after lots of explanation in English

8. You never use L1 to make explanations clearer

9. Students complain that they often don't understand things in class

10. Using L1 to explain some language would make the explanation more memorable

11. You are only avoiding using your students' language in class because you are not confident in your own mastery of it

12. You could usefully compare and contrast a false friend or similar looking grammatical structure in English and L1

13. You have never experimented with the use of L1

14. Students often give up when trying to explain something to you or ask a question about English

15. There are useful tips that you could give your students about the EFL exam they are taking etc but are prevented from giving them because they can't understand the tips in English

16. You often don't try what seems like good teaching ideas because they involve translation or because you would need to explain something in L1

Other signs that you might not have the balance of L1 use in class right

1. The use of L1 is the same in all your classes

2. How much L1 you use in class has not changed over the years

3. The amount of L1 you use in a particular class has not changed as their level has changed or due to other changes such as the students becoming more mature

4. You have never experimented with changing the amount of L1

5. You don't tell students when they can and can't use L1

6. The amount of L1 varies randomly from class to class, not due to any decision or planning on your part

Ways of making sure you use the right amount of L1 in class

1. Teach your students useful classroom language they can use in English to ask for translations etc, e.g. "How do you say... in English?" If necessary have a whole lesson or a regular class slot on that kind of language.

2. Mark clearly on your lesson plan each point that only English or English and L1 can be used

3. Set yourself a target for the percentage of teacher talking time and student talking time that should be in English in each class and by the end of the course

4. Count what percentage of the stages in the class are English-only on your lesson plan and then at the end of the lesson see what percentage there really was, and see if that matches what you think is acceptable

5. Tell students at each point whether L1 can be used or not

6. Introduce a system of points, red and yellow cards etc during English-only periods to stop students using L1

7. Write all instructions and explanation language down on your lesson plan in English so that you can check it is easy enough to understand and so that you can use English only when giving instructions and explanations

8. Check at the end of the lesson which instructions and explanation language in English you actually used and which language needs further explanation in English or L1

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Using students' first languages in the classroom - UsingEnglish.com

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Using students' first languages in the classroom

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The Think-Pair-Share strategy is designed to differentiate instruction by providing students time and structure for thinking on a given topic, enabling them to formulate individual ideas and share these ideas with a peer. This learning strategy promotes classroom participation by encouraging a high degree of pupil response, rather than using a basic recitation method in which a teacher poses a question and one student offers a response.

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15 Interesting Ways To Start Class Tomorrow
by Terry Heick
Ed note: this post has been updated and added-to from a 2013 post
You love teaching, your love your classroom, you love your students (most of them), but you're tired. This doesn't mean you're not willing to work, but it makes the fountain of good ideas run a bit dry at times, especially towards the end of the year.

So here are 15 ways to start class tomorrow. How well these work depends on how you use them, the tone of your classroom, and even the timing of when you give them a go. Some will be great for an early class, but flop after lunch; others, vice-versa. Try one, then share how it went or ideas better than these via twitter or facebook.
15 Interesting Ways To Start Class Tomorrow
All students stand in circle. First student says "1," or "1,2." The next student picks up where that student left off, and can say a maximum number of 2 numbers. The movement continues clockwise until it gets to 10, where that student has to sit, and the game starts back over at 1 at the next student. Note that there can be no pausing or silent counting-any pauses or indications the student is counting/calculating forces them to sit.

Also, pouting or talking during counting results in elimination from future rounds. The idea for the students is to count strategically so that they can keep from saying "10." The best part of this activity is that it can give some students who may not be the "best" at anything all day long a chance to win. If less than 90% of your students are smiling the whole time, you're doing it wrong.

Students are chosen to give 60 second talks on anything, from self-selected topics they are passionate about, have specific expertise in, etc., to topics given from teacher. The only rule is that they can't stop talking.
3. With A Ridiculous Debate 4. With A Confusing Analogy 5. With A Smart Tweet
Debate Beyonce versus Rihanna, colored pencils versus crayons, recent EU accusations against Google, self-driving cars versus light rail and bicycles, or the best way to break up with a girlfriend or boyfriend. Require students explain their reasoning with evidence, data, or some other compelling support.
6. With An Impromptu QFT Session
City block: city: paragraph structure:_______ is not confusing. Civil Rights: United States::________: Facebook is. In the right context, confusion can be disarming and fun.

Tweets are short, quick, and to the point. Find one that's sets up the lesson-or that doesn't, frankly: it's short, quick, and to the point either way.
7. With Silence
These aren't "fun" on the surface-and frankly, beneath the surface either, but QFT sessions are brilliant ways to move from topics and ideas to questions and eventual learning pathways. Fantastic for self-directed learning, project-based learning, or even a typical academic lesson.
8. With Meditation
Excellent as a pre-assessment as well.
9. With A Write-Around
First 10 minutes are in complete silence. Notes only-students can pass notes provided they're willing to staple whatever they write to the bulletin board as they walk out. You probably can't just bust out the meditation rugs tomorrow, but you can prime them for such a move with a little quiet time. Good for the soul-and the teacher's nerves.
10. An Intelligence Squared Podcast Excerpt
Or maybe meditation is in the cards. Here's a video introducing the idea, but it's not a good thing to just wing. Do some reading if this is something you want to use, or better yet, ask mindfulstew for some tips. He's done this for years with his high school kids.

Hand the first student in each row a piece of paper with a sentence stem, question, or topic on it, tell them which direction to pass when they're finished, then give each students exactly 30 seconds to write and pass. This is a powerful way to get hesitant writers and speakers to give their opinion, and build off the statements of others.
11. With A YouTube video
There are lots of podcasts out there worth your time, but this one is particularly good. There is a proposition given, then each side-two panels of experts-debate the proposition with timed responses.
12. By Reading To Them
Good for content knowledge, but also helpful to model what's possible in a debate. You'll only have time for an excerpt-and I'd choose something polarizing that won't put them to sleep-but next time you use the podcast series (and you should), they'll be familiar with it.
13. With A Personal Story
And it doesn't have to be earth-shattering, substantive, or narrated by Sigourney Weaver. Just play something fun.
14. With Instagram
Read to the kids-K-12 they love it no matter what they say. Read an excerpt from Wendell Berry, an excerpt from Plato's Cave, a few of Shel Silverstein's poems, or a picture book to front-load a unit or even as a writing prompt.
15. With A Write-Around
Tell them a story from your childhood, or something that occurred to you this weekend. Or a time recently that you were confused and how you responded. Or times you've let yourself down-and what you did to correct it. Human teachers > expert content distributors.

Find a viral pic, and go. Writing prompt. Discussion point. Debate topic. Analytical practice. Explicit vs implicit.

Write a "conversation starter" or thinking stem (e.g., 'Summer reminds me of...') on a sheet of paper. Actually, try four sheets of paper-different stems on each. Place them at different points in the classroom, explain to the students how the papers are to rotate so that everyone gets each sheet in even time.

Explain to the students that they are to read the comments from other students before leaving their own ideas. That way, one can build off of another. They can also, if they choose, leave something completely independent.

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12 Interesting Ways To Start Class Tomorrow

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15 Interesting Ways To Start Class Tomorrow by Terry Heick Ed note: this post has been updated and added-to from a 2013 post You love teaching, your love your classroom, you love your students (most of them), but you're tired.

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Tool to help structure presentations

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Make animated videos in minutes. With the help of simpleshow's AI-powered animation maker you can create explainer videos quickly and easily.

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LOTS of games and activities

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Create and browse study sets

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In this tip I'd like to offer a few suggestions for activities using realia and to consider why we may want to bring things into the class.

Why use realia in class?

The main advantage of using real objects into the classroom is to make the learning experience more memorable for the learner. To give a couple of simple examples, if you are going to teach vocabulary of fruit and vegetables it can be much more affective for students if they can touch, smell and see the objects at the same time as hearing the new word. This would appeal to a wider range of learner styles than a simple flashcard picture of the piece of fruit or vegetable. (With very young learners, classroom management can become trickier if you bring in real objects as excitement levels tend to rise. Last year one of my students bit into an onion we were passing round. I'm sure he hasn't forgotten that class!)

A second example would be if you are going to teach some functional language for asking for the timetable for a train. You could use a fictitious timetable or you could use a real one from the local train station, one from the internet, or if you're really organised, some you brought back from your last trip to the UK. This way you expose students to more language than simply the times and destinations. They will see information about prices, discounts, bank holidays etc.

Here is a selection of activities involving realia.

Tourist information
Gather some city/town maps from the tourist information bureau wherever you are. Use them to create role plays that could happen with English speaking visitors to their town or city. Give students a scenario for them to build a role play out of. If you had trouble finding your way around their town/ city when you arrived use your own experiences to create situations.

Collect brochures of places of interest (in English if possible but not vital) and ask students to use them to plan a trip for a group of students who are coming to their town for a week. They can plan the itinerary, work out the budget etc,

Concentration
See the games archive for instructions on how to play this game: www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/concentration

Instead of using students' names put an object, such as an item of clothing or a classroom object, in front of each student and that is what they say instead of their names to pass the turn around the circle.

Recycling race
(Depending on the recycling facilities in your country you will need to adapt the task accordingly) For this you just need a bag of rubbish (clean items out first) that you are about to recycle like tetrabriks, glass jars, cereal boxes, tins, old newspapers etc. To introduce the idea of recycling ask students what all the objects are and which container they'd put them in to recycle them. Draw a picture of each of the possible containers and get students to come and choose an item and tell the class where they'd put it to recycle it and why. You could make this into a team race by giving each team the mission of collecting all the items for their container one by one. You could then use the recyclable material to make a poster with your students about recycling.

For older students elicit the vocabulary for the items and materials and lead on to a discussion or class survey about recycling.

Island survival
Bring in a selection of items such as a coat hanger, a corkscrew, a packet of dental floss, a clothes peg, a plastic bag, a wooden spoon, some swimming goggles, elastic bands etc. Put the students into groups and tell them they have been ship wrecked on a desert island with their group. Luckily there are some random items on the island they can use to help them survive. Reveal the items one by one and elicit vocabulary. Then tell students they have ten minutes to think about how they are going to use the items to help them survive. At the end, listen to each group's ideas and vote on which group you think would survive the longest.

Identity envelopes
(Thanks to Lucy Mardel for this activity.) Get three or four envelopes and fill them with bits and bobs you find around the house such as foreign currency, shop receipts, postcards, photos, buttons, etc. Put students into groups and ask them to have a good look at the objects and to decide who they belong to. They should be able to build up the identity of a character from the objects. You could say they are all suspects from a crime and they have to decide who did it, or simply create the characters to use in a role play.

Gather some bits and pieces that you have in your bag, purse and around the house such as used cinema or concert tickets, train or bus tickets, cards you've received, passport photos, shopping receipts etc. Stick them on a piece of card or on a cork board. Get students to ask you about the items to gather information about you. As a follow up, ask students to do the same and bring in some bits and bobs they have for their classmates to ask them about.

These are just a few ideas to get you started - I hope you enjoy them!
Further reading
http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Mumford-Relia.html This article will give you some wacky ways to use realia in the classroom.
http://www.usingenglish.com/weblog/archives/000228.html More about realia.

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In this tip I'd like to offer a few suggestions for activities using realia and to consider why we may want to bring things into the class. Why use realia in class? The main advantage of using real objects into the classroom is to make the learning experience more memorable for the learner.

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Managing resources involves selecting, developing and adapting materials and resources for the classroom It also involves using them effectively and evaluating their effectiveness.

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Managing resources involves selecting, developing and adapting materials and resources for the classroom It also involves using them effectively and evaluating their effectiveness.

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Do you like practising English vocabulary? In this section there are lots of flashcards for you to print. Play flashcards games to help you remember new words. There are also some flashcards for you to colour and write!

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Dowloadable pictures for flashcards

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ELTpics is the best source for Creative Commons images taken by teachers, and meant for teachers...

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Make your own flashcards

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Flashcard Maker - Flashcards in a flash! Free online Flashcard Maker: Create professional flashcards in seconds. Including: Multi-format options; draw your own images, huge Cambridge Young Learners image library; phonetic script typewriter

Copyright 2003-2011 Cambridge English Online Ltd. All Rights Reserved. | Email us

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Flashcard Maker - Create & print flashcards in a flash!

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Flashcard Maker - Flashcards in a flash!
Free online Flashcard Maker: Create professional flashcards in seconds.
Including: Multi-format options; draw your own images, huge Cambridge Young Learners image library; phonetic script typewriter

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Teenagers are often described as an unwelcome bunch of learners that pose multiple difficulties to teachers. And it may be true as it is for any age group when you do not know how to deal with them. I have been teaching teenagers for the past 20 years and they are in fact my favourite age group. So here are my top 5 tips for teaching teens.

Rapport: Building rapport with teens is essential for success. If you don't, they will probably complain about everything and anything you say or propose. A genuine interest in them and their lives will really improve your relationship with teenagers. They have a talent for seeing through you and knowing if you are being genuine or faking this interest. You could use the first minutes of class to engage in informal conversation about their lives.

Interests: Take time to get to know their interests and using them in your planning. You can do an online survey, for example with Survey Monkey, at the beginning of the year and then use the results to inform your planning. It's difficult to please everybody but you can go for popular topics chosen by many of your students. Even if your syllabus is constrained in terms of what you can add, you can organise reading, listening and speaking tasks around these topics of interest. You can also take into account their preferred type of activities: listening to music, watching whole films, watching short videos, etc., which will vary from group to group.

Choice: My favourite!!!!! Build choice into your classroom activities. I have experimented with different ways of introducing choice into my lessons. It should be clear that you cannot just let students choose what they want to do. I refer to choice as a planned strategy within a lesson. In order to do so, you first need to identify the main objective of your task. That is not up for choice! Once your main objective is clear you can come up with more than one way of achieving it. The choice can be in the type of task, the tool to be used, the way to present it, among others.

Here are some examples:

If you want students to write a narrative or argumentative essay or any other type of text, you can provide a few alternative titles for them to choose.

If you want to revise certain vocabulary or grammar, you can write at least two different task types for the same concept.

If you want students to make a presentation on a specific topic, you can let students choose what tool to use to make the presentation. Powerpoint? A video? A poster? Let them choose!

If you want students to improve their presentations skills and fluency, you can allow them to choose the topic. Let it be something they are interested in! (which links to the previous tip)

If you have worked with a book and you want students to do a wrap-up project, you can let them come up with ideas of what to do. You can always guide them by giving them a few options so that they know what you expect from them. In this case it is a wise idea to approve the choices before any work is done in order to avoid misdirected tasks or projects.

You may be thinking that this implies more work for the teacher and although it is in some cases, the benefits in terms of motivation are far greater.

Variety: Teens get bored easily. Use variety as your ally. You can vary topics, types of tasks, etc. Predictability can ruin your class. You can change the order in which you normally do things and come up with unexpected, original tasks to break down classroom routine. If you have the possibility of changing where you can have your class, do so! A classroom, a library, a playground, a garden.... Anywhere is good for a lesson. You can plan for specific tasks to be done in these alternative spaces.

Challenge: Do not play it safe.... Add challenge. Challenge can come in different ways.

Creating slightly more difficult tasks. More difficult tasks will require more concentration on the part of the learners and will stretch their minds thus increasing student engagement

Introducing competitions in the classroom. Most teens are very competitive and will get involved in almost any task if there is a competition element involved. Make sure you keep track of points and set up a prize system, maybe monthly.

Going for open-ended tasks. You can provide multiple points of entry and allow for varied and multiple possible solutions. This is also related to choice and interests. It is also a way of personalising tasks. It will increase motivation and promote creativity.

If you have been assigned a group of teens, do not despair! Try these tips and experiment with your own ideas as well. Teens are as enjoyable as any other age group!
Vicky Saumell is Overall Coordinator of the EFL department at Instituto San Francisco de Asís, a private school in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where she has worked for 20 years. She is the co-author of Teacher Development Interactive: Preparing for the Teaching Knowledge Test (TKT), author of Meeting Point 3 and 4 for the Storyline coursebook series and series consultant for English in Common coursebook series, all for Pearson. She is the author and tutor of New Learning Environments for the Master's in ELT at Universidad de La Sabana, Colombia, where she has been teaching online since 2009.

Vicky's blogs:
http://educationaltechnologyinelt.blogspot.com.ar/
http://vickysaumell.blogspot.com.ar/

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What are your top 5 tips for teaching teenagers? - Vicky Saumell

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Teenagers are often described as an unwelcome bunch of learners that pose multiple difficulties to teachers. And it may be true as it is for any age group when you do not know how to deal with them. I have been teaching teenagers for the past 20 years and they are in fact my favourite age group.

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25 Attention Grabbing Tips for the Classroom

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25 Attention-Grabbing Tips for the Classroom from the Edutopia Community

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Lots of resources for all learners.

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LearnEnglish provides high-quality resources to help improve your English.

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Dogme is a  kind of teaching that doesn’t rely on published textbooks but relies on conversational communication that occurs in the classroom between teachers and students.

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despite the obvious advantages of dogme it might seem quite revolutionary in specific (more traditional) educational settings. However, I wonder if we can apply it once a week , instead on a reguar basis, to ease possible complaints and give time to all stakeholders (students, teachers, director of studies) to get familiar with the idea and the notion behind it.