What would happen if every human suddenly disappeared?

In this post I'd like to share a lesson I prepared for my upper-intermediate/advanced, adult students. I'm sure it could also work well with older teens and young adults. The lesson aims at revising the second conditional, practising listening, reading and speaking skills, as well as introducing some vocabulary.  


I. Divide your students into four groups and give each group one of  these photos  (or  photo 1, photo 2, photo 3, photo 4  ). Each group needs to describe their photo to their classmates in as much detail as possible.
Then ask everyone what the photos have got in common (they show a world without people)

II. Ask each group to discuss the following question: What would happen if every human suddenly disappeared? Let students brainstorm a few ideas in their small groups before sharing them with everybody. (Remember to encourage everyone to speak and use the second conditional.You can write their ideas up on a whiteboard).

III. Play this TED talk and ask your students to compare their previously discussed ideas to the ones from the video. Ask them to remember/note what the speaker says about the world without people. After watching the video spend some time on discussing it.

IV. Hand out this  worksheet   and ask students to do exercise I. Check their answers and talk about anything they found surprising.

V. Move on to exercises II and III to work on vocabulary. I told my students to do the exercises on their own first and then discuss their answers with their partners but you can choose another interaction pattern. Check their understanding of the words by asking various concept questions and asking them to use the words in a context. 

VI. Question IV might be answered in small groups first and then turned into a whole class discussion. Your students can later use the ideas to write a short essay on this topic (perfect homework ;) ).

You can play this  taboo game  in your next lesson to revise the vocabulary and have some fun :)

Hope you and your students will enjoy my lesson!

Teaching English to Young Learners- Useful links

A fellow teacher who's just at the beginning of her teaching career has asked me for some resources for her younger learners. I've compiled this list of useful websites which I'm also sharing here with you.

                                                 

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British Council- Learn English Kids a must for every English teacher working with children;

ISL Collective   plenty of downloadable worksheets for students of all levels and ages;

Busy Teacher    a classic with teaching material for students of all ages and levels;

One-Stop-English  plenty of downloadable worksheets for students of all levels and ages;

Super Simple Learning   younger learners (songs and worksheets);

Teachit Languages various resources;

Twinkl teaching resources for teachers of various subjects (including ESL);

TES educational materials;

Yummy interactive resources for young learners (Polish and English version available);

ESL Kids stuff - to use this website you need to pay and become a member but there are also some free downloadable worksheets;

I child might be quite useful- I used it with my kindergarten kids but there are some materials for older kids too;

MES-English flashcards, crosswords, bingo cards, etc;

Little Fox animated stories for English learners- really good! includes songs and games;

Book Box another webiste with animated stories for children;

Fluentu some ESL activities for children.

Are there any other sites you would include in this list? What advice would you give an EFL teacher who is just starting their teaching career?

Business Phrasal Verbs Taboo Game

Sunday afternoons usually mean one thing for teachers: lesson planning ;) It's the end of a long weekend for many of us here in Europe so I'm sure you want to go back to work with something energising for your students...something that will wake them up after four days off. I bet a game will do the trick :)

In this post I'm sharing a Taboo Game which I've created for my adult students to revise some business phrasal verbs we'd been learning before the break (look forward to, go over, put forward, hand out, lay off, get on to, get out, get down to something, get away with (something), come up with, pull out of (something), knock off, stand out, slack off, go under, fall through, go down a storm, run ouf of).

I love playing taboo with my students: it gets them to speak and it's entertaining for adults and teens alike. Also, it teaches how to describe terms- a skill I find essential in working towards being communicative in a foreign language. Taboo, like any other game, might be played to revise vocabulary after finishing a unit of a textbook or it could be a great time filler at the end of a lesson. It's also a good way of waking your students up if they're a bit sleepy.

Taboo cards are easy to make and can serve you for a long time so you can reuse them (if you laminate them, you can have them forever...and who doesn't like laminating?!?!?!). 

If you've never played taboo and aren't sure how to play it, click here to familiarise yourself with the rules and read some useful tips. 

Enjoy :)