I beg to differ!

Some time ago I came across this article which lists 401 prompts for argumentative writing. Since my students are not very keen on writing these days, I've decided to exploit the article in a slightly different way and turn it into a speaking activity for my teenage and adult students. 

The activity will encourage your students to discuss some controversial statements, share their points of view, and agree or disagree with each other in a polite manner. 

The task is most suitable for intermediate-advanced students who are mature enough to talk about serious issues. It can be used as a time-filler activity or it might useful for those of your students who are preparing for some language exams such as FCE, CAE, IELTS or TOEFL.

Divide your students into pairs. Give each pair of students two piles of cut out cards placed face down. One pile should contain the cards with controversial statements while the other one should contain a shuffled set of  opinion cards . 

Students work in pairs. One student takes a card from the pile with the controversial statements and reads it out loud. His partner takes the first card from the pile with the opinion cards and needs to respond to the statement according to the opinion card he/she gets (either agree or disagree). They need to discuss the statement for at least two minutes (or any time you give them) sticking to their roles. They should try to come up with reasonable arguments whether they personally agree with their role cards or not. 


In order to run this activity more smoothly, you might pre-teach them some useful expressions . 

• Downloadable material:

controversial statements

opinion cards

functional language: useful expressions


Feel free to comment with your feedback :) 

Teenage dilemma

It's been scorching hot for the last few days so keeping my students awake has been a challenge to say the least.


Fortunately, TeachingEnglish with its fantastic resources has saved my life again. This time I tried  the spending maze activity in which my students had to work in groups or pairs and decide how to spend one million euros.

They enjoyed this activity so much that I decided to create something similar but more appropriate for teenage students. 

Young adult's choices is a communicative activity in which students get to practice the language of agreement, disagreement, suggestion and negotiation in order to make some important life choices. This activity has been enjoyed most by my intermediate-advanced teenage students who are about to graduate from high school and are now in the process of figuring out what to do next. In the activity there aren't correct or incorrect answers and, even though students come across some obstacles, each scenario leads to a happy ending. This activity can be used in a lighthearted manner as a time filler, but it can also be a great way to practice for some speaking exams like FCE and CAE (parts 3 and 4).

The task should be conducted just like the spending maze activity and the procedure can be found here.

Depending on your students' level, it might be a good idea to pre-teach some vocabulary. I suggest reading the maze in advance in order to underline some expressions which you feel your students might find difficult.

You can also show them this list of useful expressions (collaborating) and revise using functional language. The list is long but I always encourage my students to memorise and use only a few expressions from each category. 

• Downloadable worksheets:

Young adult's choices

useful expressions (collaborating) 

Hope you and your students enjoy the mazes. Feel free to write to me if you have any comments or know of any similar activities. 

That was rubbish!!

Hello again on this lovely Sunday!

I think I've already mentioned that my students love music and they like it when I bring songs to class. However, it's never easy to make everybody happy with my song choices. Even though I always go for a track that is on the list made by my students (I frequently ask them to make a list of songs they like) ,there are always a few grumpy kids who absolutely despise the number/artist I decide to work with.

I'm hoping to make everybody happy with this lesson. The kids who enjoy certain songs will be able to listen to them while the ones who hate these tracks will have a unique opportunity to criticise them as much as they wish to.

In this lesson your students will watch a video of a famous talent show judge being very harsh to a few contestants. They will firstly learn a few ways of giving very mean feedback. Then, they will study a few ways of making criticism sound softer and more tactful. In the end they'll participate in a role-play in which they'll listen to various songs and take turns to be crude or sensitive talent show judges.

First of all, show your students this PowerPoint presentation and ask them if they know the people in the photos and elicit if they have anything in common. The photos show famous talent show judges known for being very honest but rude in their comments (Simon Cowell, Gordon Ramsay, Chicote). I currently teach in Spain so I included Chicote: a celebrity chef who doesn't beat around the bush when he criticises others. You might want to include some photos of other mean celebrities who your students are familiar with.

Then, tell your students to work in pairs, watch Top 10 Simon Cowell Insults and write as many mean comments as possible. Have your students share their notes but don't correct them yet.
Now give everybody this handout and get them to watch the video again in order to complete exercise 1. At this stage, depending on your students' level, you might need to explain a few words like horrendous, delusional, edge, charisma, utterly, hammy or rubbish.

After correcting exercise 1, tell your students that Simon Cowell isn't the most tactful man around and there are other, nicer ways of expressing one's dislike. Have your students work on exercise 2 and make sure you point out and explain how to use the understatements. Give them more examples if necessary.

Now your students are ready to do exercise 3 in which they have to work in pairs/individually (it's up to you), and use the expressions from the previous exercise to make Simon Cowell's statements (exercise 1) sound more sensitive.

In the last activity divide your students into two groups: group 1 will be harsh judges, group 2 should be tactful judges. Play a song (choose one beforehand) and give your students some time to come up with feedback according to their roles. Remind them to look at different aspects of the song: lyrics, melody, video, etc. Monitor to make sure they use the studied expressions correctly before they act out their roles. You can then play another song and get your students to swap roles. Alternatively, you can divide your students into three groups and add a group of friendly judges who love and compliment the song. Remember to pre-teach some useful expressions to help them give very positive feedback. 

The choice of songs depends on your students. I always pick the most controversial artists that I know my students either love or hate, for example Justin Bieber or One Direction. It's always a good idea to suss out your student's music tastes before the lesson.

This lesson might be followed up by a review writing activity in which students need to review a book/place/film, etc. they don't like: this might be ideal for those of your students who are preparing for more advanced Cambridge exams.

I prepared this lesson for my intermediate and upper-intermediate teenage students but I'll give it a go with my adult students, too. This lesson contains some harsh, offensive language so it's very important that your students are mature and responsible enough to know that their words might be hurtful so they need to think carefully before they speak out. I wouldn't conduct this lesson with my younger, less mature students. 


Let me know if there's anything you would change in this lesson!

Humans of New York lesson plan and worksheets

How do you procrastinate (I know you do ;) )?? I’m guilty of procrastinating every day. I sometimes convince myself that I can’t work until the house is spotless so I clean it until every room shines. On other occasions I feel I can’t do anything before watching an episode (or three) of Friends (btw. My life wouldn’t be complete without Monica, Chandler, Rachel, Ross, Phoebe, and Joe). And then, there are days when I just scroll up and down my facebook checking out what’s happening in the world…not very productive, right?

Not everything on facebook is useless though! There are some pretty cool pages out there! One of them is Humans of New York - a photoblog with street portraits and interviews collected on the streets of New York City. I’m absolutely hooked on reading those short but inspiring stories!

I have recently been practising for FCE speaking test part 2 (photo comparison) and I noticed that my students struggle with speaking and speculating about photos. Even though they know some useful phrases to make hypotheses and they’re familiar with modal verbs of speculation, they still lack ability to put these into practice. I knew I had to stimulate my students’ imagination and give them an interesting task to help them become more successful at speculating about photos, so I decided to turn one of my procrastinating activities into a task for my students. This is how I came up with a lesson plan based on a few photos and stories taken from HONY in order to give my students the opportunity to practice modal verbs and other phrases of speculation to hypothesise about photos.

In the lesson students can also become more confident at describing people and their feelings as well as telling or writing stories. The lesson can be adapted to lower levels and can be used to practice for other Cambridge exams such as PET speaking test part 3 (photo description).


Here are the links to the lesson plan (link) and the worksheets:


Humans of New York lesson step by step
Humans of New York lesson photos A-E
Humans of New York matching activity
Humans of New York matching activity KEY
Humans of New York creative writing (homework)

Hope you like the lesson. Don’t hesitate to write to me with your comments about it :)