Could you please tell me if ... (indirect questions with a twist)

Good afternoon Everyone! 

I've already told you how much I love using games in teaching. I also mentioned my fascination with Black Stories , a spooky card game with mysterious riddles. In this short post I'd like to share with you how I exploit this game to practice asking indirect questions with my teenage and adult students. This game is appropriate for both lower and higher levels (A2-B2). 

After explaining the difference between direct and indirect questions ( feel free to use this worksheet  ), write the below riddle up on your board:

Thank You

A woman goes into a pub and orders a glass of water. The man behind the bar grabs a rifle and aims it right at the woman. She thanks him and leaves. 

Clarify any vocabulary items your students might not know. Their task is to ask you yes/no indirect qestions to solve the mystery. Some example questions might include:

1. May I know if the man and woman know each other?

2. I was wondering whether the man is crazy.

3. Could you please tell me if she was thirsty? 

You should limit your answers to yes and no only, without giving your students any clues (unless, of course, they get stuck). The solution to the story:

The woman had hiccups and wanted to get rid of them with the water. The man behind the bar understood straight away and wanted to help her by giving her a real scare. It worked!

*For those of you who don't know it yet, it's believed that getting a fright might stop hiccups. 

You can find more black stories here. 

These cards are my students' favourite game and I can definitely say it's one of my best purchases :) 

Are there any board/card games you really like using in the classroom? How do you exploit them?

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!

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 :) 

Present Simple and Present Continuous Board Game

Aloha! 

Hope you're reading this post from a nice and sunny place sipping on something delicious :) It sure is sunny here but I'm hiding from the heat in a cosy cafe. Unfortunately, my internet connection hasn't been very stable since I changed flats over a month ago which made my lesson planning a bit tricky...but not being able to connect to the internet forces me to review and reuse my old materials which I have forgotten about. Looking for a way of practising the present simple and continuous tenses I came across a board game I created some time ago to practice these structures. I know how you guys love board games so I've decided to share this one with you :) Just click  here to download and/or print the game and you're ready to play! It's suitable for A2-B2 teenage and adult students who need to revise how to use the two present tenses. 

Hope you and your students like it and feel free to comment if you have any suggestions :) 

Humans of London: Rebecca's Story

After a long break (work, work, work), I'm back to share another activity that I created for my pre-intermediate/intermediate students to practice the past simple and the past continuous tenses.  The activity worked really well with my adult students but I'm sure your teens will enjoy it too.

Since my lesson inspired by Humans of New York has been quite popular (if you haven't checked it out yet, click here ), I decided to prepare something similar, but this time I looked for inspiration on Humans of London . 

To warm everybody up, ask your students if they know what Humans of New York/London/Amsterdam are. Have a quick discussion about the photoblogs and ask if there is any story your students would like to share if they were approached by a journalist working for any of these blogs. 

Tell your students they are going to read a story told by Rebecca- a middle-aged woman from London. Show them these two photos of Rebecca  and ask them to describe her appearance and think of some personality traits she might have (always elicit why). 

Now on the whiteboard write down these verbs: have, work, can, grow, cry, divorce, break up, run, lose, go, meet. Tell your students that all these verbs appear in Rebecca's story. Divide your students in pairs/small groups and ask them to write a story about Rebecca using the above verbs in the past simple and the past continuous forms.You might need to go over the forms with your students beforehand if their level is weaker. Give them enough time to complete the task and compare the stories they came up with. Correct where necessary. 

Then, give each student a copy of Rebecca's story which they have to complete with the right form of the verbs. Depending on their level, you might need to pre-teach some vocabulary. Give them enough time to do the task and check it together. Compare the real story to theirs and ask them what they think of it. 

Hope the lesson works for you as well as it did for me :) 

Speaking Board Game

Here is another board game to encourage your students to talk about a variety of topics. It can be used as a time filler or practice for speaking exams. I'm going to play it with a new group of students in order to get to know them and assess their spoken English level. I particularly like to ask my new students about their favourite and least favourite teachers (questions 6 and 8) to find out their preferences and adapt my teaching methods accordingly. You can download the game  here. 

If you're about to start teaching a new group of students and are looking for some fun activities to break the ice with them, you can check out my other post in which I shared my favourite icebreakers → your first impression is your last impression

You might want to start the course by involving your students in a discussion why they are learning English, and getting them to brainstorm benefits of learning a new language. Knowing my students' reasons for learning English plays plays a crucial role in the way I shape the course, plan my lessons, and choose materials.  This lesson plan , based on one of the most touching videos I've ever watched, will definitely help your students talk about the topic

Happy Teaching 😸

Be going to and will board game

The holidays are over, time to get back to work. 

Talking about New Year's resolutions is a great excuse to revise future structures, and since I know my students confuse the use of be going to and will when they talk about the future, I'm planning to concentrate on these two forms in my first lesson of 2018. 

To warm everybody up I show them Friends New Year's Resolutions video or New Year's Resolutions comic by Incidental Comics and engage them in a discussion about New Year's resolutions- the choice of the prompt depends on the level of my students and their interests. Some of the questions I might ask to prompt discussion are:

1. Do you make New Year's resolutions?

2. What are some New Year's resolutions you have made in the past?

3. Are there any New Year's resolutions you have kept? 

4. Are there any tips how to keep one's New Year's resolutions?

5. Are there any New Year's resolutions you have broken? Why?

6. Do you think making New Year's resolutions is a good idea? Why?

I'm pretty sure my students will use be going to and will interchangeably so I'm planning to point out some basic differences between the two structures (i.e. be going to is used to talk about already made decisions, plans and intentions while will is used to talk about predictions, spontaneous decisions, and promises). After eliciting a few examples and making sure everybody understands the form and use of the structures, I'm going to move on to playing a game to practice! All my students love board games so I've made a  be going to or will board game in which students have to throw the dice and answer the questions from the squares they land on. They can only stay where they have landed if they answer the question using the correct future form. Remember to encourage your students to avoid giving short answers- the longer their answers, the better :) 

Modern Cinderella Christmas Story

Only 10 days till Christmas and I'm buzzing with excitement already! In the meantime, however, I'm trying to keep my students as thrilled about the festive season as I am. To this end, I've been playing a lot of Christmas music and my beloved Christmas adverts. One of my most-liked Christmas advertisements this season is #YouShall Find Your Fairytale Christmas  by Debenhams (a British department store). I love it because it retells one of my favourite childhood fairytales (Cinderella), and it's narrated by the greatest actor EVER, Ewan McGregor 💖 That's all I need to feel happy right now! 

This spot is a great material for a storytelling lesson where students practise narrating a story using a variety of past tenses and interesting vocabulary. It also gives a perfect opportunity to involve your students in a discussion about the importance of social media in our lives. 

Scroll down to have a look at my attempt to make a good use of this video.

First of all, show your students these  two photos  and introduce the people as the protagonists of a story. Have your students come up with information about the two characters. Encourage them to be creative and brainstorm both appearance and personality adjectives for each character. I even ask my students to invent names for the people as well as their likes, dislikes, hobbies, etc...the more your students get into the task, the better. 

When the profiles of the characters are ready, divide your students in pairs or small groups and give each of them a set of   picture story  . Tell your students the story they're looking at isn't complete so they need to think of an interesting ending of the story. If you want to spice the activity up, you can cut out the pictures, change their order, and ask your students to arrange the pictures into the logical order to create a coherent story. 

Before they roll up their sleeves and get their creative juices flowing, elicit a few features of a good story, i.e. interesting adjectives, past tenses, a range of connectors. Depending on the level of my students I spend some time on revising the aforementioned features or I just move on to the task and monitor the pair/group work. 

Once the stories are ready, have each pair/group share their version of the story with their own ending. Then, play the video and compare the stories. Write down any vocabulary that you think your students might find difficult. 

To follow up, you can involve your students in a discussion about social media and ask them some of the questions below:

• Do you think social network sites are good?
• What do you use social network sites for?
• How often do you connect to social media?
• How much information do you think is appropriate to put on social media?
• What are the advantages of social media?
• What are the disadvantages of social media?
•  Are social media good or bad for relationships? 

If you're looking for more festive season activities, check out  this post in which I shared some of my favourite xmas lesson ideas. 

Merry Christmas!

Ho Ho Ho!

The holiday season is upon us and I'm sure you're busy in your private as well as professional lives. December has always been hectic for me: looking for Christmas gift ideas, shopping, decorating the house, preparing and marking exams, writing end of term evaluations... I know very well how difficult it is to find time and energy to plan lessons these pre-Christmas days.

This is why in this post I want to share a few festive season lesson ideas that have been thoroughly enjoyed by me and my students in the last few years of my teaching experience. All of these lessons are aimed at teenage and adult learners of various levels.

• A few great ideas shared by Gosia on her never-disappointing blog Lesson Plans Digger :

https://www.lessonplansdigger.com/2017/12/10/3-christmas-videos-activity-ideas/

https://www.lessonplansdigger.com/2015/12/16/best-and-worst-christmas-gifts-speaking-activity/#more-4594

https://www.lessonplansdigger.com/2015/12/15/video-based-christmas-activities/#more-4578

https://www.lessonplansdigger.com/2015/12/13/office-christmas-parties-lesson-plan/

• One of my beloved teaching resources, FilmEnglish ,offers a few holiday season lesson ideas based on beautiful short films:

http://film-english.com/2015/12/18/mogs-christmas-calamity/

http://film-english.com/2016/12/07/buster-the-boxer/

http://film-english.com/2015/12/20/the-man-on-the-moon/

http://film-english.com/2012/12/02/the-journey/

• These activities by British Council's TeachingEnglish  have been very popular among my students:

https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/charities

https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/christmas-gift-experiment

• This post wouldn't be complete without sharing these xmas activities posted by On the same page and All at C :

https://allatc.wordpress.com/2011/12/02/please-please-please-let-me-get-what-i-want/

https://allatc.wordpress.com/2017/12/04/a-christmas-lesson-plan/

https://onthesamepageelt.wordpress.com/2016/11/24/im-going-back/

Please don't be shy and share your favourite xmas lesson ideas!

Tell me about the company you work for

After a very busy month of work and travels I'm back with a quick activity suitable for Business English learners at pre-intermediate-intermediate levels.

I have recently started teaching a business English course to a group of adults who need to become more confident at speaking English in order to communicate with their international partners and clients. Even though their receptive skills are very strong, they struggle to express themselves without getting stuck for words. I've been trying to expand their vocabulary and involve them in a lot of speaking activities in order to encourage them to start using the language they already understand so well.

This lesson, which involves reading and speaking exercises, enhances students' vocabulary and helps them talk about the company they work for. 

First of all, show your students the four logos from  handout 1 (page 1) and encourage them to share anything they know about the companies. Then, show them the four texts one page 2 (the texts are taken from Wikipedia) and ask them to read the texts quickly and decide which companies are described in each text. Next, students should read the texts more carefully and underline some phrases used to talk about companies (e.g. the company empowers people to experience the world). After quick feedback give your students the list of useful phrases (page 3) and go over the ones that haven't been mentioned yet. I always give and elicit examples to check whether my students really understand the phrases and are able to use them.

At this stage students should be familiar with vocabulary needed to describe a company. They should also know what kind of information they are expected to give when talking about an organisation.
Divide them in pairs and give each pair an envelope with a logo of a company and some facts they can use to talk about it ( handout 2) Together they should discuss the companies using the vocabulary from the previous activities. Monitor the task and help if necessary. After a few minutes ask each pair to tell their classmates about their company (encourage them to take turns in speaking so that everybody gets a chance to speak).

Wrap up the lesson by asking your students to tell you about the company they work for. No excuses now- they have been given enough practice to be able to do that task without any problems :)

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 :) 

Now and then

This is just a quick post to say hi and share this PowerPoint presentation which I created for my students with whom I want to revise some past and present structures, and vocabulary related to people's physical appearance.

It's a simple prompt but it might do the trick and encourage learners to describe both present and past states and habits using a variety of structures such as comparatives, the present simple, past simple, used to/would + infinitive.

It can be used as a time-filler activity or an additional activity to supplement your coursebook. 

I'm sure the presentation will interest students of various ages and levels.


P.S. If you're looking for more activities to revise the structure used to + infinitive, these songs and gap fills might be just perfect for you:

Gotye "Somebody I used to know" + the song

Johnny Cash "She used to love me a lot" + the song


I'll be happy to hear from you if you have any ideas how to use these photos in teaching. Feel free to share :) 

What makes a good life?

Have you ever wondered what makes a good life? Is it money, fame and wealth? Or maybe family, friends and health? Or maybe a bit of everything?

In this lesson your students will talk about their definition of a good life and they'll discuss what makes them happy. They'll also learn some vocabulary from one of my favourite TED talks by Robert Waldinger, and later watch the talk and answer some comprehension questions. This lesson has worked well for my very chatty group of upper-intermediate-advanced adult students. They enjoyed having the opportunity to learn fairly challenging vocabulary while practising both speaking and listening skills.

Before watching the video, show your students this PowerPoint presentation and encourage them to discuss the photos and answer the questions from the slides. This task should warm them up before working on the tasks from the  worksheet. 

Get your students to work in pairs and discuss points I, II and III from the handout.

 After discussing the questions as the whole group, move on to exercise 1 in which your students should work individually or in pairs. Check the answers and provide additional explanations to make sure everybody understands the vocabulary. 

At this stage, tell your students they're going to watch a TED talk in which Robert Waldinger talks about his study on what keeps people healthy and happy as they go through life. Ask them to watch the talk and answer the questions from exercise 2 (go over the questions before playing the video). The video can be found here . 

After watching the talk let your student compare their answers before discussing them all together. In the end discuss the questions from exercise 3 (this can be done in pairs, groups or as the whole class- it's up to you).

If you have some time left, you can divide your students in pairs/groups and get them to play this taboo game in order to practice the vocabulary from the talk. 

Downloadable worksheets and materials:

What makes a good life PowerPoint presentation (warmer)

What makes a good life WORKSHEET

What makes a good life TABOO game

What makes a good life TED talk VIDEO

Hope you like the lesson! 

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!

I'm afraid I've got some bad news for you...

When was the last time you had to break some bad news to somebody? It's definitely never easy to disappoint a person. However, there are some ways in which we can deliver bad news in a less painful way. In this  lesson your adult students will learn some useful expressions we use to give and respond to bad news. They'll also get involved in a role play to put these expressions into practice.

I've prepared this lesson with my company students in mind and so far it's worked well with intermediate and upper-intermediate levels. My students have approached the topic quite lightheartedly and haven't shared any terrible news. However, remember to be sensitive if any very bad news comes up.  

Download the worksheet here . 

Have a great weekend!

The importance of being idle

The title of this post has nothing to do with my bank holiday. I haven't been lazy at all as I've been trying to plan all my lessons for the rest of this week. Well, as you can guess, I didn't manage to plan ALL my classes, but at least I got to think up a few, hopefully interesting, activities. One of them is based on a song by the men in the picture below. Do you recognise them?

That's right, they are Oasis! And the photo is taken from a hilarious music video for their song "The importance of being idle" .

I decided to exploit both the song and the video to practice reported speech and reporting verbs with my teenage and adult students. Although they have been studying reporting verbs for years, some of my students still find it difficult to use verbs other than say and tell when reporting sentences. 

Hopefully, this activity will do the trick and it will get my students to become more creative with their use of reporting verbs. I'm also hoping to kill two birds with one stone and make them fall in love with Britpop. Fingers crossed! 

Click on the links below to see the lesson plan and the worksheet:

The importance of being idle lesson step by step

"The importance of being idle" Oasis - lyrics

Hope you like the idea! Feel free to comment with your suggestions :)

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 :)

Songs!

Do you like using songs in your lessons? Are you fed up with gap fills?? Me too! Here are some links with plenty of great ideas to engage your students in fun activities involving music:


14 song-based lesson plans and activities → A great article on using music in teaching by Onthesamepage ELT;

Beyond Gap Fills → ways of exploiting songs in language teaching;

Using music and songs → an interesting article by British Council;

The Language Gym → a recommendable article by Dr Gianfranco Conti;

Voices → another useful article by BC;

• Some gap fill worksheets for your teenage/adult students: 

Ed Sheeran 'Shape of you'

Amy Winehouse 'Valerie' 

Bruno Mars 'Just the way you are'

Cher 'If I could turn back time'

David Guetta 'Titanium' 

Ed Sheeran 'Thinking out loud' 

Gotye 'Somebody that I used to know' 

Johnny Cash 'She used to love me a lot' 

Avicii 'Hey Brother' 

Bruno Mars ' Locked out of heaven' 

Justin Timberlake 'Can't stop the feeling' 

Keane 'Somewhere only we know' 

Olly Murs 'Wrapped up' 

Rihanna 'Stay' 

Taylor Swift 'We are never ever getting back together' 

• Some songs with mistakes which your students need to find and correct: 

Coldplay 'Adventure of a lifetime'



I'll be updating this post with more ideas and worksheets in the future so make sure you come back to read it :)

The burning house activity to get your students speaking

A passport, a wallet, glasses, my parents' wedding photo, a mobile phone, a laptop, an address book, a fountain pen, my favourite mug...these are my favourite possessions...What would you grab if your house were on fire? A fun activity from a great blog I've been following for the last few months.


https://onthesamepageelt.wordpress.com/2016/03/25/the-burning-house/