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!

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!

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 :) 

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! 

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!

What makes a word "real"?

Have you got any adorkable students? If you're just scratching your head wondering what adorkable means, then you haven't watched Anne Curzan's TED talk on what makes the word "real" . 

In her witty talk, Anne Curzan talks about how new words become real and end up in a dictionary. Since it's one of my favourite TED talks I couldn't help but turn it into a lesson for my more advanced students.

In the lesson, students are encouraged to discuss changes in their language in the last few years, learn new vocabulary from the talk, watch a video and answer some comprehension questions from the talk. In the end they get to work in pairs/groups and create their own slang words! 

My older upper-intermediate and advanced students LOVED the video and enjoyed coming up with fun phrases!

Clink on the following to see:

What makes a word "real" worksheet

What makes a word "real" video

What makes a word "real" transcript

Enjoy :)