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!

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 :) 

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 :)

Witches' brew

Days are getting shorter and colder and supermarkets offer special deals on sweets. I don't even have to look at the calendar to know Halloween is just around the corner. All Saints' Eve is my younger students' favourite celebration so I always digress a bit from our programme and try to make something special a few days before 31 October.

In this fun activity, students learn vocabulary related to cooking and revise the imperative form by writing their own recipe for a magic potion made of horrid ingredients of their own choice.

I usually start this lesson with a general discussion about cooking. I ask my students if they like preparing food and I encourage them to tell me about the dishes they can prepare.

Then I hand out a few recipes and together we make a list of verbs and other words which they might find useful in writing their own recipe (I make sure to write everything up on the whiteboard as they will have to use that vocabulary later).
At this stage I also elicit that the imperative form is used when writing a recipe. Depending on my students' level I decide whether it's necessary to explain the imperative form in detail or a quick revision is enough. There are a number of recipes you can use here: you can choose a more elaborate recipe for your more advanced students or a simple one for your less proficient pupils. Click here to have a look at my favourite Halloween recipes.

OK. so students are now familiar with the structure of a typical recipe and know a lot of cooking words. They have seen a few examples and are ready to create their own recipe...BUT there are a few things they need to do before they roll up their sleeves and get down to hard work.

First of all, I show them this short video and elicit answers to two questions:

1. What is White Queen making? A magic potion.
2. What does the potion do? It makes Alice shorter. 

Now I tell students they're going to make a special recipe for their own magic brew. In order to do that, they need to think of three things:

a) What will your magic potion do?
b) What ingredients will you need?
c) A step by step, detailed instruction how to make your portion.

It's important to point out that a good magic potion doesn't include "typical" ingredients...I always help pupils come up with yucky, hair-raising ingredients and let their imagination run wild. Some of the ingredients might include eye balls, finger/toe nails, witch's tooth, drops/millilitres/litres of tears/sweat/saliva/snot, nose hair, tongue, fingers, toes, earwax, eyelashes...The more imaginative and detailed the list of ingredients is , the more interesting the outcome, so I make sure to help everybody with gruesome vocab.

I never forget to play some spine-chilling Halloween music to get everyone's creative juices flowing. You might find this  Halloween Music Playlist handy.

SPOOOOOKY  BREWING EVERYONE!

P.S. If you're looking for more teaching ideas for Halloween, have a look at these websites:

https://onthesamepageelt.wordpress.com/2016/10/22/using-context-clues-ten-halloween-songs/

https://www.fluentu.com/blog/educator-english/esl-halloween-activities/

http://busyteacher.org/17448-10-fun-halloween-games-english-practice.html

https://oupeltglobalblog.com/2014/10/23/efl-classroom-activities-and-resources-for-halloween/

https://www.eslkidstuff.com/HalloweenGames.htm

https://www.esolcourses.com/links/halloween-resources.html

http://bogglesworldesl.com/halloween_worksheets.htm

https://www.facebook.com/onthesamepage.elt/posts/2057350524282458:0

http://consiliumeducation.com/itm/2017/10/19/halloween-for-early-years/

https://speakinggames.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/delta-downloads-2-e28093-halloween-riddle-maze.pdf

http://www.mes-english.com/flashcards/halloween.php

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

https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/halloween-2

https://tekhnologic.wordpress.com/2015/10/04/trick-or-treat-the-game/

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.