Social Distancing Bingo

How are you keeping? I hope you're not suffering from cabin fever. I'm definitely enjoying some perks of working from home (for example, having lunch on my balcony), but I'm very much looking forward to going back to "normal". 

I just wanted to touch base with you and share this quick Social Distancing Bingo I prepared for my teenage students. It can be used as a time filler, warm-up activity or exercise to practice the present perfect tenses. 

It's up to you how you want to use this activity but here is one idea: 

Students need to interview one another and find who has done the activities from the grid. It is better if they ask only a few questions per person- this will encourage them to speak to more people. Once they have filled four boxes in a row (diagonally, vertically or horizontally) with 4 different peer names, they need to call out BINGO! 

(If you teach online, you will need to use breakout rooms or a similar feature that will let you divide your students in pairs/groups). 

I hope this activity will brighten your and your students' moods a bit :)

Take care and stay safe :)

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 :) 

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 :)