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! 

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!

A wee treat for Ed Sheeran fans ↓

This quick activity is based on Ed Sheeran's "Shape of you". My teenage students are absolutely crazy about this song and have been nagging me to work on it for ages.

Apart from completing a typical gap fill task, students write a short story using some words and phrases from the song.

To begin with, students work on the first exercise in order to get familiarised with some vocabulary from the song.

Then, they listen to the song and complete the gaps in the lyrics with the words from the first activity.

 After discussing the song and the lyrics (make sure you explain the underlined words/phrases and any words your students don't know), students draw a piece of paper with a character's description written on it. They need to work individually or in pairs and write a short story about the character. They need to use at least 6 words or/and phrases from the song.I always encourage my students to use the words that are new to them. 

In the end students swap their stories and looking at the list of all the characters they try to guess who's described in the text. Encourage them to justify their choices and ask authors of the text to confirm/reveal their true characters. 

I came up with this activity with my intermediate students in mind but it can be easily adapted to higher levels by not giving them the first activity and asking them to fill in the gaps without help. 

Downloadable worksheet  → Ed Sheeran "Shape of you" activity


For other ideas how to use songs in teaching and more downloadable worksheets click here

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 :)

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 :)

Games Games Games!

The end of the academic year is fast approaching so I’d like to treat my students to more games. They’ve been working very hard and I think they deserve to relax and have a bit more fun than we usually do. In this post I’d like to write about the games I find very popular among my students, but I’d also like to ask you to tell me what games have worked for you and your students.

This course we've played a lot of games based on role-plays, which my students have thoroughly enjoyed. I was pleasantly surprised to see both my teen and adult students get into their characters and use English in “real” life situations. Even my shyest students were eager to participate! If you struggle with finding ideas for role play activities, I recommend that you get a copy of Role Plays for Today by Jason Anderson . It’s a great book with plenty of interesting ideas for EFL students of all levels.

I’ve also exploited my blackboard a bit more and have played various games such as jeopardy, pictionary, hot seat and other fun games you can read about here.


It’s not a secret that I’m addicted to Amazon. I can’t go a week without ordering something. I usually order books and DVDs, but this year I’ve bought quite a few board games which I’m happy to play both with my friends and my students (teacher’s life can be truly great!).


I’m sure you’ve all played Taboo. It’s a great game and it always gets my students excited. It can be, however, a tad difficult for younger or less advanced learners. In that case I recommend Don't Say It! It’s like the Taboo game, but it’s designed for children and lower level learners of English.

I’m also convinced you’ve heard of Rory's Story Cubes. It’s a very nice and simple game which encourages learners to use their imagination and tell a story. It’s been enjoyed by my younger and older students (including adult learners). I need to warn you though: some kids make an awful lot of noise with these cubes so you might want to use Soft Foam Story Cubes . Just saying… ;)

If you enjoy storytelling games, you’ll like What's up? What’s up? is a card game in which all the players have to create a fun story using the pictures on the game cards. To spice the game up a bit, there are some special cards which make things more complicated, thus more interesting. If you decide to buy this game, remember to have a look at the cards beforehand: there are some pictures which might not be appropriate for the age or cultural background of your students. For example, I decided to get rid of a card with a picture of a condom cause I just didn’t want to deal with my teenage students’ giggles or some possibly awkward questions from my YL.

Another game which has been pretty fun for my students is BrainBox: English.I must say I had been quite reluctant to buy this game, but following a fellow teacher’s recommendation I decided to give it a go and I’m definitely not sorry! It appeared to be quite engaging and my students like how competitive it can get. It’s also a great exercise to improve one’s memory! Definitely worth buying.

I’d like to end this post with my personal favourite…a game which, no modesty here, made me pretty famous at school…kids talk to one another about this game and play it after school with their friends and families. Even my boyfriend got hooked up on this game and wanted to play for hours and hours. Ladies and Gentlemen, I’d like to introduce you to Black Stories. Black stories are mysterious riddles for teenagers and adults. Your students will have to solve crimes by asking yes/no questions. I'm jealous of those of you who haven't played Black Stories yet. There's so much fun awaiting you :)


Well, these are some of my favourite games I like playing with my students. What are yours?

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 :)