Aims: to give students a purposeful writing task for homework, to look back over work done in a different context

Materials needed: this worksheet if required

Time needed: this activity could be given as homework, in which case it should take one hour maximum; the example lesson idea offered below should take between one-and-a-quarter and one-and-a-half hours.

Procedure:

As students reach the end of their coursebook, it can be fun and useful to look back over it, and to discuss in groups what students liked best about it and what they didn’t like so much. This can give you extra feedback as to what kinds of text or theme your students respond well to, as well as beginning to give your students a sense of ownership over the content of their language course.

This worksheet is designed for strong intermediate level students and could be given as homework after just such a discussion.

How could you use the worksheet in a lesson?

You could turn the worksheet into a lesson by, perhaps, doing part one of the worksheet in class (moving from a solo marking activity, to a small group ranking task, to a whole class discussion activity), then dividing the coursebook into parts – and your students into small groups – and assigning each group a different part of the coursebook to compare with class preferences (they could present their findings to the class). If time, you could ask students what makes a good formal letter (openings and closings, paragraphing, etc.) and elicit/board the following structure:

1. opening (“Dear Mr/Mrs/Ms [surname]” / “Dear Sir/Madam/Sir or Madam” – make sure students know we use the second structure if we don’t know the writer’s name, and the last if we don’t know their sex)
2. paragraph 1 – giving reason for writing
3. paragraph 2 – a positive statement
4. paragraph 3 – more information
5. paragraph 4 – more information/ conclusion
6. closing (“Yours sincerely” / “Yours faithfully” – make sure students know “sincerely” closes “Dear Mr/Mrs/Ms…” letters and “faithfully” closes “Sir/Madam/Sir or Madam” letters)

You could then dictate a bad letter to the coursebook writers that you “found.” Give copies to students to compare against their own, give a section of the letter to each small group and ask them to re-write it; then conduct a round-robin reading of the remade letter. Finally, students could write their own letter – planning in class (perhaps then discussing their plans in pairs or small groups) or at home, and drafting at home.

After you’ve collected your students’ work, you could photocopy it and give marked copies back for further editing – after all, their initial letters may be amongst the first formal letters they’ve written in English, and they would almost certainly benefit from feedback and re-writing.

Suggested levels: elementary to advanced.

Aims: to re-use reading material from the coursebook; to focus on textual cohesion.

Materials: spare black ballpoint pens and photocopies of a reading passage from your students’ coursebook. I find it useful to enlarge the copies to about 110%.

Procedure:

1. After students have practised reading for (gist and) detail, put them in pairs and give out copies of the reading text they have just looked at, and be prepared to give out any black ballpoint pens as needed.
2. Ask each pair to delete ten words from different places in the text – if necessary, explain that they will give their texts to another pair to try and put the words back in. Make sure students know they should choose which words to delete and that they must keep a record of the words they’ve deleted on another piece of paper, which they will keep.
3. Show the students that it’s OK to make holes in the paper, as long as their deleted words can’t be read at all, even under direct light.
4. When each pair have finished deleting their words, ask them to pass their paper to the pair next to them.
5. Set a time limit, or ask the first pair to finish to shout “stop!” when they have done so, and ask each pair to try and put the words back in.
6. After the time limit has been reached, or the first pair have shouted “stop!”, pairs split up, or make groups of four: one student comes to mark a student from another pair’s work and reveal the correct words.
7. Get general feedback from the class: did they enjoy it? What were the hardest words to put back? Who got the most correct? etc.

Aims: to engage students with an authentic listening task; to provide meaningful speaking communicative practice; to encourage students to justify their opinions; to check vocabulary used for describing parents and children.

Materials: copies of this worksheet and chopped-up copies of these questions for all students. Access to a laptop or interactive whiteboard for the video part of the lesson. Whiteboard and pens.

Time needed: approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes.

Procedure:

1. Divide students into pairs or groups of three. Draw a bee on the whiteboard and elicit what it is; board “spelling bee” and elicit what each team of two or three students must do.
2. Dictate the following list of adjectives and ask students to write them as they think they are spelt: obedient, fun-loving, respectful, lenient, strict, lazy, hard-working, adventurous, rebellious, loving, bossy, demanding. You can go over any unknown vocabulary with them afterwards – the test now is to use their knowledge of English spelling to write the words.
3. Pairs have a minute or two to check each other’s spelling and agree on a team list of words. They then pass their team list to the group on their left, who will give one point for each correctly spelt word. Nominate different students to spell the words and deal with any vocabulary questions as they arise. Board the words as they are spelt and elicit any corrections. Drill pronunciation as necessary.
4. Students give feedback to their peers. Teacher asks: did anyone get more than five points? More than ten? to find the top team.
5. Teacher boards two columns, one headed “parents” and the other headed “teenagers.” Re-group students into fours or fives and ask them to decide together which adjectives go best with “parents” and which with “teenagers.” Elicit that they must agree on their answers and that they must justify them.
6. Get feedback from the class – which adjective goes where, and why. Promote disagreement wherever possible, as this will encourage students to justify their choices.
7. Divide students into new pairs or threes and give out this worksheet. Ask them to decide together on the most appropriate minimum ages to do these activities, and to give reasons for their answers.
8. After a few minutes, and if the enthusiasm for discussion is still there, combine pairs into larger groups of fours or fives and ask them to agree on a list of ages; extend this again until you have a class decision.
9. Get feedback and find out why students have ascribed the ages they have.
10. Board “The World’s Strictest Parents” and explain that students will watch a British programme with this title. Show these pictures of Stefan and Lizzie and ask students what adjectives they would use to describe them.
11. Ask students what they think will happen in this programme, then play the first 1 minute 30 seconds and check their answers as a class (useful questions to ask could be: how many British teenagers do we follow in each programme? [two]; how long do they go away for? [one week]; in this episode, which country do they go to? [Ghana]).
12. Give each student a copy of the questions on Part One of this worksheet. Explain that they will now watch part one of the programme, and ask them to listen for the answers to each of these questions. Explain any unknown vocabulary on the question sheet.
13. Play part one of the youtube video, get your students initial reactions, go through the answers together and ask what they think will happen next. Give out the questions for part two of the video and repeat the procedure above.
14. After playing part two and going through the answers to the questions, ask students how they think the programme will end. Do they think the teenagers’ behaviour will improve? Do they think the teenagers will miss Ghana when they return home? Do they think the teenagers will start to love life with their host family in Ghana? etc.
15. Play the first six minutes (exactly) of Part V of the programme above. Ask your students who they think has changed the most, and whether they think Lizzie will change. Ask them how they think the programme will end and, if you have time and your students are still in the mood to watch, play the episode Finale (below).
16. Round off the lesson with a discussion. You could use these questions to get things going or keep the lesson on track: is it good to be strict? Do you think the teenagers have changed permanently, or is it just a temporary change? How are the British and Ghanaian families different? Which family would you prefer to live with? How would your life change if you had to live with the Ghanaian family? Is your family more like the British one or the Ghanaian one? How do you feel about that?

Aims: to learn and practise using interesting conversational gambits in English; to practise informal speaking; to practise turn-taking, etc., in English conversations; to create a strong class bond.

Materials: these questionnaires (one for each student); enough classroom space to make two circles of chairs.

Procedure:

1. Give out the speed-date questionnaire (see above).

2. Ask students on their own to read through the questions, crossing out any they don’t like.

3. Put the students in groups of three or four. Ask them to tell each other about the questions they most want to ask and to think of at least three more questions they’d like to ask members of the other groups.

4. Ask students to arrange their chairs in two circles: one facing inwards and a smaller circle facing outwards. If possible, an equal number of students should be in each circle; otherwise, two students could pair up, and work as one for this activity.

5. Explain that the students will have exactly three minutes to try and find out as much about the person facing them as they can. After that, the students in the inner circle have to move one space to their right.

6. Monitor the activity, taking note both of good and problematic language used, and repeat the three-minute talks followed by moving seats until every member of the inner circle has spoken to every member of the outer circle. You could alternate moves if you like, so that the inner circle moves one space to their right, then the outer circle moves one to their right, etc.

7. Put students back into their original groups and ask them to compare notes – what were the most interesting things they learned about the other students they spoke to?

8. Whilst the students are doing this, write up ten or so sentences on the board, perhaps five to be corrected and five sound sentences (but don’t indicate which ones need to be changed). Number these sentences 1 – 10.

9. Ask each group to choose a team name (perhaps the name of an animal they all like), explain that you’ve written (for example) ten sentences on the board and that five should be changed in some way. Allow the groups four minutes or so to read through the sentences and decide which ones should be changed, and how.

10. When the groups are ready, call out a number, and elicit whether the sentence is good or needs correction (and, if so, what should be changed). Discuss and explain any difficult language points or confusions that arise, and award a point to the first team to answer correctly in each case. Add up the points at the end and award a small prize to the winners (maybe some paperclips, or a sweet each).

Now you’ve warmed the students up and (hopefully) created a strong class bond, it’s time to begin coursebook work, etc.

Aims: to engage with the structure of informal English letters; to practise skim-reading and reading for detail; to practise writing informal letters; to compose drafts and scan for grammatical and vocabulary errors, and mistakes in register.

Materials: some “doctored” agony aunt letters (pre-intermediate examples are here, upper-intermediate examples are here and advanced examples are here); the original letters (examples here); some blank paper for students to write replies; and some blu-tack. You may also like to use the original agony aunt replies (examples here).

Procedure:

1. Board “Agony Aunt column,” explain that this is a column in some British newspapers, and ask students if they can guess what an agony aunt is. Board their ideas.

2. Sit your students in groups of three or four, preferably around a table, and explain that you will show them some examples from an agony aunt column, and they can check to see if they are right.

3. Hand out the gapped texts – a different one for each group (see above) – and give students two minutes or so to quickly read the text. What do they think an Agony Aunt is now? Elicit the correct answer (an agony aunt receives letters from readers about their personal problems, reads the letters and replies. Note that the agony aunt may be a man, a woman, or a team of writers, and that replies are usually also published; also note that the students have the readers’ problems, not the agony aunt’s reply).

4. Ask students to discuss in their groups what the problem discussed in their letter is, and elicit answers.

5. Ask students to work together in their groups and fill in the gaps (note that only the pre-intermediate and intermediate tasks have words given in a vocabulary box; from upper-intermediate above, students should use the language clues given by the context to try and discover in the missing words.) Depending on the level and ability of the class, allow up to 12 minutes or so for this.

6. Hand out the original letters (see above). How close did the groups come to the original? Make yourself available to answer any grammar or vocabulary questions as the students read the original letters.

7. Ask students to discuss within their groups how they would reply to this letter. Give them about five minutes to brainstorm ideas and to write these down.

8. Hand out the blank pieces of paper, one per group, and nominate a writer within each group. Explain that the students are now the agony aunts, working together in a team, and that they should reply to the original letters using the ideas they’ve just brainstormed. The student writing should pass the paper to his left after five minutes, so a new student can write. Explain that the writing must be legible! Set a time limit (15 to 20 minutes, depending on your students’ level and enthusiasm) and monitor students, offering encouragement and suggesting ways of formulating ideas as necessary.

   If you want, you can then hand out the original replies to the groups; ask them to quickly read these replies and see if their ideas are the same. Is there anything else they’d like to add to their draft replies?

9. When the groups are ready, stick the original letters on different walls of your classroom, and ask each group to read those they haven’t replied to, and to brainstorm ideas on how they would answer them.

10. Finally, ask each group to read out their replies; students guess what the original letter was and give feedback on the reply – did it address the problem? Was it the same as their solution? Do they think the advice was good? Do they think the reader will listen to the advice? etc.

11. The students’ replies could then be collected and either marked by the teacher at home, or (in a later lesson) given to a different group to correct. If you choose this latter option, once the letters have been collected, they could be read again by the groups that wrote them, who can make any final changes they wish, and the original letters and the amended replies could then be published in a class magazine, or on the walls of the classroom.

Aims: to engage with a classic of English literature; to practise writing and giving presentations; to experiment with different intonation patterns to evoke different emotions and convince an audience; to read for gist and detail.

Materials: these pictures of busts of Mark Antony, Julius Caesar and Brutus; these speeches from Julius Caesar; these vocabulary tasks.

Note: The texts above come from Act III, Scene II of Julius Caesar; it is 44BC and Brutus, together with some other illustrious Romans, has just murdered Caesar, fearing that he was gaining too much power and the Roman Republic was under threat. Brutus stands outside the Forum, covered with Caesar’s blood, and must convince the Roman citizens that Caesar had to die. Mark Antony then enters the stage, carrying Caesar’s corpse; this is his chance to subtly convince the crowd that Caesar’s death was wicked and must be avenged (and to gain power for himself).

Procedure:
The lesson before, I usually get permission to do this lesson – usually, advanced students are keen to look at some Shakespeare, but some are a bit intimidated and need reassurance that it won’t be too obscure.

1. A good way to start this lesson is with a quiz: I tell the students that I’ll board some words to do with what we are about to study and invite them to guess what the topic might be. I will then board, in turn:

   44BC
   Rome
   “Beware the Ides of March”
   Pompey’s Forum
   a bloody murder

   …at each stage, asking students if they can guess the topic. (44BC is the date of Caesar’s assassination, which took place in Pompey’s forum [or theatre] in Rome; the Ides of March was a Roman feast day dedicated to Mars [the god of war], which took place on March 15th – the date of Caesar’s assassination; “beware the Ides…” was a prophesy given to Caesar in the play [Act I, Scene II] before his murder)

2. Once the topic has been guessed or given, and the items on the board explained, ask the class what they know about Caesar’s death: who murdered him and why (see the note above for the reasons given in the play). After some elicitation, board “Brutus”, “Julius Caesar” and “Mark Antony”, with a line separating each one.

3. Put the students into groups of three or four and hand out the pictures (above). Ask them to work together to look at the busts and decide what the personalities of these people were. After a few minutes, elicit answers and board them under each character’s name.

4. Now it’s time to set the scene (see the notes above for details), emphasising that Brutus loved Caesar and killed him to save Rome, and that Brutus appears before the crowd covered in blood; and also that Mark Antony was Caesar’s close friend, and appears carrying Caesar’s body and seeking revenge (it sometimes helps to cover Julius Caesar’s portion of the board in red pen to symbolise all the blood!).

5. Divide the class in two (assuming no more than 12 students per class – in which case, you could have two or more “teams” on each side) and explain that one half will be Brutus and the other Mark Antony.

6. Ask the students to think about their characters, their situation (standing before the citizens of Rome covered in blood, or holding Caesar’s bloody corpse) and what they want to say. Then allow the students about 15 or 20 minutes to write their speech to the Roman citizens.

7. Once the speech is written, it’s time to practise it. I usually take one group out of the classroom, leaving the other inside, so that neither group can hear or be distracted by the other. Ask each group of students to imagine how they are feeling at each particular moment of their speech, and how this affects the way they say their words. Ask the group to divide up their speech equally and practise saying their lines to each other. I normally allow about 5 to 10 minutes for this.

8. After the students have practised their speeches, ask them to sit in two lines facing each other. Board:

   intonation
   arguments
   overall effect

   …and ask students to copy this as a table, drawing vertical columns for each member of the opposite group. Ask them to listen carefully and make note of these things for feedback later.

9. Elicit the situation and that Brutus speaks first. Each group takes it in turn to deliver their speech. The teacher should also make notes on each student’s delivery, and possibly the main arguments they make, as they speak, and then on the overall effect of the speech at the end.

10. Each group delivers its feedback on the other, and the teacher also gives feedback here. Which speech was the most effective and why?

11. Introduce Shakespeare’s speeches and give copies of Mark Antony’s to the Mark Antony group, and Brutus’ to the Brutus group. Ask them to read these speeches fairly quickly (perhaps 4 minutes) to see if the arguments used are the same as theirs. Ask students not to worry about any vocabulary they may not understand, but be available for any serious problems here.

12. Give out the vocabulary quiz (see “materials” above) and ask students to work in pairs to choose the correct answers by looking at the context in which the words appear, and by deciding what part of speech the word is (i.e., is it a verb? A noun? etc.). Go through the answers with the class (Mark Antony: 1(b), 2(d), 3(b), 4(a), 5(c); Brutus: 1(b); 2(a); 3(d); 4(c); 5(c)).

13. Now pair the students, one from each group working with one from the other, and ask them to compare their speeches and the main arguments used. Ask them which speech is written in verse, and which in prose (Brutus’ speech is in prose), and which they think is the more emotional speech (Mark Antony’s), which the more rational (Brutus’). Ask the students to compare the first few words of each speech: why does Mark Antony echo Brutus? What difference does the first word of Mark Antony’s speech (“Friends” instead of “Romans”) make? Finally, ask students to look at the repetition of “as” in Brutus’ speech – what effect does this have? – and the repetition of “honor” and “ambition” in Mark Antony’s speech: how does this change the meaning of what he’s saying? How do students think he would deliver these lines? What is he trying to say by repeating these words? Discuss the irony of his speech with your students and ask if they know of any politicians who use the same rhetorical devices as Brutus and Mark Antony (if the students have been paying attention, the answer should be a resounding “yes!”).

14. Lastly, ask students what they think will happen next in the play and how the story will be resolved (in Shakespeare’s play, Mark Antony’s speech divides the crowd; his supporters and those of Brutus each assemble armies, and Brutus and his followers are killed in the following battles; Mark Antony then assumes power in Rome with two of his allies, Octavian and Lepidus, and the Republic is dead).

This is quite a long lesson, but it is a rewarding one, and students have invariably enjoyed it when I’ve taught it to them.

Aims: Students practise listening and speaking on the topic of superstition, and writing using the first conditional (I would use this after a lesson on the first conditional, as this is good free practice of it).

Materials needed: a recording of the song “Superstition” by Stevie Wonder (a great version on YouTube is here). Song lyrics (for you), a gapfill sheet, and “Call My Bluff” cards. (all of this is here)

Procedure:
1. Print some pictures or draw on the board: a black cat, a four-leaf clover, a horseshoe, etc. Elicit “superstition” and “superstitious”, “lucky/unlucky”, “good luck/bad luck”.
2. Allow 5 minutes or so for students to think of as many superstitions as they know. This is always quite interesting, as each country will have their own superstitions that will not be known to the whole group. Some useful vocabulary will probably arise.
3. Board their ideas. Make sure you have 13, ladders and broken mirrors on the board. Teach or elicit that an old fashioned word for mirror is looking glass.
4. Play verse 1 and chorus of the song. Which does he mention? (ladder, looking glass and 13).
5. Play the whole song (twice if necessary) and students complete the gapfill.
6. Ask the students what Stevie thinks about superstition. Does he think it is a good or a bad thing, and why? What do they think? Do they believe in any superstitions? Why do people believe in them? What could be the drawbacks in believing in superstitions? Students discuss in groups of three. This normally stimulates a good discussion or debate among students, and some good vocabulary (you may want to pre-teach phrases like “just in case”, “to be on the safe side”, “paranoid”, “all in the mind”)
7. Board: If you break a mirror, you will have 7 years of bad luck.Elicit that this is a sentence in the first conditional, and that it is a real and not a hypothetical situation. Elicit form (If + infinitive, will/imperative).
8. Tell students that they are going to invent some superstitions and see if their classmates can guess an invented superstition from a real one. Give each student a card with a real superstition on it, and tell them to create two new ones, using the first conditional. Monitor carefully at this stage.
9. Students work in groups of three and take it in turns to read out their three superstitions. The others in their group must guess which is the real one.
10. Feedback and error correct. Do they have any favourite ones?
11. Extension activity: writing (set this for homework). Do you believe in any superstitions? Do you think superstition is good or bad? Why?

Aims: Students practise listening, speaking and writing, and learn miscellaneous vocabulary.

Materials: You will need a recording of “She’s Leaving Home” by the Beatles (a YouTube version is here), a copy of the lyrics, several copies of the first verse printed out (widely spaced) for the running dictation, copies of the gapfill exercise and copies of the discussion questions. You will also need a big space for the running dictation – either a large classroom or the use of a corridor.

Time needed: 50 minutes.

Materials: the YouTube lessons below (familiarise yourself with these before the lesson); this recorded poem by Thom Gunn.

This is a great way to practise pronunciation of individual phonemes (especially monophthongs) and sentence stress; it requires a bit of preparation before you first use it: however, this will more than pay off as you will have a valuable extra tool to your teaching repertoire. It owes a lot to Adrian Underhill – and, in this instance, Thom Gunn.

Procedure:

I combined this lesson with an introduction to the Sound Foundations phonetic chart, following the lesson given by Adrian Underhill below. You can find the very same lessons on YouTube, courtesy of macmillanELT.

The first video is here, and there are three more you should look at:

Once you have introduced the phonetic chart in this way, and students have all had practise making the various sounds, it is time to introduce the poem. I use Considering the Snail, because it is (a) short; (b) has a surface simplicity; (c) contains many pure vowel sounds; and (d) is vivid, and therefore memorable.

The first time I play this recording of the poem, I ask students just to listen, then to write down the words they can remember from the poem and share their initial impressions of the poem in groups of three.

On a second listening, I ask students to write any more words they hear from the poem as they listen, and then in different groups of three, compare what they have written and see how much of the poem they can reconstruct.

I now ask students to recall the poet’s voice and ask them how it sounds: what qualities does this bring to the poem?

Next, I distribute complete copies of the poem to the students (see below) and invite feedback: are there any surprising words or collocations – anything the students didn’t expect to see there? What could this poem be “about”? What does the poet mean by “slow passion”? and so on.

Then, I play the poem one more time, this time asking students to mouth along silently with the poet as he reads aloud. We do this a couple more times, then voice the poem with the poet. What sounds did the students make? What sounds were they expecting to make? Did they hear any major differences between their voices and the voice of the poet?

Finally, I board the website where you can find the poem, and many others – http://www.poetryarchive.org/ – and invite students to improve their pronunciation on their own by visiting the site, experimenting with some other short poems, mouthing silently and then reading aloud with the poet.

The Poem:

Considering the Snail

The snail pushes through a green
night, for the grass is heavy
with water and meets over
the bright path he makes, where rain
has darkened the earth’s dark. He
moves in a wood of desire,

pale antlers barely stirring
as he hunts. I cannot tell
what power is at work, drenched there
with purpose, knowing nothing.
What is a snail’s fury? All
I think is that if later

I parted the blades above
the tunnel and saw the thin
trail of broken white across
litter, I would never have
imagined the slow passion
to that deliberate progress.

Thom Gunn

From Collected Poems (Faber, 1994), copyrighted.