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.

Suggested levels: upper-intermediate to advanced.

Aims: to practise law-related vocabulary; to practise modals of speculation by answering a multi-choice quiz.

Materials needed: one copy of this quiz for each pair of students, or each group of three.

This is a fun activity to do before or after some work on law-related topics.

Divide the students into pairs or groups of three, and board this:

In Florida, unmarried women who…

(a) parachute

(b) wear red

(c) drink alcohol

…on Sundays can be jailed.

Invite students to guess which is correct, then tell them they all have £1,000 and should now bet between £10 and £100 that they have the right answer. When all students have bet, reveal the correct answer (a – parachute) and double the money for each winning pair (e.g., so if someone bet £100 on (a) then they now have £200; all teams who bet on the wrong item lose their money).

Now, board this:

In Vermont, wives must obtain written permission from their husbands to wear false teeth.

True False

Again, collect bets and reveal the correct answer (sadly, it’s true). Explain that there are some very strange laws in England and Wales as well (teacher’s note – in the UK, England and Wales are treated as a single legal entity; there are separate laws for Scotland and Northern Ireland), and that students will now work together to decide the answers to twelve questions about them. Remind your students or elicit that they have £1,000 each, that £100 is the maximum bet and that £10 is the minimum bet for each answer. They should try to spend all their money in making these bets.

Give out these worksheets (there are two pages) and allow about 15 minutes for students to decide and make their bets.

Ask each pair or group of three to decide on a team name (you could just ask them to give the name of an animal they like, to save time), then ask them to write this name on their answer sheets. Each group should then pass their answer sheets to the group on their left, and you can go through the answers together. Ask students to keep a tally of the money made and lost in the column on the right of the worksheet.

The answers:

1 (b – corpses); 2 – (a – the Houses of Parliament); 3 – (c – placing a postage stamp with a picture of the Queen upside down); 4 – (c – carry out 2 hours’ longbow practise a day); 5 – (c – the plague); 6 – (a – eat mince pies); the answers from 7 – 12 are all TRUE!

Aims: to build vocabulary and practise using functional language connected with travel via airports.

Materials: an interactive whiteboard; this IWB lesson; enough copies of this text and this gapfill task for each student, or pair of students.

Procedure:

1. Introduce the task by asking students what the longest journey they’ve ever taken is. Invite them to think about the details of this journey – when it was, how long it took, what the best and worst things were about this journey, etc. – and to tell their partner about this trip.

2. Ask the students if they have ever been stuck at an airport, and what it was like – what did they find to do? Did they get bored? etc. Perhaps tell a story of a time when you were stuck in an airport.

3. Show the students the second page of the IWB lesson (see below to download). Put them into two or three teams and ask each team to try and name the pictures. Set a time limit of about two minutes for this.

4. Reveal the answers one at a time, awarding points for correct answers.

5. Delete the yellow box at the bottom of the second page. Again, in teams, ask students to match the collocations with the pictures. After a couple of minutes, go through this with the class, moving the collocations to the correct places.

6. Divide the students into pairs and ask one student per pair to face away from the interactive whiteboard. Explain to the other students that they will watch a short film about airport travel; ask these students to make notes of the journey’s stages and explain they will have to give as many details to their partner as they can remember. Ask their partners to write predictions about what the stages will involve whilst they wait.

7. Play the first half of the video below, from 0:00 to 1:00. (NB, it’s here on youtube, and you can download it via keepvid.com)

8. Swap the students around, so that those who were facing away from the IWB before are now turned towards it, and vice versa. Ask the students facing the board to take notes of what they see; ask those facing away from the whiteboard to write predictions about what will happen next.

9. Play the rest of the video. Afterwards, ask the students to face each other in their pairs and compare notes.

10. Watch the video together, the whole way through. Were any details missed?

11. Read out the story above (attached), which describes the start of a trip to Hong Kong. Ask students if they have been to Hong Kong, if they would like to go, etc.

12. Hand out the gapfill sheet and ask students to work together in pairs to put the words back in.

13. After about 6 minutes, ask one member of each pair to stand up and move one place to the left to make a new pair. Students compare notes, check each other’s work and try to complete the gapfill.

14. Read the whole text aloud one more time, then (if necessary) allow two or three more minutes to complete the gapfill task.

15. Hand out the completed text, so students can check their work.

16. Put the students into groups of four and ask them to design the perfect airport. Allow about twenty minutes for this, giving ideas as necessary.

17. Ask the students to practise presenting their airport design to the class. Explain that every student should speak for roughly an equal amount of time. Allow about ten minutes for this; go round monitoring and helping students to focus on intonation and presentation skills.

18. Listen to the presentations as a class, and ask students to vote on their favourite airport design (they’re not allowed to vote for their own group!)

If there’s still time at the end of this, I’ve included an extra visualisation task inviting students to picture their ideal holiday; feel free to use this, maybe in small groups.

Suggested Levels: elementary and above .

Aims: to practise speaking, listening and polite turn-taking in informal conversations.

Materials needed: dice and students; a list of conversation topics.

Procedure: Before the class, prepare a list of conversation topics, one for each number of the dice; these should be a mixture of “talk about” and “ask about” topics, as below: 1 = tell the group about your family 2 = ask about another student’s country 3 = tell the group about your home town 4 = reveal your pet hates to the group 5 = talk about your best friend 6 = ask another student about their favourite film or book If you have enough dice, you could increase the number of topics to 12, thereby facilitating longer conversations. In class, divide your students into groups of three or four. This activity works best if they then sit in a circle together. Give out the topic lists and explain the rules (below).

• Students take it in turns to throw the dice and ask or answer questions according to the topic list.
• If they throw the same number twice, they can either throw again or give more information about that topic.
• Once a student has started talking about a topic, any other student in the group can ask for more information, or ask a question, etc.

It is best if the teacher, having set up the task, monitors unobtrusively, perhaps even leaving the classroom for a few minutes if conversation is overly stilted and false – this often helps encourage students to talk and to engage with the topic, as they know they are free to say what they like, without fear of having their mistakes picked up on and boarded by the teacher. Stop this activity after about ten minutes and get some brief feedback. This is a good time to offer corrections as they arise, or to secretly note down mistakes for group feedback at the end of the lesson.

Suggested levels: Strong pre-intermediate and above.

Materials needed: Copies of the Chindogu inventions at the bottom of this page (one for each group of three students), and paper and pens.

1. Pair your students and ask them to mind-map ideas for a successful presentation – ask them to think about body language, clothes, intonation, and attitude.

2.         Explain that you want to practice giving presentations, as it will help students understand appropriate formal English and body language, and give them intonation practice.

3.         Divide the students into groups of three and give out copies of the Chindogu inventions (see below); ask them what they think these are. Explain that they are all types of Japanese inventions (if you want, you can explain the meaning of Chindogu, which is “unuseless,” and is the art of inventing amusing things that have a not-quite useful function, and which are not for sale). Ask them what they think their purpose is – after a few minutes, you can do a whole class feedback on this, helping them discover what they are.

4.         Ask the students in their groups to choose their favourite invention – one per group.

5.         Elicit what these are and make sure everyone has chosen a different invention.

6.       Explain that each group will be asking the class for money to fund these inventions – money raised will go towards the costs of manufacture and marketing. Tell them not to worry, as the class is very rich – however, only one group will be able to get the money. Make sure students understand that they will be presenting their ideas to the class, and that they will win by giving the best presentation.

7.       Let the students get on with pricing manufacture costs and marketing costs, and with preparing their presentation. Go round and monitor, get them to practice their spiel to you, whilst you check their intonation, pausing, use of gestures, and language. Tell each group they are welcome to draw on the whiteboard if they like; and make sure they understand they must all try and speak for the same length of time – this will give them more points, and points mean prizes.

8.       Stop them after about 10 – 15 minutes; draw the following table on the board and ask students to copy it in their notebooks (you might want some spare paper for this):

            Explain that they will be marking each student’s part of the presentation out of ten (body language/ intonation) and giving a mark out of ten for the group’s idea. Say that this will be used for feedback at the end, and they shouldn’t say the scores if they are uncomfortable with it – get a class decision on this (it must be unanimously in favour of giving scores, else the scores should be kept secret and just feedback – positive and negative – should be given).

13.       Ask for volunteers to start first, or spin a pen to find the first speakers. Allow about two minutes for each presentation.

14.       At the end of each presentation, make sure the listening students score the speakers and their idea – allow them no more than a minute each time for this; and let one of the speakers choose the next group to speak.

15.       After everyone has spoken, and the scores have all been given, conduct a whole class feedback, asking each group to give feedback (perhaps including scores, perhaps not) to the others about body language, intonation, and their idea.

16.       Finally, ask each group who is getting their money (they can’t decide to give their money to themselves!) – the group with the most votes gets the cash. If there’s time, conduct some gapfill feedback on the board, where groups can get points for correct answers to the gapfills (you should number each gapped sentence and ask for corrections in random order, to promote careful listening – give a point to whoever answers first correctly, and encourage the more reticent groups to speak out). The gapfills should be based on good things students have said, that you want to share with the class, or with things the students meant to say, and would have if their English had been more precise.

The Chindogu pictures:

A.                              B.

C.    D.

E.    F.

G.    H.  

I.    J.

K.    L.