TEFL Resources and Lesson Ideas

Suggested levels: strong pre-intermediate to low upper-intermediate.
Aims: to revise past or present narrative forms; to practise telling and writing narratives; to practise changing intonation patterns to convey different emotions and affect an audience.
Preparation: none.
Ask a student what they did yesterday after school. Board their replies, changing the words slightly and asking questions so that each [...]

Suggested levels: strong pre-intermediate to low advanced.
Aims: to reduce the fear of “not being creative;” to show students how easy it can be to create a story; to practise writing stories; to imaginatively inhabit a story through role-play; to bond students as a group.
Preparation: none.
Give the name (or the occupation and the students supply the [...]

Materials needed: Students will need some paper and a pen.
Aims: to revise vocabulary; to focus on and practise English sentence construction and cohesion; to unleash creativity in the classroom without the fear of “not being creative enough.”
Suggested levels: strong pre-intermediate to advanced.
This is a team game! Two teams battle it out to finish a story. [...]

Note: this idea comes from Impro by Keith Johnstone.
Suggested levels: intermediate to advanced.
Aims: to practise narrative and question forms; to practise sentence stress and intonation; to practise writing stories; to practise attentive listening and reading; to practise informal story telling; to create group harmony.
Materials: Students should have some paper and a pen.

Procedure:

Sit in a [...]

Suggested levels: upper intermediate to advanced.
Aims: to practise attentive listening; to practise present tense question formation; to practise using spider diagrams or mind maps to organise information; to help build students’ senses of ownership of the English language; to create class cohesion.
Materials needed: whiteboard; marker pens.
Procedure:

Take an imaginary book off an imaginary shelf. Tell students [...]