TEFL Resources and Lesson Ideas

Suggested levels: pre-intermediate to advanced.
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 [...]

Suggested level: advanced.
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 [...]

Suggested levels: intermediate to upper-intermediate.
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 [...]

Note: this idea was inspired by the Peter Watcyn-Jones’ quizzes in Pair Works 2 and 3, this BBC article and this article from the TimesOnline website.
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, [...]

Suggested levels: Pre-intermediate to low intermediate.
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. [...]

Please note that the idea of the body language table comes from Listening by Goodith White (Oxford Resource Books for Teachers: 1998).
Suggested levels: strong intermediate to advanced.
Aims: to focus on body language and how this affects communication; to focus on appropriate body language in different settings; to acquire and practise using vocabulary connected with the [...]

Note: the ideas for most of these activities come from Jim Scrivener’s excellent Straightfoward Pre-Intermediate Teacher’s Book.
Suggested levels: elementary to advanced.
Aims: to enliven gapfill tasks in coursebooks.
The One-Minute Gap Fill
This can cause a few laughs from students. Present the gapfill in the usual way, but set a strict time limit of one minute for students [...]

Suggested levels: beginner to advanced.
Aims: to revise vocabulary and the spelling of newly-acquired words.
Materials: a word search grid on a familiar coursebook theme for each pair of students (a crime one is here); a blank word search grid (here).
Preparation: photocopies of the two grids.
This is a good vocabulary revision exercise, wherein students focus on word [...]

Note: this idea was inspired by Keith Johnstone’s book, Impro for Storytellers (London: Faber and Faber Limited, 1990).
Suggested levels: pre-intermediate to upper-intermediate.
Aims: to revise adjectives describing people; to practise using body language and intonation patterns to convey one’s feelings; to notice and listen to changing intonation patterns and body language in others to gauge their [...]

Suggested levels: pre-intermediate to advanced.
Aims: to revise and build vocabulary; to focus on how specific vocabulary items fit in to the language as a whole; to think of different contexts in which the particular items could be used.
Preparation: none.
Write a word recently acquired from the coursebook in the middle of the board. Draw a circle [...]