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 [...]

A questweb is the same as a webquest, except the game is backwards – students are given the answers to some questions, and have to find out and write down what the questions were.
Suggested levels: upper-intermediate to advanced.
Aims: to practise navigating the internet in English to find information; to practise skim- and scan-reading skills; to [...]

Suggested levels: intermediate to advanced.
Obama’s Inauguration Speech 20 January 2009
Aims of the lesson
Listening:

-         Sts will get a global understanding of the first part of Obama’s speech

-         Sts will understand that listening for key (prominent) words can assist them in their understanding.

-         To practise the ability to listen for key [...]

You can use this method to interestingly revise either present or past narrative forms.
Suggested levels: pre-intermediate to advanced.
Aims: to revise present or past narrative forms; to practise note-taking and writing stories; to practise listening for detail; to practise conveying emotion through different intonation patterns.
Preparation: a short, strange/ ghost story to tell your students. It should [...]

Suggested levels: strong elementary to advanced.
Aims: to revise vocabulary; to focus on different contexts for recently-acquired vocabulary items; to practise writing in different registers and for different functions.
Materials needed: a large envelope, box, plastic bag or wallet containing vocabulary from past lessons; willing students.
Keep a vocabulary bag for new words. Every now and then, pick [...]

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: pre-intermediate to advanced (challenge higher levels by asking them to rhyme two-syllable words).
Aims: to revise vocabulary; to encourage attentive listening; to encourage awareness of the different sounds of English.
Preparation: none.
This is a good way to get students focussed on particular sounds.
Divide the class into two teams, and get them facing each other in [...]

Note: This idea comes from Writing Simple Poems (Cambridge: University Press, 2001).

Suggested levels: pre-intermediate to low upper-intermediate.
Aims: to practise a grammatical form; to see how a form can be used in different contexts within one poem.

Before the lesson, think of a kind of poem you could write with the grammar structure you’ve been teaching, and [...]