Conditionals scare students to death. They seem complicated and difficult to understand. But as I explain, they only seem to be like this. In fact, they are quite simple and easy to comprehend.

In this post, I will try to keep things as simple as possible. I will deal only with one type of conditional – the second conditional. At the beginning of the post, there is a song that clearly demonstrates the form and the meaning of the grammar. Then there is a mind map and another explanation of the meaning.

Second conditional – song

First, ask your students to listen and complete the following lyrics. Then ask them to listen and sing the song. In this way they will improve their listening and pronunciation, and they will notice the form of the second conditional.

Second conditional song lyrics

Second conditional song:

Second Conditional – Infographic

Display the following mind map and ask the students to read the sentences. Then elicit the form of the second conditional.

Draw the students’ attention to the pictures at the bottom of the page and explain the usage of the second conditional. It is used for imagined situations.

Second Conditional – Links

You can find some excellent materials for teaching the second conditional at the British Council site.

There is a nice explanation of this grammar at the BBC Learning English site too.

Recently I have felt that my lessons are not language rich. And that is something no EFL teacher is happy about.
For example, I have been teaching questions to my fourth graders. We learnt all the vocabulary and grammar, but when I asked my students the questions, they were not able to answer. They did not understand the questions even though they knew all the words and grammar.
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In this post, I provide a series of entertaining activities in which students can practise and come to understand simple questions.

First, teach the following vocabulary. Read the words aloud and ask your students to repeat them. Then ask them to memorise the words. Give them only three minutes for this. Then ask the students to cover the words inside the circle and write the words in the outer boxes.

Do not forget to explain the phrase “the biggest” as there is no picture for this word.

Ask the students to take a piece of paper and a pen. Play the following video and ask them to answer all the questions. They should answer them as simply as possible.

Ask the students to check their answers at the end of the video. Find out who remembered the most in your class and reward them.

Now tell the students that you will play the same game, but this time they have to put the words in the questions into the correct order first. They will get one point for each correct question and one for each correct answer. The picture will show for only 5 seconds, but give the students enough time to write their questions and answers on a piece of paper.

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Memory test grammar – full screen

Display the pictures at the end, and ask your students to write their own questions. Then ask them to work in pairs and ask their partner the questions.

Vocabulary is the most important part of language. Without grammar you can communicate with difficulty, but without vocabulary you cannot say anything.
In this post, I would like to teach nearly 30 vocabulary items for different town facilities. I have included an infographic, an online quiz and a worksheet with several vocabulary activities. There is also a video where all the words are pronounced by a native speaker.
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The following map shows a town with all the buildings labeled in English. First, ask your students to have a look at the map and try to understand the meaning of the words. If you don´t understand any of the words, check their meanings below:

Here are all the words and their definitions:

• bank – a place where you keep your money
• airport – a place where planes start and finish their journey
• warehouse – a place where companies keep their goods until they need them
• hotel – a place where you can stay for a night or longer
• wood – a place with a lot of trees
• traffic lights – a set of red, yellow and green lights that shows you whether you can go or you have to stop
• school – a place where you can learn a lot of new things
• train station – a place where trains start and finish their journeys
• apartment house – a building with a lot of apartments
• house -a place where people live
• skyscraper – a very high building
• city centre – the buildings in the middle of a town or a city
• church – a place where people worship
• fire station – a place where firemen keep their equipment
• shopping centre – a place where there are a lot of shops
• park – a place with grass, trees and benches. You can relax there.
• bridge – a structure across a river or a deep valley
• police station – a place where the police are headquartered
• stadium – a place where football or rugby matches are played
• petrol station – a place where you can buy petrol
• hospital – a place where you go when you are really sick
• factory – a place where they make new things
• wharf – a place where they move goods from ships to trucks or warehouses

 

To learn the correct pronunciation of these words, watch the following video and repeat the words you hear.

Once you feel that you know the vocabulary, it is time to move to the quizzes.

Here you can choose between two options. You can either print out the worksheet and practise the vocabulary on the paper or you can do it on your computer or mobile phone.

Town vocabulary worksheet

Town vocabulary key

ONLINE QUIZ:

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To see the quiz on a full screen click the button below:
Town vocabulary online quiz

More often than not I teach in classrooms with no internet connection, so I realize that it is important to be able to use the activities offline too. You can download the online quiz, the game, and the picture and use them offline:
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Town

The past continuous tense is one of the most graphical tenses in English. By “graphical” I mean that it is easy to demonstrate the difference between the past simple and past continuous tense in a video or in a short dramatic sketch. Unfortunately, I could not find a video demonstrating the difference betweent the two past tenses, and that is why I created one myself.

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In addition to this video I created an infographic and an online quiz to practise the past continuous tense.

This infographic explains the form and the usage of the past continuous tense in a graphical way.

First, concentrate on the form. Explain that the students have to use the verbs WAS or WERE and the verb ending with -ing. Then explain how the negative and questions are formed.
If your students cannot create the -ing form properly, refer to the following post on the present continuous tense, which shows how the -ing verbs are formed.

Once you get to the usage of the past continuous tense, play the video. Play it twice and the second time stop the video and highlight the differences in the scenes and the tenses.

You can use the following online test in class or you can ask your students to do it at home. The online quiz consists of two parts. In the first part, the students are asked to put the verb into the past continuous tense. In the second part they have to choose either the past simple tense or the past continuous tense.

If you want to play the online quiz in full screen click the button below.

Past continuous – online quiz

Or you can use the flash version here:

Past continuous – online quiz

More often than not I teach in classrooms with no internet connection, so I realize that it is important to be able to use the activities offline too. You can download the online quiz, the game, and the picture and use them offline:
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Past continuous tense download

You can find one more post on past continuous tense here.

There is also a good discussion of the past continuous tense at the British Council site.

And the last link is to the BBC Learning English site.

Placement tests are extremely important if you do not know your students well and you need to know what to teach them. Further, these tests can be used to measure whether your students made any progress during a certain period of time.
Placement tests are often professionally produced and sold for a lot of money. And as nearly every publishing house sells placement tests, they are probably in demand. However, there are very few placement tests available for young learners of English.
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Noticing this gap, I decided to design a placement test for young students. The test is aimed at children aged 8 – 10. They should have studied English for 2 or 3 years for about 3 hours per week.

The test contains 40 items. The students should choose the correct word for each of the pictures from the line below. They should write the number of their answer in the box nearest the picture. You will need to print the placement test in colour as it is not possible in some cases to choose the correct answers without seeing the pictures in colour.

YLE placement test

You can either give the test to the students at the beginning of the school year and then compare the results with the same test at the end of the year and see the progress.

Or you can use the following interpretation:

• 40-35 The student knows everything from the textbooks Happy House 1, Happy House 2 and Happy Street.
• 34-20 The student knows everything from the textbooks Happy House 1 and Happy House 2.
• 19-10 The student knows everything from the textbook Happy House 1 and should move to Happy House 2.
• 9-0 The student should start with the textbook Happy House 1.

If you do not teach young learners and you need a placement test, you can find a free one here.
If you would like to know how many words your students know, you can try the vocabulary placement tests here.
Or if you would like to have your proficiency level checked professionally, you can find information at the British Council site.
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You can find some information about the Oxford online placement test here.

Present simple and present continuous are easy tenses to learn in English. However, as simple as they are, there are still many students who make mistakes in these English tenses. For this post I have collected the most common mistakes my students make. I believe it is much better to learn from the mistakes others make than to make them yourself and feel stupid.
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I have included the following activities in this post to help your students avoid mistakes in present tenses: a mind map, a worksheet, an online game on present tenses and an online quiz. I hope you and your students will find them useful.

Ask your students to study the following mind map:

The sentence in the white fields are the mistakes, in the blue fields there are the corrected sentences and at the end, there are explanations.
You should emphasize the fact that students most frequently leave out the verb TO BE in the present continuous tense.

I have prepared two online quizzes this time. The first one is in Flash and it will play only on desktops. The aim of the game is to highlight the mistakes students make in English tenses. In the game students should choose the correct option and then shoot all the bad ducks. They can shoot a bottle on the side of the screen and get a bonus.

Present tenses – online game

The second is an online quiz in which the students should fill in the verbs in the correct form of the present tense. The passing grade is set to 75%. As this online quiz is in HTML5, they can do it on their mobile devices too.

Present tenses – online quiz
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The following worksheet contains only two activities. The first one is called Hidden Picture. The students should colour the squares that contain a correct sentence. If they colour the squares correctly, a shape will emerge.
The second activity is a simple fill in the gap exercise. The students should complete the sentences with the correct form of the verb.
Present tenses worksheet

More often than not I teach in classrooms with no internet connection, so I realize that it is important to be able to use the activities offline too. You can download the online quiz, the game, and the picture and use them offline:
Common mistakes present_tenses

When students start to learn English as a second language, there is a set of basic questions in English they need to master. All language courses start with these questions, but many people struggle to learn them. It is necessary to learn these by heart. However, you also need to be able to vary them a bit.
To help you teach or learn these questions I have devised the following activities: a mind map showing the basic questions for students of English as a second language, a worksheet with several communicative and drilling exercises, a song to help in memorising the questions and an online quiz. If you like the activities, please do not hesitate to comment below.

I love starting lessons with something interesting. Students like songs, so I start the lesson with a simple song containing all the basic questions students of English as a second language need to learn.
Ask the students to listen to the song and complete the following worksheet:
Song lyrics fill-in

Play the song twice and then play the song on a whiteboard and ask the students to check their answers.

Ask the students to have a look at this mind map and deduce the meaning of the questions – using the lyrics and the mind map.

Ask the students to work in pairs and ask each other these questions.

The following worksheet contains several activities. First ask the students to find the questions for the fields a-g (students should only write the letters next to the questions below). Check their answers and tell them to ask you the questions and complete the table with your answers.
Ask them to find the questions for fields 1-7. Check their answers. (It is best to display the correct answers for both groups).
Have your students work in pairs (worksheet A and worksheet B). Ask them to ask the questions and complete their worksheet.
The next task is pure text manipulation. The students should fill in the missing words.
In the third exercise, students should put the words into the correct order to form questions.
In the fourth exercise students are given the answers, and have to write the questions.
In the last exercise students should write the questions using different pronouns.

Basic questions – communicative activities

In the following online quiz the students should first put the words into the correct order to make questions.
Then they should complete the questions. The online quiz is in HTML5 so it will work on all mobile devices. Students can practise wherever they like.

Basic questions – online quiz

The second online quiz is in Flash and will play only on desktops. The aim of the game is to choose the correct question and then hit the opponent.

Basic questions – En garde game

More often than not I teach in classrooms with no internet connection, so I realize that it is important to be able to use the activities offline too. You can download the online quiz, the game, and the picture here and use them offline.

Simple questions

Teaching irregular verbs in context is not only useful, but rewarding too. A short story attracts the attention of students and can be used in many communicative activities. Unfortunately, there are not many short stories which can be easily used for teaching the past tense.
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Luckily, my friend Lynne Blackburn sent me a nice short story to use here. With this post you can teach 8 irregular verbs and practise the past tense of regular verbs. There are many interesting activities which will make it easier for you to teach and for your students to learn. In this post you will find a video, a worksheet, a picture and an interactive exercise. I hope you will find them useful and interesting.

Here is the story. First, ask your students to have a look at the picture and figure out what happened.

Once, you think the students have had enough of guessing, play the following video.

After watching the video, it is time to start using the worksheet. Download the following worksheet and print one copy for everyone.

Past simple story – worksheet

Ask the students to translate the words in exercise one. They can use dictionaries or their mobile phones to do this.

Then ask the students to read the story again and answer the comprehension questions. You can find the correct answers in the key at the end of the worksheet.

In the third exercise students should complete the text with the correct verbs in the past tense. They can do so either in writing or orally.

The fourth exercise is called Grammar Up. You can find detailed instructions for this exercise in the following video:

In the fifth exercise students should complete the sentences with the correct conjunction. The correct answers are again in the key.

In the sixth exercise students should match the opposites.

In the seventh exercise students should find nine verbs in the past tense.

In the last exercise students should retell the story.

Your students can practise the grammar at home or on their mobile devices in the following online quiz:

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Irregular verbs – interactive quiz

If you would like to use more stories like this, you could try the following:

1. Irregular verbs in context – Scream
2. Irregular verbs in context 1
3. Teach 9 irregular verbs in one lesson

If you would like more practice with irregular verbs, the British Council has a great site.

If you do not have an internet connection at school, you can download the video and online quiz here. Unpack the files and find the index.html and play the quiz.

Past simple all activities

Weather is one of the most common conversational topics in Britain. Therefore, if you know the basic vocabulary, you can talk to 60 million people. With 60 million conversation opportunities, it is well worth the little effort you need to put in.
To make it as enjoyable as possible, there are several activities to help you learn all the words: a pictionary, a worksheet, a video and an interactive test.
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You can learn the vocabulary using the following infographic or pictionary:

To get the pronunciation right, listen and repeat the words in the following video:

After you learn the words, it is time to practise using the new vocabulary. First, you can try the following worksheet. Try to solve all of the puzzles.

The following interactive quiz is made in HTML5, so it will play on all mobile devices. Therefore, you can practise all of the words wherever you are.

If you would like to display the quiz on the entire screen, click the button below:

You can find a lot of information about weather at British Council site.

I like the following songs about weather:

I have already created two posts on the difference between the present simple and continuous tenses. There are Present simple or present continuous tense – improved and Present simple and continuous tenses posts. Both of them are good but as I have come up with a new idea, I want to share it with you in this post.

This post concentrates on the difference between the tenses. If you are not sure about the form of the tenses, you should see the following posts first:

1. Present simple tense
2. Present continuous tense

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In this post there are just two activities: a worksheet and an interactive quiz. I hope that they will help you with teaching the difference between the tenses.

Hand out the following worksheet (students have to work in pairs; one will need worksheet A and the other worksheet B) and ask the students not to show their picture to their partner. Ask them to describe what the people, whose names they know, are doing. Their partner has to listen and complete their own picture by filling in the names.

In exercise 2 they should complete the sentences with the correct names.

When they finish, it is time to explain the difference between the tenses. The present continuous tense is used to describe what the people are doing right now. However, when the students have a look at the rooms in their pictures they will see several objects there. For example, in the kitchen there is a basketball. James is not playing basketball now, but he plays it sometimes and that is why the ball is there.
You can go on like this with three or four more pictures. Then ask the students to complete exercise 3.

In exercise 4, students should take the picture and speak about it for 60 seconds without stopping or hesitating. Will they manage?

In the last exercise, ask the students to turn the paper over and write 10 sentences about it.

Present simple and continuous tense – worksheet

The following interactive quiz is based on the picture in the worksheet. It is ideal for homework or for a class where everyone has a smart phone with an internet connection. The quiz is in HTML5 and therefore will work on all mobile devices.
In the quiz students will practise the grammar they’ve learnt in the worksheet.

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If you want to have the quiz on the full screen click the button below.
Present tenses – Full screen

Present simple and continuous tense – more practice

If you need more practice, you could try the following pages:

British Council page on present simple and continuous

Here are two useful videos:

This is the third post which contains ten new words for intermediate students. The words are among the 4,000 most frequent words in English. This selection of words is based on Paul Nation’s list of words. If you have missed the first post on vocabulary, you can find it here. The second post Learn 10 words in 21 minutes is here.
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I hope you will find it useful and that you will learn the new vocabulary. To achieve this, there are a worksheet, a mind map with the words, an interactive exercise and a video with the correct pronunciation.

First, you should study the words in the following infographic. I try to give the definition of the word, a clue to remember the word quicker, and some example sentences. Be careful with the memory aids, though. They work perfectly for me, but it does not mean that they will work for you. If you feel they are unhelpful, just skip them. I honestly hope these will help you learn the vocabulary better and quicker.

To get the pronunciation right, listen and repeat the words with the native speaker.

You can practise the vocabulary now in the following interactive quiz. The quiz is in HTML5 and it will play on all mobile devices. If you pass the quiz you can play the game Indiara as a reward.

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Interactive quiz – full screen

If you cannot do the quiz above or you prefer working on a paper, you can print out the following document and practise the vocabulary there.

Vocabulary part 4_ws

Vocabulary part 4_key

Present simple is one of the most important tenses in English. It is quite easy to teach and learn but it must be done properly. In this post I am going to teach some vocabulary first and then teach the forms using the verbs.
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In this post you can find a worksheet, a video and an interactive quiz to teach the vocabulary for daily activities. Once your students know the verbs it is time to introduce the forms – present simple tense affirmative, present simple tense negative and present simple tense questions.

First have a look at the following pictionary:

If you need the pronunciation, you should try the following video. In the second part of the video there is a quiz to practise the words. There appear the words and you have about 3 seconds to say the word before you hear it.

To practise the vocabulary there are several activities. The first one is an interactive quiz. You have three tasks. First, match the words and the pictures, second, click the correct image and third write the words. The quiz is in HTML5 so it will work anywhere.

If you would like to play the quiz on the full screen, click the following button.
Daily activities – quiz

There are four more activities in a print form. Print out the following worksheets and solve them:
Daily routine_worksheet

When the students know the vocabulary, I believe it is time to introduce the grammar.

Here is a short song to practise the daily activities. It may serve as a good way to introduce the grammar too, as all the sentences are in present simple tense.

You could just play the song to the students or you could ask them to listen and complete the lyrics
I wake up in the morning

Here is the infographic for present simple tense:
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The infographic contains a lot of details. If you think it would be too much for your students, feel free to cut it into parts and present the different forms at different times.

To help my students remember the grammar, I tell stories. I tell them in their mother tongue as their purpose is to help the students remember the grammar. I have already presented the story about questions here and you can find it in our post on Questions.
Here, there are two more stories to highlight the grammar.
The first story explains why people use the ending -s in third person singular.
In English there is the sound PSST which is used to draw someone’s attention. A long long time ago people did not gossip. But then they started to speak about someone else but no one listened. But those people who gossiped needed attention so they started to use the PSST sound. They said:
Nikola (use students’ names, it is more fun and people listen) cook PSST very badly.
Adam play PSST football. Jane like PSST English. And so on.
And as people spoke quicker and quicker they soon reduced the PSST sound to the ending -s. So ever since when we speak about 1 person who is not me or you, we use the ending -s.

The other story explains the usage of DON’T.
Do you know what sound do bells make in English. DING DONG! It is very important because I will tell you a story that happened in the year 756. On 15th June suddenly three bells fell from a church tower in the English town Epston and they became alive. Suddenly they had legs and they walked around the country. And they spoke. People came to them and they asked them. “Do you live here?” “We,” started the bells but suddenly the sound DONG came from inside, “DONG live here.”
“Do you like music?” people asked.
“We DONG like music?”
“Do you do any work?”
“We DONG work.”
People spoke about these bells everywhere. “They dong like music.” “They dong work.” And as the time passed they changed the DONG sound to don’t and ever since we use DON’T in negative sentences. Later people added the form DOESN’T in third person singular.
And what happened to the bells? As they could not do anything they put them back on the tower and they never became alive again.

To practice the grammar I have created the following interactive quizzes.
The first quiz is a game calleed On Target. Your aim is to choose the correct answer and then shoot as many bad ducks as possible. You can shoot a bottle on the side too and win a bonus. The game is in flash and it plays on desktops only.

To play the game on the full screen, click the button below.

Present simple tense – On Target

The second quiz is in HTML5 and thus it will play everywhere.

To play the game on the full screen, click the button below.

Present simple tense – QUIZ

You might miss here a worksheet with some communicative activities. So do I. But as I do not have any I would like to ask you to send me yours. If it is good and I decide to publish it here, I will Paypal you 10$. Please send the worksheets to rotreklzdenek@gmail.com. Thank you.
Remember the worksheets have to be your own.

Teaching irregular verbs can be fun. The verbs are easy to use to tell stories and stories are interesting for everyone.
In the following post I am going to tell a story and you can learn the past tense of ten irregular verbs there.
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To achieve this there are a video, a worksheet, a comic and an interactive quiz. I hope you will find them interesting.

Watch the following story. The story is easy to follow as the colour follows the voice.

If you prefer telling the story yourself, you can use the following comic:


Once you introduce the story, it is time to deal with the language. First, translate the words in the table and then ask the students to read the story again and answer the comprehension questions. Of, course you can play the video instead.
Then ask the students to complete the text and in the end ask them to solve the crossword. Once they solve the crossword using the past tense ask them to work in pairs and retell the story using the comic.

Past-simple-story_scream_original_ws_better

When you finish the worksheet, you can ask the students to do the following interactive quiz. As the quiz is in HTML5 they could try it out on their mobiles or you could do it on an interactive whiteboard.

If you want to play the quiz on the full screen, click the button below.
IRREGULAR VERBS SCREAM STORY

If you like the quiz above and you would like to share it on your blog or use it in a classroom without an internet connection, you can do this. You can download all the files here and upload them to your site just unpack the files and use them in the classroom:
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Scream

If you would like to practise a bit more, here are several resources you might like.
Irregular verbs in context
Teach 9 irregular verbs in context
Several videos:

Other sites:
British council site
Learn English for teenagers

Most of the people who learn English spend their life in an office. Therefore it is neccessary for them to learn the names of the equipment there.
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In this post I introduce 25 office vocabulary items in an infographic and a video. You can then practise all the words in interactive quizzes (over 70 quiz questions) and in a paper worksheet. Moreover, if you have your own blog, you can share the activities.

The following infographic contains 25 vocabulary items. Students should first study the picture and try to remember the meaning of the words.

You can practise or learn the correct pronunciation of the words in the following video. Simply, listen and repeat:

The activities above are ideal to introduce the words and their meaning. However, to really learn the words, you have to use them and practise them. In the following quizzes you have to produce the words and thus there is a bigger chance that you will remember them.
The first quiz is interactive and as it is in HTML 5, it will play on any mobile device.

Office equipment – full screen quiz

If you do not like doing quizzes on the screen, you can print out the following pdf files and use them instead. There are several tasks to practise all the words.

Office vocabulary worksheet

Office vocabulary key

If you like the quiz above and you would like to share it on your blog or use it in a classroom without an internet connection, you can do this. You can download all the files here and upload them to your site just unpack the files and use them in the classroom:
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Office Vocabulary

In the following post intermediate students of English can learn to form wish clauses starting with I WISH or IF ONLY. In my opinion wish clauses are quite easy to master. However, if you feel it differently, there are several helpful features to change your mind. There are several interactive quizzes, an explanatory video and an infographic.
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If you have a blog or a website, where you would like to share the content published here, you can do so by downloading the zip file at the end of the post and uploading it to your web.

The following infographic contains the basic explanation how to form wish clauses.

I did not manage to get into the infographic several pieces of information. First, if you regret something something that you did not do in the past and you use the verb could, you do not use the past perfect tense but you use the form COULD HAVE DONE something.
Second, we use the from I WISH somebody WOULD do something, if we are angry and we would like someone to change their behaviour right now and keep it changed in the future too.
Third, in wish clauses we can use WERE instead of WAS and it is still correct.

At BBClearningEnglish.com they publish great materials for learning English. However, most often than not they publish their material as an mp3 file instead of video. That is why I have turned their wonderful Grammar Challenge on regrets into the following video.

You can find the original mp3 file at http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/radio/specials/922_gramchallenge5/

The following interactive quizzes are in HTML5 so they will play in all browsers on all mobile devices.
The quizzes contain nearly 30 sentences to practise the grammar. If you pass the test you can play a short game.

If you prefer doing the quiz on the full screen click the button below:

WISH CLAUSES – full screen quiz

WISH CLAUSES – flash quiz
https://engames.eu/grammar/wish_clauses/new_version/Wish clauses quiz_flash (Web)/index.html
If you feel you have not had enough practice, you can go to British council site and try the quizzes there.

If you like the quiz above and you would like to share it on your blog or use it in a classroom without an internet connection, you can do this. You can download all the files here and upload them to your site just unpack the files and use them in the classroom:
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wish clauses002

It is very popular to teach vocabulary in lexical sets. It is easier to explain the meaning and you can present quite a few items at one time. Moreover, the presentation can look good and induce the students to study the words.
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Surprisingly, research shows that it is not so effective as teaching unrelated items. But you still can learn and teach quite a lot of words if you want to. In this post I am going to teach 26 items you can find in a kitchen. There are kitchen tools and other equipment.

The following infographic contains 26 vocabulary items. Students should first study the picture and try to remember the meaning of the words.

© Macrovector | Dreamstime.com

You can practise or learn the correct pronunciation of the words in the following video. Simply, listen and repeat:

The methods above are fine to introduce the words and their meaning. However, to really learn the words, you have to use them. In the following quizzes you have to produce the words and thus there is a bigger that you will remember them.
The first quiz is interactive and as it is in HTML 5, it will play on any mobile device.

Kitchen equipment – full screen quiz

If you do not like doing quizzes on the screen, you can print out the following pdf files and use them instead. There are several tasks to practise all the words.

Kitchen words_key

Kitchen words_ws

If you would like to have all the exercises in one file, download the following file. Moreover, there is the picture with blank gaps and thus it can serve as an ideal exercise to practise the vocabulary.

kitchen and tools vocabulary_full

If you like the quiz above and you would like to share it on your blog or use it in a classroom without an internet connection, you can do this. You can download all the files here and upload them to your site just unpack the files and use them in the classroom:
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KITCHEN EQUIPMENT (Web)

The difference between LITTLE and FEW, especially when you add A LITTLE and A FEW, causes a lot of problems event to students whose English is really good. In this post I try to teach the difference in a graphical way. Having studied the infographic, you should try the interactive quiz and check whether you really got the grammar right.

Study the infographic. Notice the difference between A LITTLE and LITTLE. If there is the article A – it means that there is some. Without the article we say that there is not enough of something.
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If you think you understand the concept, it is time to check your understanding in the following quiz.

The following quiz is in HTML5, so it will play on all mobile devices. If you pass the test, you will be given the chance to play the game TIC-TAC-TOE against the computer. Remember that it is possible to beat the computer, but it might take you some time before you find the correct way.

You can take the quiz on the full screen by clicking the button:
Few and little – full screen

If you feel you need more practice, you should try the following pages:

• British Council site on Few and Little
• BBC Learning English Little and Few

The difference between Little and Few is a part of a larger concept called countability in English. If you would like to understand the whole concept, I can recommend the following posts:

• Countable and uncountable nouns 
• How much or How many?

If you like the quiz above and you would like to share it on your blog or use it in a classroom without an internet connection, you can do this. You can download all the files here and upload them to your site just unpack the files and use them in the classroom:
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Few and little (Web)

This is the second post which contains ten new words for intermediate students. The words are among the 4,000 most frequent words in English. This selection of words is based on Paul Nation’s list of words. If you have missed the first post on vocabulary, you can find it here.
I hope you will find it useful and that you will learn the new words. This time it will take a bit longer as there are more exercises in the print version and there is the video with the pronunciation of the words.
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First, you should study the words in the following infographic. I try to give the definition of the word, a clue to remember the word quicker, and some example sentences. I honestly hope these will help you learn the vocabulary better and quicker.

To get the pronunciation right, listen and repeat the words with the native speaker.

You can practise the vocabulary now in the following interactive quiz. The quiz is in HTML5 and it will play on all mobile devices. If you pass the quiz you can play a game as a reward.

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Interactive quiz – full screen

If you cannot do the quiz above or you prefer working on a paper, you can print out the following document and practise the vocabulary there.

Vocabulary_4000_set003_ws
Vocabulary_4000_set003_key

I have already published a post on possessive case. But when I tried to teach it again, I found out that it was not clear enough for the group I am teaching now. So I created a new infographic and several new interactive exercises in which students can practise the grammar. And my new students understand it now nearly perfectly. I hope you will find these materials useful too.
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Have a look at this infographic and see how we form the possessive case in English.

To cut the explanation short, add the apostrophe+s to a singular noun and add only the apostrophe to a regular plural noun. If the noun has an irregular plural add the apostrophe+s. If you feel that you understand the grammar, it is high time to practise it in the following exercises.

The following quiz is in HTML5, so it will work on all mobile devices. Thus your students can practise the grammar anywhere they like. If they pass the quiz they will be given a chance to play a game as a reward.

If you feel that the quiz is too small, click the button below and play the game on the full screen.

Possessive case – quiz full screen

If you are looking for more practise I recommend British Council page on possessive case.

If you like the quiz above and you would like to share it on your blog or use it in a classroom without an internet connection, you can do this. You can download all the files here and upload them to your site just unpack the files and use them in the classroom:
ADVERT:
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Possessive case_quiz (Web)

There is the famous quote which says that you can say very little without grammar but you can say nothing without vocabulary. I completely agree, and that is why I have created the following post. I aim to teach intermediate students 10 new words.
In this post I am going to teach the words that are among the 4,000 most frequent words. This selection of words is based on Paul Nation´s list of words.
I hope you will find it useful and that you will learn the new words quickly.
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First, you should study the words in the following infographic. I try to give the definition of the word, a clue to remember the word quicker, and some example sentences. I honestly hope these will help you learn the vocabulary better and quicker.

You can practise the vocabulary now in the following interactive quiz. The quiz is in HTML5 and it will play on all mobile devices.

ADVERT:
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Interactive quiz – full screen

If you cannot do the quiz above, you can print out the following document and practise the vocabulary there.

Vocabulary_4000_02 worksheet
vocabulary_4000_02_key