Tag: engames.eu

Pictionaries are a powerful method of teaching new vocabulary. In pictionaries, you can see the word and its meaning at the same time, and thus it is easier to remember it. Moreover, good pictionaries are appealing and they attract learners to explore them. Therefore, it is a good idea to include them in your lessons.

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In his latest video Fluency MC teaches comparatives and superlatives. He uses about forty different adjectives and raps them in the comparative and superlative form. The song is catchy and the grammar very important. Jason was kind enough to allow me to write some teaching materials to go with the song. In this post you will find the song, an infographic explaining the grammar, and a classroom activity.

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Fluency MC and I have already produced a lot of material together. For example, there are four posts on irregular verbs and two posts on collocations with HAVE. You can find a list of all the posts at the end of this text.

Students can get a free copy of the Fluency MC YouTube lyrics book and a free sample of his online course here: http://fluencymc.com/starter-course/ Teachers can get a free copy of the the first unit of his song and video activity book here: http://fluencymc.com/teacher-activity-book-and-media-pack/

Play the song at the beginning of the lesson. You could ask your students to write all the adjectives they hear. Students write only the basic forms.

Hand out the following worksheet and ask the students to check their answers. All the adjectives from the song are in the worksheet, in the order in which they are heard.

Adjectives Worksheet

Explain that Jason uses only the short adjectives in his songs. These adjectives have just one syllable and thus the following rules apply:

You can download the pdf file here:
Comparatives and superlatives – pdf file

Explain the rules, and then ask the students to take the list of adjectives they wrote during the song and write their comparative and superlative forms. Once they finish they can check their answers using the worksheet they received at the beginning of the lesson.

Explain the meaning of the superlative and comparative forms. We use the comparative if we compare two things. If we compare three or more things and want to say which one comes at the top, we use the superlative.

Once the students understand the meaning, play the following video. In this video, students look at the pictures and then answer the questions.

Check to see who was the best FBI agent.

1. Irregular verbs 1
2. Irregular verbs 2
3. Irregular verbs 3
4. Irregular verbs 4
5. Collocations with HAVE 1
6. Collocations with HAVE 2
7. Phrasal verbs
8. Phrases with GET 1
9. Phrases with GET 2

Recently, in the post called Questions with Like, I asked you to choose the activity you would like me to write about. Most of you voted for a Speaking activity, so I prepared a set of speaking activities to practice the prepositions of place.

I have already created a post on prepositions, so this time there will be no infographics just two speaking activities. If you are looking for more speaking activities, you can find a two great speaking activities here.
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The first activity is called Battle and it was devised and recommended by K. Folse in his book The Art of Teaching Speaking.

First, print out the worksheet with 18 pictures. Each picture is different and they are labelled with letters A to R.

Ask students to work in groups of three. They should label themselves A, B, and C. Student A starts.
Student A will choose a room in the worksheet. Then students B and C will take turns asking yes – no questions to identify A´s room. For example, B asks: “Is the table in front of the sofa?” If student A answers “Yes, it is,” student B asks another question. He continues in this way till student B answers “No.” Then it is student´s C turn. Students go on like this till someone identifies the picture student A is thinking of.

After student B or C has guessed A´s room, student B chooses a room and students A and C try to guess it in the same way as they did with student A.

Students keep track of how many rooms they guessed correctly, and the winner is the one who guessed most.

Here is the worksheet students will use (it is enough to print out just one worksheet for each group.)

To be able to do the task above successfully, your students need to know the following vocabulary and grammar:

Vocabulary: plant, picture, lamp, table, cushion, plant, sofa, floor, wall, chair, ball and the prepositions of place (you find the materials to teach Prepositions of place here).
Grammar: to form question with is/are and the phrases There is / there are.

If your students do not know the language mentioned above, the speaking activity will not work!!!

First you need to print out the following worksheet once for each pair of students. They should cut it in the middle and each student should keep one sheet. (Now each student has two pictures with the room.)

Then, each student draws between 5 and 10 objects into one of his pictures. He or she has to draw objects they know the English words for. I personally ask my students to draw pieces of furniture we learn in the textbook unit.

Students sit with their backs to each other and one describes their picture for their partner, and the partners draws the objects into the picture he or she has not drawn into yet. When one student finishes they swap their roles and the other student describes their picture.

At the end the students compare their pictures.

Here is the worksheet:

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To be able to print out the worksheets in the best possible quality, use the following pdf file:

Speaking activities pdf worksheet prepositions of place

To be able to do the task above successfully, your students need to know the following phrases:

Can you repeat that?
Tell me again.
Where does the …. go?

I hope you will find both of the speaking activities useful and interesting, and that they will make it into your classroom. Both of the activities should ensure that your students will produce a lot of language and they will practice their knowledge of prepositions of place.

Speaking activities – prepositions of place

As I wrote before, irregular verbs are the most important thing for all students of English to learn. However, it is not easy to master them. That is why Fluency and I started to collaborate on a series of posts that deal with teaching just the irregular verbs.
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In this post we are going to introduce another set of 15 verbs. To learn them there is a song, an infographic, a quiz and a game. If you go through all the activities you will meet each word at least 6 times. We hope you will like our work and share the post.

Listen to the following song and try to complete the lyrics. To complete the lyrics start the song at 2:05.

You can find the lyrics here:
Lyrics part 3

Here is the infographic with all the irregular verbs, you should learn in this post. For each word there is a definition (in either word or picture form) and two examples of usage.

Display the infographic and go through the verbs with your students. Explain the meaning of the difficult words.

Here is a two-part online quiz. Your task is to choose the correct answers and pass the quiz. You you will be rewarded with a game after each part of the quiz if you pass.
This game is in HTML5, so it will play on all mobile devices as well as desktop computers.

Irregular verbs Quiz

You can find more irregular verbs practise at https://grammarlane.com/irrverbs/irrverbsen.html . Choose the irregular verbs you want to practise and choose the mode (speaking or writing). Then write or say the past tense and the past participle of the verbs you see.

Irregular verbs by British Council.

Irregular verbs by BBC.

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A song by Fluency MC on irregular verbs:

In my opinion, irregular verbs are the most important thing one has to learn in English. Therefore, it is absolutely essential that students know them. However, teaching them is not easy. There are no rules, and the number of new words that students manage to commit to memory is quite low. Thus the teaching materials have to be interesting enough that students would return to them.

And one of the best materials for teaching irregular verbs is this song, which was created by Jason R Levine from Fluency MC:
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In this post we are going to deal with the verbs mentioned in the second verse of the song. Below you will find an infographic, an online quiz and a game to help your students learn the irregular verbs.

Display the following infographic and go through the words with them. Use the pictures to explain the meaning or ask your students to use their dictionaries.

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Start with the online quiz. The quiz is in HTML5 so it will play on mobile devices too. In the first part, you should drag the words to the correct spaces. If you pass, you will be rewarded with a game called Angry Farmer. In the second part, you have to look at the picture and complete the sentence. Use the past tense of a verb that best fits the sentence.

Irregular verbs quiz

You can practise the irregular verbs in sentences in the following video.

Irregular verbs by British Council.

Irregular verbs by BBC.

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A song by Fluency MC on irregular verbs:

Jason R. Levine produces some of the best videos for teaching and learning English online. You probably know his super famous rap on irregular verbs. However, for this post we agreed to create materials for another one of his videos. You will find materials here for his video on collocations with the verb HAVE.

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In the post you can find the following activities: a video with the song (by Jason), the lyrics worksheet, an infographic with all the collocations, an interactive quiz and a game. If you go through all the activities I am sure that you will know most of the collocations.

Watch the video and complete the following worksheet with the lyrics.

This post covers only the first two verses of the song so stop the video after the two verses.
Have collocations song

Go through the following infographic. If you have a monolingual class, ask them to translate the collocations. If you teach an international group, explain only the more difficult phrases.

Then ask the students to work in pairs or small groups and to ask and answer the questions in the outer circles.

Both of the following games are created in HTML5, so they will play on all mobile devices.
The first game is called Quiz Goose Science, and your task is to click on the dice in the upper right hand corner. When you do, your avatar moves. If you finish your move on a question mark, you will be given a question. If you answer correctly, you will move ahead. If not, you will be moved backwards.
You can play against either the computer or other people.

To play on the full screen click the button:
Game – full screen

The second game is an interactive quiz. Your task is to answer all the questions as well as you can. If you pass the quiz you will be rewarded with a game.

To play on the full screen click the button:
Quiz – full screen

I would like to thank Jason for his cooperation, and I hope we will publish many other posts together. In the meantime, you should check out the following videos by Fluency MC:

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Most placement tests are for adults. There are few placement tests for young students. Thus, when a teacher tries to test his or her students’ proficiency in English using a standard placement test, the students quickly become discouraged because they don’t understand anything. Then the final results tell you nothing about the students´ knowledge.
This placement test is different. It contains only 40 multiple choice questions, and it is for students who are at level A1 of the CERF. If the students get more than 28 answers correct, their English is at level A1 CEFR. If they get over 36 answers correct they are well into A2 CEFR level.
The grammar tested here contains only the verbs BE, HAVE GOT and CAN, present simple and continuous tenses. About half of the items test students´ knowledge of vocabulary and phrases.

There are two versions of the test. The first one is an interactive quiz, which you can try here:

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To play the quiz on the full screen click the button below:

Placement test – full screen

Or you can try the paper version of the test here.

Placement test for level A1

I hope the test will help you know your students better and choose the right level for each of them.

This placement test is for students 9-13 years old. If you are looking for a placement test for younger students, you can try the one that is here.
If you are looking for a placement test for adults, try this one.
You can try a placement test by Saint George Institute.

I like teaching prepositions of place. I can use the Cuisenaire rods, and my students can be creative in many ways and use English a lot.
Here I would like to share the activities I use to teach prepositions of place. In this post you can find the following activities: a mind map, an infographic, a worksheet and online exercises.

First, I introduce the prepositions of place using the following infographic. If you have an interactive whiteboard in your English class, you can display it there, or you can print it and hand it out to everyone in the class.
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Then display the following mind map and elicit the prepositions.

Hand out the following worksheet to your students. There are four pages and it is best to print out two pages on one sheet.

Prepositions of place worksheet

First you need to practise the names of pieces of furniture with your English class. You can find a furniture vocabulary post here.

Ask your students to solve the crossword and word search and then check their answers.
The second page concentrates on the prepositions. Ask your English class to figure out the names of the cats using the clues on the right.

In the task that follows, students should complete the sentences using the correct prepositions.
On the third page there is another infographic to introduce the meanings of the prepositions of place.

If you have a monolingual class and you speak their mother tongue, you could ask them to translate the sentences.

In the last task on page four, students have to place the pieces of furniture in the room. Then they have to describe their room to their partner and the listener has to draw the room.

My English classes love this activity. I bring the Cuisenaire rods and I give each pair of students a set. First, I tell them that they have 3 minutes to play with the rods.

After the 3 minutes I ask them to stop playing and put all the rods in the box. Then I dictate sentences like: Put the red rod on the table. Put the green rod under the red rod. Put the white rod next to the red rod.

I dictate 5 sentences and then we check the resulting shape.

In the next phase students work in pairs. One of them dictates and the other puts the rods on the table. After a while they swap their roles.

You can either ask your English class to use the following online quiz at home or you can do it at school if you have enough computers.

As the quiz is in HTML5 and should play on every mobile device, you could even ask your English class to do the quiz on their mobile phones.

In the quiz there are several slides with questions. If the students pass the quizzes, they can play a game.

Prepositions of place – full screen

There are some great activities for learning and practising prepositions of place at the British Council site.

I always loved the word formation part of the FCE test. This was the part of the test where I always scored really high. However, some of my students don’t. So I sat down and tried to find out why I have been so successful in this part of the test.

And the result? I believe that I do well on these tests because I know the other forms of words. I take the key word and then learn all of its other forms, and when I meet the word in a test I am able to remember the correct form.

In this post I am going to give you a chance to do the same. I selected 10 words that regularly appear in the word formation test for B2 level, and I listed all the forms and example sentences. What should you do? Try to memorise all the forms from the infographic and then go through the online quizzes.

Study the following infographic and try to remember all the forms. Do not forget to notice the differences in meaning.

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Do not spend too much time just learning the forms. It is best to use them in context, so I believe it is time to move to the online quizzes.

The first online quiz is in HTML5 so it will play on all devices. Your task is to choose the correct form of the words, and if you pass the quiz you will be given a chance to play a game as a reward.
Word formation quiz – full screen

The second game is called En Garde and it will only play on your desktop as it is made in flash. Your task is to choose the correct answer and then stop the circle as close to the centre as possible. Will you win?

Word formation quiz – full screen

You can find more interesting exercises at the British Council site.

For an unknown reason many elementary textbooks teach HAVE GOT at the very beginning. Students find it difficult and they get confused. Moreover, they get even more fed up when they learn that the Americans do not use this form.
But I have to teach the grammar, so there is no use crying over spilt milk. To be honest, I was not very successful the last time I taught this grammar, and that is why I decided to create some new materials.
In this post you will find a song, an infographic, a worksheet with communicative activities, and an interactive online quiz.

Start the lesson with the following song. Ask the students to listen and complete the lyrics. Check their answers and ask the students to listen and sing along. In this way they will practise their pronunciation and grammar at the same time.
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Have got song lyrics

Now draw the students’ attention to the following infographic. Explain the form of the verb have got. This may be the right time to drill the form.

Once you have explained the grammar, it is time to practise it using the following worksheet. Download it and print it out.

Have got communicative worksheet

Ask the students to work in pairs. They must not show their pictures to their partners.
In the first exercise they look at their picture and write what they have in the bag.
In the second exercise they write questions asking whether their partner has the same things in their bag . When the students finish writing their questions, they work in pairs and ask and answer in pairs.
In the third exercise, the students look at their bags. Then they look at the objects on the right. They ask their partner whether Jane or David has these things in their bags. They tick or cross out the objects in their pictures.

The following quiz can be taken at school or you canask your students to do it at home.
In the first part, the students should write correct sentences about the pictures using HAVE GOT. If they produce enough correct sentences, they will be able to play the game called Angry Farmer.
In the second part of the quiz they should first match the pictures and the words and then write them. In the last part of the quiz they have to write the correct answers. Again, if the students pass the quiz they will be rewarded with a game. This time they should write the words they see in the picture (of course, in English).

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Have got online quiz – full screen

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.

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

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.

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

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)

Today I experienced the great teaching moment when one of my not so proficient students said that she can understand the grammar perfectly and that it is really easy. I was exalted.
I was teaching present continuous tense and the students really liked it and at the end of the lesson they were able to form the affirmative sentences correctly. In this post I would like to share all the activities I used to achieve this. There are an infographic explaining the grammar, a worksheet and an interactive quiz. I hope you will like it.
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Please, if you spot a mistake leave a comment and I will try to correct it as soon as possible. Thank you.

When I start teaching present continuous tense I do not present the following infographic till we finish the first exercise from the following worksheet.

Once we check the exercise 1, I hand out the following infographic and ask the students to go through it and then I explain it.

When I finish my short explanation I ask the students to complete the exercise 2 in the Present continuous affirmative_worksheet. We check the answers and then I explain the addition of the -ing ending. And then the students have to do the exercise 3. Here they add the -ing ending to the verbs.

In exercise 4 the students are asked to write what the people and animals are doing in the pictures. Remind them not to forget the correct form of the verb TO BE in each sentence. In exercise 5, the pupils finish the sentences in a logical way using the present continuous tense.

At the end of the lesson I asked my students to work in pairs and describe the picture we used at the beginning of the lesson.

It worked for my class. Will it work for yours?

You can start the practice session with the video guessing game. The man will start drawing a picture and he will stop at one moment. A question will appear and you should answer it. The correct answer will appear a few seconds later.

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Once we finish the exercises at school you can ask your students to practise the grammar at home. They can try to do the following interactive quiz. If they pass it they will be given a chance to play a game. The quiz is in HTML5 so it will work on all mobile devices.

Present continuous tense quiz – full screen

You can expand your knowledge about present continuous tense at British Council pages.

If you like the two games above and you would like to share them on your blog or use them in a classroom without an internet connection, you can do this. You can download all the files here:

Present continuous quiz (Web)

The usage of the words SOME and ANY is really easy. However, some textbooks like to mix this grammar with the concept of countability and thus they confuse the students. These two words have very little to do with countability. In my opinion their usage is dependent on completely different factors.
In this post I would like to show how I teach the usage of SOME and ANY. There is an infographic to help me and several exercises to practise this grammar.
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When I teach this grammar, I print out the following infographics and ask my students to have a look at it for one minute. Then I ask them to explain the grammar. Surprisingly, more often than not they are capable of explaining the grammar without my intervention.

Once I elicit the usage of the two words, I verify the students knowledge with the following exercises and games.

The first quiz is created in HTML 5 so it will play on all mobile devices. It is not a bad idea to ask your students from time to time to use their mobiles and do the exercise online. They will feel happy that they can use their mobile phones or tablets at school.

Some and Any quiz – full screen

The second game is called On target and students at school love it. Your aim is to choose the correct answer and then shoot as many bad ducks as possible. Moreover, you can get a bonus if you shoot one of the bottles on the side. This game is in flash and therefore will work only on desktops.

Some and Any quiz – full screen

If you do not have an interactive whiteboard at school, you will appreciate the print version of the quiz:

Some and Any_print version

If you feel that there are not enough exercises at this site you can visit British Council site and learn more about SOME and ANY there.

Macmillan publishing house runs a competition Love English Awards and as this site has been nominated, you can vote for us here. Thank you for your support.

If you like the two games above and you would like to share them on your blog or use them in a classroom without an internet connection, you can do this. You can download all the files here:

Some and any zip file with the games

Prepositions are one of the favourite test items. They appear at tests like FCE or CAE and if you know them then you can get a lot of points. Moreover, if you use the prepositions correctly, people find it easier to understand you.

The aim of this post is to teach several high-frequency phrases starting with the preposition IN. There are two quizzes with games a mind map and a mnemonic to help you remember all the phrases.

The following mind map shows all the phrases that I would like to teach. On the right side there are the key words organised into simple logical lines which should make them easier to remember.
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Some might find the lines on the right side difficult to understand. It should work as a mnemonic. It is much easier to remember 4 sentences than to remember 20 separate phrases. You should read the lines and imagine the picture. For example:

Common general like touch bed danger

Imagine a normal soldier who likes touching bed in danger.
In the same way try to remember the other three sentences. The sentence after the slash creates the image you should remember.

debt my opinion fact doubt other words / The debt in my opinion is a fact. Doubt other words.
prison time vain any case advance / Time in prison is spend in vain, but it passes in any case.
touch the south the end the sky / Touch the south end of the sky.

Anyway, once you remember these lines, do not forget that there is IN in front of them 🙂

I have prepared two HTML5 quizzes to practice the grammar. In the first quiz you should drag the correct word into the correct gap. This game will work on any mobile device too, so you can practice anywhere you go.

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Phrases with the preposition IN – Quiz

The second game is a simple crossword. Complete the crossword with the phrases with the preposition IN. Again the game is in HTML5 and will work on any mobile device or desktop.

Phrases with the preposition IN – crosswords

I have already published a post on numbers. However, there I expected that you know the basics and that you need to learn a bit more about them. This post is different. Here, I would like to start at the very beginning and present the basic numbers from 0 to 99. To achieve this there is a mind map, two quizzes and several worksheets dealing with these.
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I hope that you will find the article interesting and useful.

In the following mind map I try to depict all the way in which we form the numbers from 0 to 99.

Be careful not to leave out the hyphen. If you write the number without it, then the number is wrong!!!

In this section I would like to share several worksheets to practise the numbers in a fun way.
The first one is a worksheet with two colourful crosswords. Print out the pdf file and solve the puzzles.
Numbers_crossword

The second worksheet contains four different tasks. There is a crossword, a spiral crossword, a wordsearch and a hidden words task. Once again, the file is in pdf, so you have to print it out to be able to solve it.

Numbers_word_games

You can find more interesting worksheet at Alenka’s site.

The third worksheet is for teachers. It contains a bingo game. Print out as many cards as necessary and then call out the numbers and decide who wins.
I play a slight variation by asking the students to read one of their numbers.
Numbers 0 to 99_bingo_cards
Numbers 0 to 99_bingo_cards_call out list
If you are a teacher you might like to have a dictation file.

This part contains two quizzes and games to practise the numbers.
In the first quiz you have to write the numbers in words. If you pass the quiz you will have a chance to play a game to practise your vocabulary. Good luck!!!

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The second quiz is a listening quiz. You have to listen and choose or write the numbers you hear. Especially the last part is really difficult. If you pass, you can play the game calle Math pop. Good luck!!!