Visual materials can be one of the most effective tools to teach a foreign language. However, their major disadvantage is that they are time-consuming and difficult to create. To save you time, I would like to share three exercises here that use pictures to teach English. All of the materials concentrate on the topic of…
When I was younger, I searched high and low for songs that would help me introduce a grammar point. But there were not many. There was the song Luka by Susan Vega, which has been used for ages to teach the past simple tense, and then I discovered the song Brighton in the Rain to…
Learning the -s ending for third-person singular verbs can be tricky. Here are three engaging activities that use Van Patten’s input processing method to help students grasp this important rule. 1. Video Activity: Guess the First Word This activity is designed to focus students on verb forms to determine subject pronouns. How it Works:In a…
Textbooks often don´t offer enough speaking practice. If the book is good it gives you two speaking activities per unit and nothing more. Then the teacher has to search high and low to find some more. To make the search shorter, I share three speaking activities you can use to practise the past simple tense….
Grammar is very important. But grammar revision is often boring.
Sometimes it is necessary to teach the very basics because students often believe that they know it, but they don’t. Numbers 1-10 are a typical example of superficial knowledge students often have. Even at a young age, they can count from one to ten, but once the numbers don’t go one after another, they are…
Recently my colleague noticed that our textbook contains too few exercises to practise the verb HAVE GOT. To bridge this gap I decided to create a board game. A board game will allow my students practise the grammar in a fun way and this activity can be used repeatedly.
Recently I introduced Magic Grammar Cards in my classes. These cards are extremely versatile, easy to prepare and simple to use. Moreover, I believe that they are a great way to revise grammar and they support independent learning.
Six years ago, I spent a lot of time working on a magazine for learners of English. I managed to produce three issues. Today, I feel it is time to share them. ADVERT: [showmyads] The first issue is about sports. There are several vocabulary exercises where students can learn the names of various sports. There…
In the previous lesson, I taught the affirmative of the verb TO BE and now it is time to revise the grammar and explain the short forms. First, we need to revise. Students need to revise a lot, or they will forget. So let’s start with revising the pronouns. Play, the following video. First, students…
I have already taught the verb to be many times. But this year I failed exemplarily. So I stopped and spent a week planning a sequence of lessons to really teach this basic grammar point. In these posts, I would like to share the lesson plans and materials I have created. To be able to…
In this post, I would like to share three activities that stood out in my teaching this week. They worked very well and I think that my students learned a lot from them. I hope you will find them useful and entertaining, too. The first activity is a speaking activity where students use relative clauses….
For some students, sentence transformation is the test they are really scared of. They feel that they cannot form the sentences correctly and often fail their exams just because they mess this part up. However, as a learner and teacher of English, I feel that this test is simple. I cannot help thinking that the…
In my previous post I offered a set of materials to help you teach the 10 most frequent irregular verbs in English. Now, there are a couple of activities to teach, or if you are a student to learn, another set of 10 irregular verbs. We give you a set of activities to help you…
Recently I published a post on irregular verbs which I am really proud of. In this post, there is an app which helps students learn the past tense of the 52 most frequent irregular verbs in English. Using the app, over 80% of my students managed to learn all the past tenses of the verbs….
When I was a child, the Snake game was incredibly popular. Of course, that was a long time ago. The games have changed since but when I see how popular the game Slitherio (a new version of the Snake game) is, I believe children have not changed that much. And they might appreciate if we…
English with Youtubers? Are you joking!? Youtubers use horrible English and their stories are about nothing! They use F words all the time and they have no ethics! For example, the most popular Youtuber showed some anti-Jew messages on his channel. Simply put, these videos cannot be shown at schools! A few days ago I…
I remember the times in my teaching career when I dreaded teaching questions. I especially hated the questions in the past simple tense. After my explanation, students got confused and they often failed to produce even the most basic questions. Fortunately, the situation has changed. Nowadays, I look forward to teaching this grammar. I have…
In this post, you can learn the vocabulary to describe personal qualities. Here we will try to teach you the following words: sociable, friendly, sensitive, talkative, confident, ambitious, dull, cheerful, easygoing, loyal, honest, worried, modest, shy, sensible, hardworking. These words are quite useful, as you can speak about other people and describe them. ADVERT: [showmyads]…
It is vital to learn the words for different kinds of food. If you know the words for different kinds of food, not only you will not die of hunger, but you will be able to choose the food you like. Therefore, it is worth learning these words. In this post, there is a pictionary…