Positive Thinking

What are you good at? (a sport, hobby or subject at school etc.)

Answer these questions

1, What do you enjoy about it?

2, When was the last time you did it?

3, Whose feedback do you need?

4, Who/What stops you from doing it?

5, What advice would you give a beginner?

Present your ideas.

3 Reasons Why...

1, Choose one of these sentences...

it’s a good idea to cook dinner for your family once a week.

it’s a good idea to read for 15 minutes before bed each night.

it’s a good idea to save money each month for something you want.

it’s a good idea to walk or bike to school when possible.

it’s a good idea to go to bed at the same time on school nights.

it’s a good idea to practice a musical instrument three times a week.

2, And using the following structure in your answer – explain why.

(written may be easier first)

Firstly, (give your strongest reason.)

Secondly, (add another clear example or benefit.)

Lastly, (finish with a summary or extra point.)

What is wrong?

 (From Treasure magazine, 1963)

Some more modern stuff on Brightside

Grandparents

How do you feel at their house?

What can you smell / hear / see?

What things do they say?

What do you think?

The results from my class: #theirwordsmyverse
(Poem style inspired by Michael Rosen)

At my grandparents house

I feel happy, loved, bored
I can smell soap, socks, food and air freshener

At my grandparents house
I have to eat lentils

At my grandparents house
My grandad doesn't drink water
he drinks Fanta

At my grandparents house
There are old photos, old films
an old TV and a rocking chair

At my grandparents house
They ask me how things work.
They ask me for my dads mobile number (again)
and they call me by my sisters name

At my grandparents house
I talk about school, do my homework
I think about my future
I think about pizza

Length

What is the longest word you can think of starting with the following letters:

S

E

P

T

E

M

B

E

R

example: S – Salubriousness.

Be Yourself

Be Yourself

Be calm and aware
Be who why and where?

Be the child looking up
Be the team with no cup

Be the road that takes longer
Be the battery that gets stronger

Be the film without a script
Be the chocolate amongst the chips

Be the experiment that fails
Be the fish with no scales

Be the stranger thats kind
Be the stars unaligned

Breathe in. Breath out
Sit straight. Stand tall

Dare to be true
Dare to be you

Clarence Greenway 

What is going on in this picture?

A good website for speculating and guessing

Unlimited

Here is Nike's staff memo from the 1970's.

How many of these can we apply to our class to ensure a successful year and passed exams?

You Can Only Pick 2!

Think by yourself
Share with a partner
Debate as a class
Pick your 2 and explain why.

Rules

Effective teachers don't focus so much on rules, but more on relationships, routines, & expectations. If you focus mainly on rules, you will spend most of the year enforcing them. But if you focus on relationships, routines, & expectations, you rarely have to defer back to rules.

Brad Johnson

Flip it

Ask them what they didn't do on their summer holidays.

Talking About Pictures

I often show photos from the BBC news in pictures website (week in pictures is good) in class. A lot of news websites do them.

Choose one and answer some of the questions:

1, What do you see and think?
2, Speculate and wonder.
3, Give an opinion. Criticise it.
4, Ask 'What would happen if...?'
5, Why is ___ actually...? (example: Why is the man actually protesting?)
6, How could I do this? (be part of or do what is in the picture)
7, Find a similarity with the picture and your life.
8, What might have happened before the picture was taken?
9, What might happen next if the picture became a video?

Name 4

Can you name 4...

1, verbs that are followed by ___ on
2, adjectives that end in ed
3, foods that are orange
4, household tasks
5, words that end in y
6, words that start with z
7, adjectives that collocate with problem
8, words that end in less
9, things you normally keep in the freezer

Also known as name 3, name 5, list 5, say 4, think of 3, list 4...

Situations

Imagine you are in a fast-food restaurant.

What language would you use for each of these situations in a fast-food restaurant? Write sentences.

1) Ask for information
2) Refuse to do something

3) Justify your opinion

4) Make a suggestion

5) Persuade somebody

6) Complain about something
7) Instruct somebody
8) Apologise to somebody
9) Fake / feign something

Example:

5) Go on, have some nuggets then we can share them.

Drawings by Aimar & Sofía

Keep 3

You can only keep 3

1, Instagram
2, Cake
3, Pizza
4, Dogs
5, Netflix
6, Books
7, Cats
8, Chocolate
9, Chips

Which three would you keep? and why?
What are some of your reasons for not choosing the others?

Drawing by Ariadna

Utensils

Knife, fork, spoon.

Which is the most useful?

Which is the most useful in childhood?

What are some advantages / disadvantages of each?

Which is the most dangerous?
If you make them bigger, what could they become? (e.g knife – sword)

The Wind

Inspiration: The Wind
Challenge: Starting with one word, write an extra word each line until you have 7 words. No rules. See what you come up with.

Some examples from my class:

It
was strong
very very strong
I lost something important
The wind DESTROYED our house
The wind was very very dangerous
You can't hit the wind. It's invisible


wind
it's annoying
very annoying
It is very annoying
It is cold and annoying
It is cold and very annoying
It is very cold and very annoying
wind

Variations

Using this sentence:

'My dad overcooks and burns the sausages at lunchtime every Saturday.'

Rewrite it using an idea from below

1) Next Saturday

2) Start the sentence with the word IF 
3) Use 'must' in the sentence
4) Make a prediction starting with 'I think'
5) Put the sentence into reported speech
6) Rewrite the sentence without using the letter A 
7) Write the opposite of the sentence (nouns and verbs only)
8) Start with 'In this picture...'
9) Rewrite in the passive

(Example: 3, it must be Saturday lunchtime as dad is overcooking and burning the sausages.)

Harder...

1) Start with the word Seldom
2) Rewrite so that each word Starts with the same letter
3) Use Some similes
4) Use Anadiplosis
5) Start with No sooner
6) Use Personification
7) Rewrite using the word Foregone in the sentence
8) Use Deduction
9) Rewrite without using the letter A

Drawing by Dario

Instructions for a Heatwave

A Choose Your Own Adventure Poem

Missing Letters

 A Word Game. Complete these words using the letters given

1  t_____e

2  __mm__

3  __oo__

4  s_____d

5  co_____d

6  __pp__

7  __ll__

8  b_____n

9  p____ng
10  ___ss

Three Letters

A word game. Start with a three letter word. The middle letter of that word is the first letter of the next word and so on.

example

run - use - say... Can you keep going for up to twenty words..?

To raise the difficulty use four / five / six letter words.

Pyramid

A Word Game. Start the pyramid with a two or three letter word. For example - no

The next word in the pyramid must use the last letter of the previous word and be one letter longer.

For example

no

one

each
heavy

When the word gets too long and difficult you could go back down to 2 again.
Some rules: No repetition of words or plurals allowed.

Zoology

Here are some animals / mammals / insects:

1,

blue whale

tiger

shark

2,

butterfly

elephant

bat

3,

bee

bear

mosquito

Choose a group of 3 and answer one of the questions:

1, Which ones have things in common?

2, Which is the (___est / most ___)

3, Invent a fact about one of them: Did you know that ___.

4, If the ___ could speak, what would it say?

5, What advice would the ___ give to its children?

6, Can you create a new animal from two of the animals? (example: Elebat)

Minimal Pairs (vowel sounds)

A minimal pair is a pair of words which differ only in one sound.

They are a great way to improve pronunciation.

Here are some examples.

1, ankle / uncle

2, ship / sheep

3, space / spice

4, cap / cape

5, man / men

6, pitch / peach

7, golf / gulf

8, hat / heart

9, celery / salary

10, full / fool

Choose one number

1, Can you identify the vowel sounds?

2, Can you think of another word with that sound?

Celery: head, bread, guest

3, Can you explain how the two are different in each number? (or similar)

example: celery is a vegetable whereas a salary is the money you earn. Both are good for you. 

4, Can you make a sentence in the first conditional with each pair?

example: If I eat celery, will you increase my salary?

Holidays

Here are ten things people might take on a holiday:

1, a passport

2, pets

3, a suitcase

4, food

5, family

6, a phrase book

7, a hairbrush

8, sun cream

9, a bicycle

10, a sleeping bag

1, What reasons might someone take ___ on holiday?

2, What reasons might someone not take ___ on holiday?

3, What other reasons for and against are there for taking ___ on holiday?

Drawing by Lucía

Possibilities

Yellow

All these things are of a similar colour:

1,

the sun

banana

Pac-Man

2,

highlighter pen

NY taxi

Pokemon

3,

cheese

lemon

Sponge Bob

Choose one group of three and:

1, Say three things you know about one of the words?

2, Are any things in the list that are sometimes not yellow?

3, How are some things similar in each group of three?

4, Which one is the odd one out and why in each group? Why?

5, Which ones are useful / positive for you?
6, When was the last time you experienced one of them?

Yellow. Words from my students.

Mixed Feelings 2

Here is a wordlist:

1, bomb
2, headache
3, plane
4, window
5, cloud
6, shark
7, road sign
8, hospital
9, lunch

10, tree

Can you match a word above to the most appropriate emotion below?

Emotions: sadness, anger, joy, fear, disgust, anxiety, embarrassment, ennui, envy.

Can you explain how the same word could be used with the other emotions?

Example: The obvious choice for shark is fear but what about a situation where there is happiness related to shark?

Drawing by Claudia

Mixed Feelings

What is a Grade?

"...an inadequate report of an inaccurate judgment by a biased and variable judge of the extent to which a student has attained an undefined level of mastery of an unknown proportion of an indefinite material"

Paul Dressel (1983)

Speed Sentence

Make a 7 word sentence...

1, where the only vowel used is E
2, where there is no E in any word
3, where each word starts with the letter B
4, with words that start with vowels only
5, with words that are 3 letters long
6, where each word has the letters in order: A B C D E F G
7, where each word has the number of letters: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
8, where each word has the number of syllables: 1 2 3 4 3 2 1
9, where each word contains the letter S
10, where each word finishes with S, T or D

Characters in BOLD subject to change

Speed Words

Think of 3 words... 

1, that start with HE...
2, that end in SS

3, that contain double LL

4, with the structure: S + vowel + vowel + consonant

5, of 4-letters that start with N...

6, words that start and end in the same letter

7, related to fruit / veg that start with P...

8, that are adjectives and start with T...

9, that are written in alphabetical order

10, verbs that have 2 syllables

Characters in bold subject to change.

Drawing by Álvaro

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

Revision Categories

Using all the categories below think of a word with a given starting letter.

The same letter could be used for all the categories (no repeating of words)
or a random letter for each one.

1, Hello! I am from _____

2, a 6 letter word

3, In this town there is a/an _____ 

4, Contains a double letter (example LL or SS)

5, I have _____ here for 5 years 

6, _____y (must finish in Y)

7, ? + vowel + vowel + consonant

8, A Phrasal verb

9, French is not as _____ as English

10, I don't have much _____

11, _____ness

12, My ____ escaped and we can't find it

Example with the letter P:

1, Peru

2, Plough

3, Pub

4, Pill

...

Word Squares

A good one for those that finish fast or look bored.
Draw a 3 x 3 square. Place a letter in diagonally as in the example below.

N _ _ 
_ N _ 

_ _ N 

and then complete with words...

N O T 

A N D

T E N

If thats too easy make the grid 4x4, 5x5 and so on

Alternatively
Think of a 3 letter word and place it in the grid to make words

H _ _
_ E _

_ _ Y

Repeating

A sentence that goes around the class / group.

Person one says the first word of the sentence

Person two repeats the first word then says the second word

Person three repeats words one and two and adds a third (grammatically correct of course)

and so on around the group until we feel the sentence is finished.

Example in a group of 8

I asked them to do a conditional:

Person 1: If

Person 2: If I

Person 3: If I see

Person 4: If I see you

Person 5: If I see you tomorrow

Person 6: If I see you tomorrow I

Person 7: If I see you tomorrow I will

Person 8: If I see you tomorrow I will give

Person 1: If I see you tomorrow I will give it

Person 2: If I see you tomorrow I will give it to

Person 3: If I see you tomorrow I will give it to you

Question Constraint

For these questions you must use the word in (brackets) in your answer.

1, How do you usually keep in touch with your friends? (and)
2, Tell me about your favourite teacher. (however)
3, What kind of things do you like reading? (for example)
4, What are you going to do this evening? (but)
5, Do you help your parents with jobs around the house? (such as)
6. What would you like to study in the future? (although)
7. How often do you go to the cinema? (well)
8. Have you ever travelled to France? (because)
9. What did you do last night? (so)

Normal Questions. Crazy Answers.

First, complete these questions with your own ideas.

How far...
How often...
When...
How much...
Who...
Which...
What...
Where..

example: How far is it from here to Madrid?

Next, answer the questions but using any of the following 10 random words in the answer.

head, giraffe, hat, handbag, daisy, sun, balloon, comic, holiday, handkerchief

example

It is 10,000 Giraffes to Madrid 

Revision

 

Inference

Look at the following sentences.
Think of a reason as to why they are happening / happened.
Use language of deduction.

A) Present

1, Where is (absent student) today?

2, The town square is very busy.

3, Enrique is wearing shorts.

4, Abraham blew out the candles.

5, Olivia is not answering her phone.

6, Saiko is eating croquettes.

7, The English academy is closed.

8, Ana is at her favourite restaurant.

9, Taylor is getting up at 5 a.m.

B) Past

1, They were told to get off the bus.
2, It was not safe to play on the street.
3, I had to measure the length of my couch.
4, The man has dirty knees.
5, When he got home, he went straight to bed.
6, He didn’t go to many football matches after that.
7, John ran into the street without looking.
8, He isn’t very happy - in fact he is miserable.

9, She's sitting in an armchair in the Queen's lounge.

Why?

The Five Whys

This is a useful technique to get to the root of the problem, as demonstrated in the poem above, for an example closer to work we could ask why someone doesn't do their homework. Here is the method explained on wikipedia

Slamina!

Can you define these words and use them in a sentence? Secondly, each of the words rhymes with an animal. Can you work out which animal?

1, fat

2, coat

3, carrot

4, word

5, house

6, break

7, scare

8, park

9, course

Now can you make a two line poem (a couplet) using the word and the animal it rhymes with?

an example: In my house / there is a mouse

These ones are a bit harder:

1, legal

2, iron

3, socks

4, deep

5, towel

6, relevant

7, chunky

8, trail

9, plough

Misplaced

There each two words misplaced in are sentence. Find them correct and the sentence. 

1, I later thinking of going to the park was.
2, Is England English in spoken
3, They said us would help they with the work.
4, was the party, everyone after tired
5, this time we week next will be in Madrid
6, I have my friend cut by a hair
7, We’ll have a swim it long as as doesn’t rain
8, She got into of her car and went out the house

9, Would you like a coffee sugar in your little?

Inspiration from A Journey in TEFL

Numbered Sentences

This activity was taken from Borja Uruñuela at The ACEIA Conference in 2013. It has been a favourite and I still use it today. Each word in a sentence is given a number. After seeing and memorising the sentence a few times, hide it from view and ask yourself or a partner: What's number 4? cars What's number 9?

The Individual

Let's think of an individual. Someone we all know, maybe someone famous or an animal or somebody we all read about. Now, let's work on these questions:

1, What is this individual best known for?
2, What other people / objects / developments are connected to this individual?
3, What things do you have in common with this individual?
4, What questions / wonders can you form about this individual? 

5, Imagine you are the individual, tell us something that you enjoy(ed) doing.
6, Create a question where the individual is the answer.

Based on the individual spotlight idea by Kate Jones (Twitter)

Drawing by Ana

Vowel Categories

7 to 1

Write a dialogue between two people

However,

The first line must be 7 words

and then each line is one

word less until you get

right down to just 

a single word

it's that

simple

Here it is visually:

A: (7 words)

B: (6 words)

A: (5 words)

B: (4 words)

A: (3 words)

B: (2 words)

A: (1 word)

From my C2 class. They had to include the words ALL OF A SUDDEN.

Hello, do you know what happened yesterday?

I do not. Please enlighten me.

Forgotten... all of a sudden

Do you have amnesia?

I probably do

A pity

Yep

The Colbert Questionert

Questions to ask people - taken (and slightly adapted) from The Colbert Questionert.

Apples or oranges?
What is the best sandwich?
What is the most used app on your phone?
What is your favourite / least favourite smell?
Window or Aisle?
Have you ever asked someone for their autograph / a selfie?
What is you favourite movie (at the moment)?
What number am I thinking of?
What's one thing you own that you really should throw out?
Exercise: worth it?
You get one song to listen to for the rest of your life: what is it?
What is the scariest animal?
Describe the rest of your (week / life) in 5 words.

Hey!

What's stopping you?

Flying Furniture

More from Joseph Fasano.

We did this poem template in class in a Mad-Lib style where I went round the students asking for the random words needed (without showing poem) and then we tinkered with it a bit at the end (showing poem)

There are days when I am Luis
and days when I am not
My heart is a smart climbing monkey in the morning
and a blue swimming whale at night
If only I could lift weights
I would be strong
If only i could let go of horses
I would be flying furniture
Fernando this poem is for you
To love you is to be flying furniture

Original Template:

The Wishing Wolf

I asked my A1 classes to choose an animal (wolf)

and tell me some things it CAN'T do (in the first person)

Some examples that they said:

I can’t fly

I can't put on shoes

I can't watch TV

I can't dance

I later asked my B2 class to use WISH and the appropriate structures that follow

it to think about what the wolf might wish due to the things it can't do.

Here are a few of the results:

THE WOLF

I can’t fly

I wish I had wings

I can’t put on shoes
I wish I had been born with feet

I can’t dance

I wish I had rhythm
I wish I could move my paws
I wish I wasn’t fat

Words into Questions

First, write an item for each thing on this list:

1, An activity you enjoy doing (example: Basketball)

2, Something you sometimes do

3, A verb in gerund (ING) form

4, A place in your town

5 Another place in your town

6, Two subjects at school

7, Two countries on our planet

8, An APP on your/a phone

9, Your favourite sport / hobby

10, An object in the house (plural)

Now put your words in the questions below and ask them to a friend, partner or yourself.

1, What is the objective of ___? (Basketball)

2, When was the last time you ___?

3, Do you agree that ___ is important?

4, What is a benefit of ___?

5, What is the worst thing about ___?

6, Which is better: ___ or ___?

7, Are there any similarities between ___ and ___

8, What potential risks are there in using ___?

9, What advice could you give someone about ___?

10, How might ___ be different in the future?