This lesson has been inspired partly by my recent trip to Swansea, and partly by the fact that it’s Saint David’s Day soon. the webquest starts off easy, and then encourages students to find out more about the subject area of their choice. This is a good way of making sure that your students get to know the basic facts about “the land of song” – and find out more when and where they want it!

On the whole, the Wikipedia article seems suitable for intermediate English students, and the webquest should provide enough material for a 40-minute lesson. You can modify the timing by extending or shortening the presentations.

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Let your learners listen - and teach them to listen well.

This lesson may appear somewhat more “technical” and mechanical than many of the communicative, task-based resources that can be found here. There are, however, several important arguments in favour of preparing this kind of lesson every now and then. The most important reason is the lesson’s effect on the learners.

The website used for this lesson is howjsay.com – an easy and reliable pronunciation guide. It allows users to quickly check and listen to the pronunciation of over 140.000 words in English. It’s surprisingly accurate, easy to use and free!

This worksheet shouldn’t really be treated as a final tool: rather, it can provide a base for more future lessons like that. Learners can be encouraged to use the resource frequently and to check the pronunciation of new words on their own. Preparing a pronunciation / revision lesson which would rely on covered material and an online pronunciation resource can be an engaging and motivating alternative to standard “book and board” revisions.

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With careful staging and plenty of guidance, pre-intermediate students can already enjoy this lesson – although, as with all speaking-heavy activities, higher levels are probably bound to have more fun. The plan can be adjusted by altering the number of questions to be prepared and asked.

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For visual learners, the map module puts things in perspective.

This is a good lesson for visual learners – and a useful contribution to any themes revolving around politics, geography or global affairs. Three things that make this lesson a success are:

- a series of engaging, authentic tasks – going from easy to the more challenging ones towards the end,

- a clear communicative focus – students rely on speaking and listening to convey and acquire information they need for later tasks and stages,

- a brilliant website – “If it were my home” gives you lots of easily accessible and readable demographic / geographical data which you can discuss with your class.

The website itself is easy to navigate (just make sure you allow it to access yor location). All the tasks can take a while to perform – allow at least 60 minutes for this lesson, and use a shorter version (outlined in the plan) if needed.

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"The real FCE exam should have their hints, too", said my student.

While not exactly 100% free, Flo-Joe is certainly a useful website for teachers with exam classes. It focuses on 4 Cambridge exams at the moment – from PET to CPE – and it provides a lot of free online exercises preparing your students for their English certificate tests.

It’s best to explore the website for yourself before using it with students: some Flo-Joe pages are available only to paid subscribers, and it’s good to know which parts are freely available.

The exercises on the website use an interface which is suitable for IWBs (although it takes some time to get used to it!). so whenever you feel that your exam groups could use some practice, this and a smartboard should be a good way to focus on the most important exam issues.

Enjoy – and let us know how it went in the comments below!

This screenshot from the TFL website shows you where to look for the "Advanced options" link.

There are many reasons for having a lesson like this. I can remember one quite clearly. One of the groups learning English in London at a summer school I worked for could never make it on time for the afternoon classes. The reason? They spent most of their days lost on the Tube with their Group Leaders…

This lesson is based on one of the most usable and informative travel websites I know: the Transport For London website. There’s not a lot of grammar in here, and the structure of the lesson lends itself nicely to a lot of lexis / vocabulary work. Although the suggested level is upper-intermediate, I can think of a few intermediate groups who could accept the challenge quite happily

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There are few better ways to make students feel good about their English.

This website has been one of my favourites for a long, long time. The idea is simple: by solving a multiple choice quiz, with a new question displayed on every page, you help donate rice to places which need it. Your progress is measured by the amounts of grains of rice you donated, and your level is adjusted depending on the number of correct answers.

The default setting tests your knowledge of English vocabulary. However, by clicking on the “change subjects” link, you can solve questions about English grammar, global geography, even art history – each time the rules of the game remain the same.

I have found that the best way to use this with my students is towards the end of an intensive lesson. Once all the difficult stuff is done and dusted, they can take 5 or 10 minutes to unwind – and they still leave the class feeling positive about their English.

Have you got another idea for Freerice.com-themed activities? Let us know in the comments!

Rotten Tomatoes: harsh, but brilliant.

Just before the Oscar frenzy gets to everyone, here’s an effective lesson based on the idea of choosing a good movie for a group of people.

The website for this lesson is Rotten Tomatoes – a must for every cinema lover. It turns out that it makes for a good authentic English lesson, too. The synopses and reviews (scroll down when on the website to see those) are informative and brief – and on the whole, the website provides your students with lost of good English film vocabulary.

A word of advice: get ready for a lot of data transfers when using this lesson – especially if you give your students enough time to watch the trailers!

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An online pronunciation chart. On your interactive whiteboard. With sound. For free. Gotta love it.

Here’s another cool resource you can use for free, anytime: it’s called “Sounds Right” and it’s an online pronunciation chart. The application is available from British Council’s “Learn English” website.

I saw a link to this resource last week (thanks, Angela!) There are several things I instantly liked about this app, here’s just a few:

• The pronunciation chart is neatly arranged. The traditional arrangement according to the place of articulation is preserved, along with the vowel / consonant division. Everything is more legible than some paper versions of IPA charts I’ve come across. However: The /ʊə/ diphtong seems to be missing.
• It’s insanely “clickable” – every sound can be clicked to provide a pronunciation recording of it, and it comes with three examples of use in a word – just hold your cursor over the arrow in the top-right-hand corner of the sound for examples (also recorded).
• It loads fast, and is ready to use almost at once (can’t vouch for the iPad version, though).

You’ll probably think of several pronunciation lesson ideas to go with this online resource. I’ll probably come up with a lesson plan myself, sooner or later Below are just a few warmers and games that could be used with this. Works especially well with IWBs and smartboards:

• Display the chart on your interactive whiteboard. Arrange students in 3-4 groups. Each group takes turns to deduce sounds in the words you give them. Say a word – or say and display a word on the board. Give ss the light pen/marker. Ss come up to the board and try to touch the sounds in order they appear in the word. Each time, the student/group has three tries. If they get it right, they get a point.
• Display the chart on your IWB. Ss work in groups or pairs, as before. Ask ss to listen to the sounds and try to write down the words which these sounds will form. Tap the sounds and give ss time to write down the word. Repeat 6-7 times. Hand out dictionaries – ask ss to work in pairs/teams prepare their own list of 4-5 words and break them down into individual sounds. Once they’re finished, each team takes it in turn to tap the sounds on the board, and other teams should listen and write down the words. This would work especially well within a vocabulary revision.
• Minimal pairs dominoes: Display the chart on the smartboard. Arrange your class in 2 or 4 teams. Give each team a list of words (and IPA transcriptions, for lower levels). These should be the so-called minimal pairs – words which differ with only one sound. Make sure one item of a pair is with one team, and the corresponding item – with another team. One group will begin by “tapping out” their word, and then pronouncing it. The next team should find their minimal pair, walk up to the board and “tap it out”, pronouncing it as well, e.g. one team has “sit”, another – “seat”.

If you have any more ideas for this, feel free to comment below!

You can find the resource on British Council’s website.

Teaching with empty hands: strange, yet satisfying. Give it a go.

This lesson is about New Year resolutions. Two things that set it apart from the usual “Make-a-resolution-and-talk-about-it” lesson are:

• There’s a twist to the early stages of the lesson, in which students are asked to imagine why a sad stick figure would decide to make big resolutions.
• This lesson – working on many levels, with various groups of students – requires no resources apart from a pen and paper.

Not all English lessons need to use multimedia, SmartBoards and Internet to be successful. This complete lesson plan initiates the “Unplugged” series on English-plan.com. The inspiration behind this series comes from “Teaching Unplugged” and from a radical, but brilliant movement in TEFL called Dogme ELT.

Naturally, there’s no worksheet and no website to visit here – just download the lesson plan and go!

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