Lesson Plans

Culture Shock

This is a discussion lesson that focuses on cultural differences in terms of polite and impolite actions. While the materials were designed with Kazakhstan in mind, they are easily adapted to any nation or culture.

Culture Shock

This is a discussion lesson that focuses on cultural differences in terms of polite and impolite actions. While the materials were designed with Kazakhstan in mind, they are easily adapted to any nation or culture.
Objectives:

To develop fluency
To discuss culture and cultural differences. To encourage students to deconstruct their culture and learn about other cultures.

Note: The Discussion questions worksheet was designed with Kazakhstan in mind so you might want to change it to reflect the culture of your students or for a multicultural class you might want to make it …Continue

Newspaper

This is a lesson plan I originally devised to go with the Straightforward Intermediate textbook, lesson 8A on newspapers. I thought it would be good to bring in some realia so I bought an English newspaper and came up with this activity sheet for my student. I think it works well as a stand-alone activity. And of course it could be adapted to work with a news website

New Vocabulary Done Right

I hate teaching students new words. Finally, I developed a model that I really like that brings together all the theories of how students should be introduced and start to practice words. It also involves all four skills. This lesson plan explains the model and provides example materials, but presumably you would adapt them to your own classroom.

The Olympics: A Discussion Lesson Plan

6 April 1896 was the opening of the first Modern Olympic Games. This lesson plan asks students about the Olympics, sports and athletes.

Randy and the Nobel Prize

Randy makes an important scientific discovery and writes to the Nobel Prize Committee. But he doesn’t get an answer!

Reading Strategies: Questions

This lesson aims to teach students a strategy for reading better by constantly formulating questions as they read in order to keep their minds focused on the meaning of the text and to keep motivation up.
Objectives

To teach students a technique they can use to read more effectively
To help students understand texts better
To make students more autonomous

Materials

A newspaper article or use  this fake article
A short text, preferably one page or so.
Post-It Notes
Another text, one that they need to read for class anyway.

Warm-Up
Ask students to discuss in pairs or small groups what …Continue

Yes Virginia There is a Santa Claus

A reading lesson plan on the famous editorial about the existence of Santa Claus, “Yes, Virgina, There is a Santa Claus”.

Mystery Unit

Whodunit, a unit on mysteries comprising a reading, a bit of practice with modal verbs of speculation (as they seem to be called these days) and a writing assignment. Lots of discussion should be easy to add to this unit.

Writing Good TOEFL Paragraphs Quickly

A great method from the Michigan Guide for writing good body paragraphs quickly and easily with 6 simple questions.

Appearance

Every textbook has a lesson for describing people. But I wanted a lesson plan designed for more advanced students that got into words like chin, forehead and eyebrows and also some expressions like, “He has a face like a truck”. So here are some worksheets and a lesson plan to teach more advanced expressions for describing what people look like.
Objectives

To introduce students to advanced ways of describing appearances
To teach students which expressions are offensive and which are not
To give students practice using adjectives and expressions to describe people
Materials

Facial Features [PDF]
Adjectives …Continue

Alibi

A fun lesson plan where students must come up with group alibis and then get examined separately to see how well they remember their alibi and how detailed it was. This lesson works best with classes from 6 to 12 people. For larger classes, this lesson takes a really long time! While theoretically it can be adjusted to students of any level, the procedure is a bit confusing so it goes better with higher level students.

Accents

Another lesson plan that comes from my speaking club. This one focuses on accents and regional forms of English which is a topic that students don’t know a lot about. It can be a lot of fun for them to practice new accents. As a side-effect they get a little bit of focus on pronunciation. And of course this lesson dispels the myth that there is one correct way to speak English.

Inversion With the Conditional

The thing I hate about teaching obscure grammar points is that students don’t understand why they need to know this. So when it came to teaching the conditional with inversion (without if), as in “Had I known it was your birthday, I would have sent you a card”, I really felt it had to start with a text. And that text had to be formal in nature. So this activity uses a welcome letter from a fancy hotel. Then students get to write their own rules.
Objectives

To introduce students to the …Continue

Ordering at a Restaurant for Beginners

I have an intermediate/advanced level restaurant lesson but being able to order food is a good skill for elementary or beginner students to have. I also like the idea of sneaking “would” into the elementary vocabulary. When you get into more complicated forms of “would” later, it makes it that much easier for them.
So here’s how I do ordering at a restaurant with beginner students. The goal of the lesson is to get them to do a role play of being at a restaurant, so the focus of the lesson …Continue