Halloween is coming and there’s a ton of stuff on the Internet for teachers. I’ve put together a lesson plan for Halloween based on the best and most interesting activities I could find. It’s especially hard to find a lesson targeted to students who have never celebrated Halloween, so if you’re teaching abroad this lesson plan is for you.
First you have students generate vocabulary, and activate what they do know about the holiday as well as what they know about monsters and scary stories. Then students read some popular …Continue

This is Part 3 in my series on using IELTS and TOEFL Test prep materials in general English classes, giving students practice in intensive speaking and extensive speaking. If you want to check out how I got from IELTS and TOEFL to intensive and extensive learning and read about some different reading exercises, check out part I. Part II is on Listening intensively and extensively.
The TOEFL Speaking Test mostly gives students practice in extensive speaking. Basically students are given a topic and they have to talk about it for …Continue

Beauty Inc is a fun role play for students involving a meeting between a large corporation and victims of its faulty products. Great for large or medium sized classrooms and a great way to get students talking, particularly more advanced students who get bored with drilling and answering exercises. Encourages students to be creative while introducing a real life situation. What do you do when a company sells bad products that don’t work? Or worse, turn you into a freak?

Another fun vocab building lesson plan, the School Slang Lesson Plan teaches American school traditions and socialization while also introducing kids to teenage slang and terminology like freshman, sophomore, detention, midterm, prom and jock. A lot of your students have been exposed to American teenage movies, and they will love to discuss exactly what all the slang they’ve heard means.
Also this lesson uses pictures to teach idioms which is a great tool to help kids remember new vocab and phrases. Because idioms don’t translate literally, and sometimes metaphors don’t …Continue

I was recently asked by a local school to talk about using IELTS and TOEFL exercises in the classroom, not only for students preparing for those tests, but also for those who are learning general English. It was sort of a strange topic and one that was difficult to address. Usually, I think that students who are preparing for standardized English language exams are served well by both test prep courses and general English courses, but the other way around didn’t make a lot of sense to me. However, in …Continue

One of my favorite lesson plans to teach is At the Restaurant. I compiled it from a series of sources like The British Council and TEFL.net and edited the activities and worksheets to make them more fun and accessible and so that everything relates together into one big lesson.
So if you’re looking for a complete lesson plan about food and restaurants that features vocab building, discussion, reading, cultural notes and a great role play that can be targeted to beginners, intermediate or advanced learners, take a look at At …Continue

This lesson plan is based on a bunch of different plans that I have seen here and there. Have You Ever, Would You Ever basically asks students a number of hypothetical questions to get them talking about extreme situations. I wrote this list as one appropriate to younger learners as well as to former Soviet learners based on their experiences. It can obviously be rewritten as you see fit. It’s a great plan because it can work as a first day lesson, or as a quick activity to kill some …Continue

I’ve put up a few sample TOEFL essays here, here and some tips for writing essays here.
Now I’m going to try something slightly different. I’m putting up a sample TOEFL writing test question and I encourage readers to try to answer. Email your answer to walton [at] englishadvantage [.] com (replacing @ for at, obviously) and I’ll email you back comments and notes. I will also post the best essay up here, with a link of the writer’s choice. I’ll link to you blog, website, facebook profile, whatever you want.
Question:Do …Continue

I put up a new article on English Advantage for ESL teachers onwhy and how to plan a lesson. As I say in the article, the most important reasons to have a plan are so that you have clear goals set out for your lesson. Otherwise you are just filling up time and/or entertaining students; both of these can be important too but without a goal, you aren’t really educating. Also students don’t respect teachers who try to improvise everything or aren’t prepared to answer their basic questions about a …Continue

If you want a quick online test to check your knowledge of Parts of the Car. Fill in the names of the parts of a car, check your answers as you work and get your final score. For teachers, the test is printable to use a worksheet in class.
Have You Ever, Would You Ever is a list of questions on what you have done and what you would do. Under what circumstances would you steal? Or live in another country? What do you do when you can’t sleep? Great for …Continue

International education was mentioned a few times in the recent Democratic candidates’ debate. Primarily education came up in discussions of immigration issues. For example, there are plans to build a border fence between the US and Mexico which would but down the middle of the University of Texas, Brownsville. The campus has territory on both sides of the border. Senator Hilary Clinton condemned the plan, calling it absurd.
Another controversial immigration bill which would make it easier for undocumented college students to gain legal residence was endorsed by Senator Barack Obama. …Continue

The Modern Language Association has released a survey on Enrollments in Languages Other than English in US universities.
The last time this survey was done was in 2002. Spanish is by far the most common languages of study, and the number of students enrolled in Spanish classes is still increasing. French and German are also extremely popular, probably because they are traditional international languages and because much scholarship is published in both.
American Sign Language is the fourth most popular, with Italian, Japanese, Chinese, Latin, Russian and Arabic rounding out the top …Continue

As usual I am bringing you information on scholarships to study in the US or other countries. However, the FLEX program for high school students is beginning its application process NOW in Kazakhstan. If you are interested, call (7172) 98-00-68 today to talk to the American Councils office in Astana about where to go and what to do.

The FLEX Program
The Future Leaders EXchange program is funded by the US Department of State and funds secondary school students from the former Soviet Union, to study for one year in a US …Continue

I recently came across an article in ETS’ TOEFL Access Newsletter, featuring a typical schedule in the day of the life of an American undergraduate university student entitled Everyday Life. It certainly was one take on American university life and may give you some idea of the rhythm of universities here. However for a counterpoint, I thought I would present my typical day at school and I would love to hear from you gentle readers. What is your typical day at school like? It would be great to hear from …Continue