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Yesterday was Read Across America Day. Hope you did some reading to someone somewhere. Being read to is awesome and, as you all no doubt know, reading does all sorts of wonderful things to your grasp of a new language far outside of just reading skills.
In honor of RAAD (Trying to spread that, though it would be a much cooler acronym if there was an E in there; Read Everything America Day, anyone?), here are some books I read recently or am reading or am planning to read in the near …Continue
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Last year I had a post that linked to all my Christmas lessons. I won’t just repost the same thing and I’m not creative enough to say the same thing in slightly different words, so I’ll just link to it: For all my Christmas lessons, go here. (Some of them aren’t my own creations but resources I really like).
I am still proud of this post, though perhaps I just needed to vent at the time. But for some awful ideas for Christmas lessons that you absolutely should not do, check …Continue
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As I’m working on my ESL Discussion Lessons for Every Day of the Year project, I discovered that Sean Banville has beaten me to it with ESL Holiday Lessons. Not surprising given how prolific he is and how fast he gets topical lesson plans up.
Sean’s site only covers unusual or fun holidays–today is No Housework Day, and the lesson plans are done in his usual format of a short reading, a phrase match, gapfills, comprehension questions, vocab work, ordering the text, a short writing with discussion questions written by …Continue
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This is just an idea I had to use New Year’s resolutions to teach the future tense. That in and of itself is probably nothing new. However one major issue that many students have with talking about the future in English is distinguishing between when we use “going to do”, when we use “will do” and when we use present continuous, “I am doing”. So here’s a way to help them understand the difference.
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A few of my Christmas lesson plans: Keep checking this post because I’ll keep adding to it as I have time.. Right now, I’ve got up a lesson plan to discuss Santa Claus and his counterparts in other cultures up and my reading lesson on “Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus”. Plus some other resources I use frequently.
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This text is designed to go with my Yes, Virginia lesson plan. This is the original text of the famous article. A simplified version for lower level learners is here
The Original Text
“DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old.
“Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.
“Papa says, ‘If you see it in THE SUN it’s so.’
“Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?
“VIRGINIA O’HANLON.
“115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET.”
VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not …Continue
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Two songs that introduce the idea of trick or treating and set the mood for Halloween. The Trick or Treat rap is a good activity aimed at beginners and includes a lyric sheet and some activities. The Halloween Trick or Treat Rap Video I found on YouTube isn’t much harder to understand though it is a bit adult in character.
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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
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This is a pretty simple discussion lesson plan to get students talking about food from different perspectives. It can be used as part of a lesson, or supplemented with activities, games, and so on. I found this was a good lesson to do when I was still getting to know students because it is a pretty universal topic and as a foreigner in a foreign country, students love telling me about their traditional food!
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Valentine’s Day was the 14th of February as it is every year and I had meant to post something about it in terms of learning English and American culture. But it was a crazy time for me. Oh well, at least I’m early for next year.
First, some cultural information in case you end up in the US wondering what the heck is going on:
Cultural Notes
Valentine’s Day is a day we celebrate romantic love. It falls on the 14th every year and typically couples celebrate it by going out to dinner …Continue
My name is Walton. I'm an English teacher in New Haven. This site is mainly where I share my lesson plans and activity ideas to try to help other teachers and also to hopefully get some feedback. Feel free to use anything here, but just don't put them up on your site or pass them off as your own, please.