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

One of the hardest things to teach or learn in English is idioms, particularly idioms or sayings that come from pop-culture. There are so many of them, so there is no way to systematize them into a teaching program. And you may run across them in a lot of different situations.
So I may post some of these from time to time up here. These are a few that came up in class the other day:
Note that most of these phrases are slightly informal. You might use them with colleagues …Continue

I just came back from Kyrgyzstan teaching at a Pre-Departure Orientation for Afghanistan students on the FLEX program. One of the classes I most enjoyed teaching and that the kids most enjoyed was American Slang class. So from time to time I thought I would post some American slang here.
To start with, it might be useful to talk about school slang and informal terms. So let’s talk about terms for people you might find in an American high school:
First, students are either freshmen, sophomores, juniors or seniors. Students in their …Continue