This reverse reading activity by Mike Harrison looks really interesting. The idea is that you have students write questions for an imaginary reading. Then they generate the reading to match the questions.
Seems like it would target a lot of skills at once, not only language skills like grammar, writing, and discussion but also teamwork, creativity, and collaboration.
I also love it as a way of teaching pre-writing. I know a lot of authors come up with an idea for a story, or maybe a first scene. Then they ask themselves questions, …Continue

Just put up a new lesson plan Newspaper using a real English-language newspaper. It’s something I designed to go along with Straightforward Intermediate, Unit 8A but I think it works as a stand alone lesson. If you have a large class, it might be a good lead-in to doing a school newspaper as a project. It can also be a good way to find out the interests of your students, since part of the lesson asks for them to choose an article and read it.

I love using mystery stories to teach with and a lot of students love them too because they are full of action. Plus students have a real reason to try to read and understand the text–they want to find out who did it!
Mysteries are also very versatile. You can have students read them straightforwardly like any other reading. Or you can give students the text piece by piece so that they have to puzzle out each clue individually. You can even give each student one part of the text and …Continue

One of many lists of great books that one should read. You can just read the list below and then argue in the comments about which books made the list and which books didn’t. Or you can simultaneously play along and be amazed at my literary prowess. If you want to post the list on your own blog or in the comments you should:
Put the books you have read in bold.Underline the books you lovedItalicize the books you hated (this is my variation)!
1. Pride and Prejudice – …Continue