Basic vocabulary for shopping in a supermarket: pictures and words.

For beginner/intermediate ESOL learners: real life situation. Funny and lively lesson with dialogue and vocab learning. Used very successfully in class.

The whole text of Dr J&H, translated into clear, modern English for GCSE English Literature. Acclaimed by NATE review and applauded by students. Keeps all the excitement of Stevenson’s original. With detailed notes on context and theme and language for GCSE English Literature. By Frank Danes, published author of Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press and GCSE English Literature examiner.

1500 words of A level notes on Heller’s great novel, by a senior A level examiner and a former Head of English. Themes, viewpoint, dramatic irony, unreliable narrator, reader’s experience, characterisation all covered. This resource can be given straight to students or used to teach from.

Sample practice paper, written in the style of AQA English Language paper 1; the opening of Graham Greene’s “Brighton Rock” with AQA style qs. Excellent text leads to stimulating answers!

This new reading of “The Handmaid’s Tale” puts the novel into the context of feminism in the 1980s and the dystopian novel. This article is ideal for the Dystopia option of OCR English Literature A level. The article considers"The Handmaid’s Tale"'s reputation as a cult novel, as a satire of male power and Christianity and the debt it owes to Orwell’s “1984”. Attwood’s prose and structure are analysed. The author argues that “The Handmaid’s Tale” is not the greatest novel of the twentieth century or the greatest dystopian novel: it is a fine novel, written in excellent prose, but it has flaws. This article will help to engage your A level students and to give them something to argue with or against. It will thus encourage them, as the A level specifications require, to engage with critical views rather than simply to read them passively. It is written by Frank Danes, who wrote many of the materials to support OCR English Literature A level on the OCR website; Danes taught English for 30 years in English secondary schools and was Head of English in three schools.

A diagram of THE TEMPEST’s plot, to introduce students to the play before they start studying it. Teacher goes over the story with students; students could then write out the plot as a written exercise. Successfully used with over 100 students, who find it very helpful to have the basic story of the play explained to them before they study it.

Comma splicing - using a comma instead of a full stop - drives GCSE English examiners crazy. This resource explains how to avoid comma splicing, as well as the correct use of commas and full stops. It contains simple exercises for students. Successfully used in classrooms!

Student guide to punctation of long quotations/short quotations/indenting from the margin/punctuating poetry quotations/embedded quotations. Most GCSE and A level students don’t punctuate quotations properly and it can irritate examiners. This guide shows students how to do it and therefore, how to impress the examiner!

Basic transactional English - how to order food in a cafe. Used successfully with adult Ukrainian refugee students.

A history of the English language for EAL learners, which attempts to explain irregular spellings, history of the English speaking peoples. With questions and a comprehension.

ESOL. The top 80 British slang expressions and phrases are in this fun dialogue; two women meet in a pub and discuss a new boyfriend. Slang from “all right?” to “zonked”, “chippie” to “chuck”, this resource is the bees’ knees. Successfully used with older learners; promotes discussion about slang and informal English, which people actually speak, as opposed to the formal English of the text book. Makes learners laugh and learn.

Used successfully with adult Ukrainian refugee learners: prompts to describe yourself and your friends. A complete unit of work.

Explains the main differences between British and American spelling and vocabulary. Useful for English Language A level, AS level, GCSE and TEFL students, especially those confused by the differences between American and British English! Successfully used with EAL Chinese students in Cambridge, who said they found it very useful, interesting and helpful.

Excellent and humorous ESOL resource for beginner and intermediate adult/older learners. Role play for menu, ordering, conversation in real life situation. By an experienced ESOL teacher.

A quick and easy diagram for how to do descriptive writing for GCSE: point of view, personification, atmosphere, microscopic focus, mood and emotion, sensuous imagery. Use this resource to discuss different ways of creative writing with your students and to remind them of how they might include different forms of creative writing for GCSE and KS3. Successfully used with over 1000 students!

Everything your students will need to revise AN INSPECTOR CALLS for GCSE English Literature: how to write about context; family units; gender roles; the Conservative Party of the period; the Labour Party of the period; revision and exam technique; how to write about style (to answer the question, “How does Priestley do X Y and Z in the play?”). 8 pages, 2400 word resource.

This resource is both a sequence of lessons and detailed notes for your students. 5 pages, 1731 words. The notes go through Gerald’s every appearance in “An Inspector Calls”; characterisation, theme, context, Gerald’s relationships with other characters are all covered, as is essay technique on the play at GCSE. Page references are to the Heinemann edition.

This resource clearly explains, for A level and GCSE Literature students, the difference between verse and prose in Shakespeare: differences in form; why Shakespeare uses verse and prose at different times; iambic pentameter.