These 5 Speaking activities are for younger of Lower Intermediate learners, and they were designed to help Cambridge Senior 1 (Core) students at the beginning of the semester. They are mainly to be used as introductory activities in conjunction with the Cambridge English as a Second Language textbook and tasks, but they can be amended as you see fit. The topics include Travel, Ideas, Food etc., and some will last a little longer than others e.g. Trains and Travel , while Food and Food Types could be used as a lesson exercise based around science, health etc. The language and concepts used in this activity would be of a higher level than the others but still well within the range of most students.

This is my favourite and most rewarding lesson. These materials can be used in 1 or even 2 lessons, depending on the level of your students: higher level should only be one but weaker students may need 2. However, don’t let this dictate the pace-you should be able to judge how much time your students may need. I normally use this at the beginning of my teaching year but it can be used at any time. Simply put, a number of nonsense words have been put into a text and the students have to identify ‘synonyms’ for these words e.g. “gerts” in the text could be shop/supermarket/clothes store etc. anything that could accurately complete the sentence, and what part of speech it represents. The exercise is to help students think about the text as a whole and how to deal with new or unfamiliar vocabulary. Break your class into groups and have them work independently of each other. It’s important that you do not to rule out ANY answer, rather let the students do this as they get more comfortable with the text. It begins by asking students how they deal with new vocabulary; then definitions of meaning and context; an example-“magwop”=lunch/books/phone/coat etc., then the main exercise itself. 10 questions are there to help the students with the content as well, and to get them to think about what part of speech the target word is. Finally Exercise 2 uses much higher academic vocabulary than the students may have encountered but they should be able to work out most of the meanings. It can be slow and a little difficult at the beginning, especially with lower level students, but once they begin to grasp the skills you are introducing they really enjoy the lesson.

This set of multi-lesson materials contained in 22 ppts and 6 accompanying individual tasks (which can be set as classwork or homework), gives a useful and detailed introduction to adverbs for ESL students in the K10-K12 groups. The materials could also be adapted for other students/levels if necessary. The materials were initially designed with a focus on improving my students grammatical and sentence accuracy in their academic essays. I believe an unintended side-effect is the focus on accurate sentence structures through the correct placement of the adverb in a sentence. The ppts help clarify the role of adverbs and how they can be seen as conjunctions, prepositions etc. Also there are definitions and examples of different adverbs-modifiers, adverbials, etc. The ppts also cover the time,place, manner etc. of adverbs and their use. Finally, complete answer keys are provided for the 6 accompanying handouts/tasks. Organisation of materials: ppts 1-8 are an introduction and guide to adverbs ppt 9 answers to first handout ppts 10-17 looks at adverbs more in depth ppts 18-22 remaining answer keys to handouts 2-6 Handouts/ Task sheets: 1-Introduction to adverbs 2-Gap fill exercise 3-Adverb or Adjective? 4-Put adverb in right position 5 + 6: Two short texts (5 is simpler) that the students have to read and complete using accurate adverbs while maintaining the structure and context of the text. I hope you find these useful teaching materials- please leave comments or feedback on the materials. I would appreciate any constructive criticism that would help me improve future resource uploads.

This lesson(s) is based around the Oxford AQA English exam (part B) -writing section. Essentially it is an introduction for students unfamiliar with the structure/content of an academic, narrative or descriptive essay. It could also be used as a revision/recap essay if you so wish. The first ppt’s identify the components of each essay type. Next students to work in groups to identify what they thought the structure/content of each essay was. I would board their ideas then compare/discuss the responses with the points I included on my ppt’s. Task 1: I then gave the students a topic (fishing in a lake) and asked them to write a descriptive essay (you choose word limit). This is slightly scaffolded as you would want the students to broadly stay on topic for review reasons. First time writers would need help and possible feedback, and depending on your student level/ability you could get them to do this individually or in groups. It could take longer than 1 lesson; it could also be set as homework. The choice is entirely up to you. Task 2 is designed for narrative writing. Again slightly scaffolded and possible answe supplied. Afterwards class/group discussion as to the differences between descriptive and narrative essays in particular. Task 3 Examples of narrative writing: group discussion works best-slightly open forum. I found this a very useful lesson for students who are making the transition to newer forms of essay writing.

This resource is mainly for English Second Language Learners but could be adapted for other students as well. It is a multi-lesson pack that contains 35 ppts and 3 handouts that can be set as classwork or homework. The ppts are designed for lessons dealing with sentence form (subject+verb+object etc.) as well as sentence types (simple, compound, complex and compound complex). A number of the ppts are also set up for group activities (e.g. can the students define a complex sentence or give an example?). These ppts began as a simple lesson to look at sentence form but quickly morphed into sentence types and sentences by purpose (declarative, interrogative, etc.) 3 types of conditional sentences are also identified and explained. I would divide the content over 2 periods of the teaching year: early in the semester, and then later if the students have a satisfactory grasp of how to use sentences reasonably properly. I think the first part could be used for students 11+ and the second part (sentences by purpose) for students 16+. My students found some parts very testing as it was challenging some incorrect assumptions of producing higher level sentences. I do believe that they found it rewarding and a number began to show an improvement in their overall writing. There are 3 sets of exercises (Q &A) tied to the content while many of the ppt’s are interactive i.e. designed in such a way as to set questions and hopefully generate responses from the students. I think this is a acceptable set of teaching materials, and I have received very strong positive responses from teaching colleagues who have seen and used these materials.

I designed these materials to go along with the novella to help Second Language Learners who are studying the First Language course using the Cambridge CIE and Oxford AQA exam boards. This was their first real exposure as to how they would deal with language, imagery, tone, inference etc. and use the skills they were taught in previous lessons. The materials can be used over multiple lessons or as a longer holiday homework (my students had a 4 week holiday in which to complete the assignments). There are 9 tasks connected to the reading of the book; 5 are shorter and 4 are longer. It is obviously up to the teacher how to use the materials, but either pack can be set as homework or classwork and for individuals, pairs or groups. Both the short and long tasks are closely combined with the 15 ppts attached as part of this resource. The resources are as follows: Short 1: Author’s biographical details (set as classwork or homework) Short 2: Why was the book written? (as above) Short 3: First impressions of the book (as above) Short 4: Vocabulary and interesting techniques found in the book (as above) Short 5: Character biography of Santiago (as above) All of these exercises can be found on the ppts Handout 1: What have you learned about the protagonist of the story? Handout 2: Pick an interesting passage and annotate, comment on vocabulary etc. Handout 3: Personal reflection on reading the book Handout 4: Change part of the story Also found on ppts. These responses are only suggested answers to the set questions; you and your students could obviously supply different but equally relevant answers. My students did find it challenging but they did enjoy it. It definitely gave them a new insight into how the English language can be used to convey many different ideas and images.

These ppt's can be used in conjunction with 2 videos from Youtube; I didn't include them here as one was from Arizona State University, and I was concerned about copyright issues. Essentially they cover the Oxford AQA First Language Writing course and the 3 different essays the student has to produce for their exam. The ppt's identify the different components od an academic, descriptive or narrative essay. These ppt's break down each essay and help the students to identfy what areas they would need to cover to produce a good piece of writing. I used the 2 videos towards the end of the series; after ppt 6 I had a 90 second video identifying the differences between fiction and non-fiction writing. I would stop at different sections of the video and discuss/question the students about the statement and how it related to their writing. After ppt 7I used the video from ASU that discussed the structure and organisation of a piece of non-fiction writing. When you use the videos this can be a very useful lesson for the students, and it can give them excellent direction and advice when they are beginning to produce the longer essays that Oxford AQA requires.

This would be a useful addition to the Reading Skills ppt's. It would be more helpful to First Language students who are studying for Cambridge or Oxford AQA exams. Simply put it is to help students get ready for dealing with higher level reading, e.g. fiction/ non-fiction texts. It gives suggestions to the students as to how to approach the text and to move beyond the standard approach of skimming and scanning a piece of reading. It tries to encourage students to think more deeply about what the author is trying to say. This would be especially useful to students learning English as a Second Language who are at a much higher level of ability.

This is one of my favourite and successful lessons. I took the idea from an IELTS class and amended it for all of my students who need to write an academic essay. This could easily be used over a double lesson depending on how you want to approach it. You can get the students to write the whole essay, or better yet get them to write it a paragraph at a time, then show your corresponding paragraph. This lesson is a step by step approach to essay writing. First identify what type of essay the student is to write and then focus on the structure and coherence of the work: talk about transitions, grammar, spelling, cohesion etc. Then the 5 paragraphs of the essay are identified. Deliberate mistakes are included (e.g. introduction paragraph is weak) so students can hopefully identify these in the essay. Finally, an essay can be set as homework following on from what you have taught over 2 lessons.

This complete lesson is for academic students (Cambridge, Oxford AQA, IELTS etc.), and it helps them to identify and understand the different reading skills they use. Too many students think that they simply need skimming and scanning for all reading texts, or they don’t understand what are intensive and extensive reading skills. This lesson shows them how to adapt to the text that they are reading and what exactly they are trying to gain from it. I break the class into groups and have a class-wide discussion on responses and attitudes to reading. I try and elicit as many responses as possible from the students rather than just have them reading the ppt’s. At the end there are 2 vocabulary lists of words connected to reading that the students can try and identify or come up with their own suggestions.