Tag Archives: Use Of English
Using pictures to study Sentence Transformations
It doesn’t matter how often I go to Cairo, I´m always struck by the beauty of the Pyramids. No matter how many times I go to Cairo, I´m always struck by the beauty of the Pyramids. Some people say that there’s no place for an exercise like Sentence Transformations in an assessment of English ability, but there […]
A low-prep, low-tech, effective game for revision
In this activity, pairs or small groups of students compete against other groups to answer written questions. It could be called a low tech version of a Socrative quiz. It’s most easily done with a whiteboard and projector but it could certainly be done with a blackboard instead. You just need a list of 8-12 […]
Spelling Bee: dictogloss and games
Whilst marking my students’ exams, I was thinking about how often they lose points not for lack of knowledge or comprehension, but due to misspelling the answer. Then I thought about how often we have spelling tests in class: never! So I came up with this lesson about spelling bees involving a dictogloss and spelling […]
Pelmanism for paraphrasing
This activity combines paraphrasing skills with a children’s memory game and can help students practise Sentence Transformation exercises the likes of which appear in the Cambridge exams. It takes a bit of preparation but it’s worth it (and you can reuse it). It appears in my resources thanks to Louisa Cristo who shared it at […]
All I want for Christmas is… Now with elementary YL version too!
Everyone loves presents. But what’s the one thing you REALLY want? And can you make a good case for it to Santa Claus? This lesson involves some Christmas vocab, open-cloze, listening to a song, pronunciation and speaking and culminates with giving a convincing speech to Santa Claus about the one thing you really want for […]
CPE: Pie Protest – Lesson Plan
I made this lesson for my CPE (proficiency) class and it’s centred on this article about pie-throwing protesters in Northern Spain that I read in The Guardian. The areas of the exam it practises are Speaking part 3, and Reading and Use of English parts 1, 2, and 3. My class really enjoyed talking about […]
Quizicon’s 100 most common words quiz
What are the most common words in English and how can this question help FCE students prepare for Open Cloze exercises? In this simple online quiz from Quizicon you have 5 minutes to guess the 100 most common words in English. Simple, eh? And a good challenge! And, guess what, these words all happen to […]
ACEIA talk – Onward & Upward: Advancing Vocabulary
On Saturday, I gave a talk at the ACEIA conference in Seville. It was the first time I’ve given a talk to more than 8 people, and I rather enjoyed it. I hope the participants did too. I ran out of handouts so here I’ve uploaded it here for anyone who wanted it and didn’t […]
Say That Again!
This is a good activity for practising paraphrasing skills, or for introducing an FCE, CAE or CPE -style Sentence Transformation exercise. I’ve used this activity in both CAE and CPE classes and I think the students have been surprised at how many different ways they can think of to say something. They’re also surprised when […]
A Hive of Activities 