Here are some of the classroom activities I’ve tried out and posted about over the months/years. I have attempted to categorise them, so that you can look more easily for categories that are of interest to you. I will keep adding to it as I publish more posts. (More activities can also be found by looking on my Materials page .)

 

Breaking the ice/warmers

• Useful back-to-school-related links I’ve found : A collection of links to activities for starting a new term/course.

• 5 ways to use images in the classroom : A set of activities that use images.

• An icebreaker idea : A student-generated activity for breaking the ice.

 

Language practice activities

 

• Teenagers, “have to” and “can’t” for complaining, and a student-generated card game : A student-generated communicative drill dressed up as a card game, adaptable for use with other language structures and levels.

• Holidays, a song (Brighton in the rain) and the present perfect : A sequence for pre-int learners, which focuses on getting them using the present perfect through use of a song, and listening/speaking/language focus activities.

• Consolidating narrative tenses: a storytelling lesson/lesson series idea : A sequence for pre-int learners which helps them consolidate past simple and past continuous in a communicative activity which requires them to speak, and do some collaborative writing. Adaptable to higher levels.

• Verb patterns, curiosity and pre-intermediate learners : An adaptable activity designed to help learners use common verb patterns meaningfully.

• Review board game for advanced level learners : A board game that helps advanced learners review compound nouns from phrasal verbs, adding emphasis, inversion, passive distancing and responding to news.

 

Skills development:

 

• Speaking and storytelling: A sequence for focussing on structural elements of spoken narrative and their linguistic realisations, using student-generated content.

• Helping pre-intermediate learners with listening: focus on weak forms : an activity sequence to help learners develop their listening skills by raising awareness of weak forms.

• Itchy feet! : A dictogloss activity based on the topic of travel

 

Review activities 

 

• Review of the week  : A student-generated quiz game for reviewing previously learnt language and content.

 

Self-Access/Learner Autonomy Development:

(Pushing back the limits of the classroom walls…)

• Activities for autonomy in listening (part 1) : The first in a series of posts looking at how we can help learners develop their listening skills autonomously.

• Helping language learners become language researchers: Wordandphrase.info (part 1) : An introduction to wordandphrase.info (an interface for analysing a corpus) and materials for enabling learners (or teachers!) to learn how to use it.

• Helping language learners become language researchers: Wordandphrase.info (part 2 – 3 concordance activities) : A set of concordance activities to scaffold independent use of wordandphrase.info.

• Helping language learners become language researchers: Wordandphrase.info (part 3 – concordance activity outcomes) : A reflection on the above-mentioned concordance activities – learning from what worked well and what didn’t!

• Experimenting with English (part 2): Activities for learners to do outside the classroom (26 and counting!) : A handout with activities for learners to do outside the classroom, together with information about how I used it.

• Quizlet for language learners: Information about http://www.quizlet.com and self-access materials to help learners use it.

• Bringing metacognition into the classroom: Activities for helping learners to develop their metacognitive skills.

• Extensive reading (part 3) : This post looks at the outcomes of a reading for learner autonomy development project that I did with my learners. It also contains links to part 2 (the process I went through to set the project up) and part 1 (the reflection that led to the birth of the project)

 

CPD:

(When the teacher is in the classroom as a learner…)

• CPD and a cup of tea in the sunshine: give it a go! : An idea for an INSET training session, which my DoS got from another DoS and I got to benefit from! It highlights the value of talking.

• Edmodo workshop:a how-to for teachers : Information and slides related to a workshop I delivered for my colleagues, taking them through the process of using Edmodo as a teacher and as a learner.

• STOP! and reflect: a 4-part plan for post-lesson reflection: a visual guide to post-lesson reflection that I made.

• 30 things to enhance your teaching?  : 30 ideas to think about and experiment with in your teaching!

• Little thing, BIG difference? : A reflective challenge to get you thinking about what you’ve tried that has made a difference to your teaching.

• Top 10 resources for teachers : Have you used all of these resources? Have you used any other resources that aren’t listed, that you think deserve to be? Let me (and others) know by commenting at the end of the post!

• My top 10 ELT books: Have you read all of these ELT-related books? Reading any one of them would be a great way to develop, if you haven’t…

• My top 10 learner autonomy and metacognition resources : Do you agree with this list? What would you add?