Nike Just Do It Possibilities High School ESL Lesson.

This is a lesson based on the new (and FANTASTIC) Nike advert celebrating 25 years of the Just Do It slogan. Because this video is so great, in fact one of the best videos I have ever seen for using in class, I have used it in as many lessons as possible. Over the last few weeks I have used it in lessons about hobbies, sports and the past tense and I am pretty sure it could be used in many other topics. However for my high level high school I decided to dedicate a lesson solely to the advert. Most of my students are basketball/soccer mad boys so they were 100% motivated throughout the lesson and even asked to watch the advert again at the end of the lesson. Here is what I did.

Countdown High/Middle School ESL Lesson.

This is a great game lesson plan, perfect for any lessons you are given on short notice or if the students need a break before/after exams. Countdown is an English TV quiz show in which the contestants have to choose 9 vowels and consonants and then try to make as long a word as possible using these letters in 30 seconds. There is also a numbers game were the contestants have to choose 5 big or small numbers. A random number is then generated and the contestants have to add, subtract, multiply and divide the numbers to get as close to the generated number as possible. Here is a video so you can see both games in action!

Middle School Past Tense ESL Review Lesson

This is a really fun lesson for middle school students to review the past tense. The three videos I use get the students really excited and allow them to use a high number of past tense verbs they are likely to know. The introducing vocab part of the lesson is based on my textbook but it includes really common/basic verbs so I'm sure it would work in most classes. Alternatively you could add the verbs that are used in your textbook to the PPT.

World Festivals Advanced English Lesson Plan

I did this lesson as part of a mini vacation curriculum with my advanced level class. I was surprised as my high level class was able to guess all the festivals without me getting to the final clue. I was very impressed! I also adapted it for my lower level class by changing some word of the words in the word grid, and by giving the students the sentence structure to use when answering the conversation questions. By doing this you could also potentially do this class in a middle school lesson, although middle school students may not be as familiar with the festivals.

6 Things That Learning a Second Language Has Taught Me About Teaching English.

As teachers of English a lot of us are in the very fortunate position of living in a foreign country. I, like I'm sure a lot of you have done, have used this fantastic opportunity to get involved in the local culture and also to try to learn the local language. As well being incredibly useful in my daily life, I believe it has also made me a better and specifically a more understanding teacher. Here is a list of things that I believe learning a second language has taught me about teaching English.

6 Ways to Really Motivate Your ESL Students

Keeping your students motivated, especially if you are teaching at a public school (ie. children that have not chosen to study English) is one of the most important things that you have to do as a teacher. A motivated class are much more likely to listen carefully to what you say, get actively involved in the lesson and therefore they are much more likely to learn English. Here are some ideas about what you can do keep your high school students' motivation sky high.

Middle School Sherlock Holmes ESL lesson

Hopefully your students will have more fun than these two..

This is a middle school esl lesson I did during an England themed summer camp. For the other lessons in the series please go here. The lesson teaches the phrase 'How many .... are there?' and 'There are ..........' and it is Sherlock Holmes themed. The lesson has lot's of activities testing the students problem solving and observation abilities and they really enjoyed it.