I have been involved in education since 1990 and have worked all over the world as a language teacher, teacher trainer, technology trainer and educational technology consultant. In May 2012 I won a British Council ELTon for Excellence in Course Innovation for the Blended Learning in ELT course I designed for Bell Educational Services . I write and publish materials which make best use of educational technology.
I have been involved in education since 1990 and have worked all over the world as a language teacher, teacher trainer, technology trainer and educational technology consultant. In May 2012 I won a British Council ELTon for Excellence in Course Innovation for the Blended Learning in ELT course I designed for Bell Educational Services . I write and publish materials which make best use of educational technology.
This lesson is based on an infographic about the importance of emotional intelligence (EI) and its role in our lives. In the lesson students will explore the differences between IQ and EI and develop an understanding of how they can improve their EI and how doing this can benefit them.
Aims:
To develop students’ understanding of EI and its importance.
To develop students’ abilities to study and research effectively using digital tools.
To develop students’ abilities to read and understand visual information.
To develop students’ abilities to check the credibility of online information.
To develop students’ abilities to carry out online research and to represent their findings visually.
To develop students’ abilities to extract information from research and create informative text based on their findings.
The lesson files include:
Step by step lesson plan and answer key
Presentation
Photocopiable worksheets
This lesson is based on a single image of a girl sitting in the forest with a tiger. The lesson includes a variety of discussion and conversation tasks that you can use to get students thinking and talking about the image.
These are followed by language focus tasks and some more creative tasks.
As well as vocabulary, the plan can be used to practice ‘present continuous’, ‘present perfect continuous’ or ‘second conditional’.
Finally, there are some suggestions for digital research and creation follow-up tasks.
It’s not necessary to use all of the tasks in the plan, you can choose to use any of the tasks individually or change the order of the tasks depending on the approach you want to take and the level of your students.
‘Okay Goldilocks. How do you like it?’
This lesson is based on a single image of a bear lying in bed surrounded by books. The lesson includes a variety of discussion and conversation tasks that you can use to get students thinking and talking about the image. These are followed by language focus tasks and some more creative tasks. Finally, there are some suggestions for digital research and creation follow-up tasks.
It’s not necessary to use all of the tasks in the plan, you can choose to use any of the tasks individually or change the order of the tasks depending on the approach you want to take and the level of your students.
This lesson is based on a single image of a girl standing alone at night by a shop window. Her facial expression is ambiguous and it’s not clear why she is there.
The lesson includes a variety of discussion and conversation tasks that you can use to get students thinking and talking about why she is there and how she feels. These are followed by language focus tasks and some more creative tasks. Finally, there are some suggestions for digital research and creation follow-up tasks.
It’s not necessary to use all of the tasks in the plan, you can choose to use any of the tasks individually or change the order of the tasks depending on the approach you want to take and the level of your students.
This lesson plan is based on an infographic that reports on a survey into advertising, people’s attitudes to it and how it influences them.
Aims:
To develop students’ abilities to think critically and form informed opinions.
To develop students’ abilities to study and research effectively using digital tools.
To develop students’ abilities to read and understand visual information.
To develop students’ abilities to check the credibility of online information.
To develop students’ abilities to carry out online research and to represent their findings visually.
To develop students’ abilities to extract information from research and create informative text based on their findings.
The materials in this plan can be used in different ways. The first four tasks can be used independently as a simple reading and discussion lesson.
The final four tasks can be used selectively to develop various digital skills.
This lesson contains eight tasks:
A discussion task that gets students thinking about advertisements and how they influence their behavior.
A reading task that develops students’ abilities to scan text for specific information
A reading task that develops students’ abilities to check and confirm information.
A discussion task that gives students the opportunity to reflect on the information and apply it to their own lives.
A social research task that gets students to create an online questionnaire to find out about people’s attitudes to advertising.
A research task that gets students to check the accuracy of information
.A research task that gets students to research the advertising techniques used by various companies.
A writing task that gives students the opportunity to consolidate their learning in the form of a blog article.
This book is a collection of fluency activities that encourage students to think creatively and which help to build their ability to empathise with others.
Each short lesson is based around a beautiful image, starts with a vocabulary building activity and has a set of questions designed to make students think more deeply about the story behind the image and encourage their curiosity and imagination.
The lessons also include creative activities that can be used for writing or speaking practice. These include role-plays, simulations and creative writing tasks.
This is an example presentation from one of the ten units: http://bit.ly/forest-demo
Each lesson also ends with some form of follow up research task that encourages students to find out more about the images and topics that the activities deal with.
These short lessons can be used in full to form the basis of a fluency lesson or they can be used in part as warmers or fillers to get students speaking and thinking in English.
Each lesson also includes a digital presentation that can either be shared using a projector or students can access the materials on their mobile devices using a short link or QR code.
The QR codes can be accessed through the teachers’ presentation.
This ebook was designed to be the first in a series of collections of the simple activities and ideas I have used over many years when delivering teaching and teacher training sessions that incorporate the use of digital technologies.
The ideas use simple free tools that have stood the test of time and remained consistently reliable. The teaching ideas and activities themselves are ones that I have adapted from my pre-technology teaching days, so they are all built on sound classroom teaching practice.
The activities are ideal for the modern connected classroom in which students come to class with a variety of devices, but they can also be used in a blended context and students can be assigned some parts of the tasks to do outside of the classroom.
I have also included a collection of 8 video tutorials to help less tech confident teachers deal with the technology side of using the materials.
I hope these materials will act as a bridge for teachers who are newer or less confident at using digital tools and materials and help them provide engaging and motivating language learning experiences for their students.
This lesson plan is based on an infographic that reports on a survey into advertising, people’s attitudes to it and how it influences them.
Aims:
To develop students’ abilities to think critically and form informed opinions.
To develop students’ abilities to study and research effectively using digital tools.
To develop students’ abilities to read and understand visual information.
To develop students’ abilities to check the credibility of online information.
To develop students’ abilities to carry out online research and to represent their findings visually.
To develop students’ abilities to extract information from research and create informative text based on their findings.
The materials in this plan can be used in different ways. The first four tasks can be used independently as a simple reading and discussion lesson.
The final four tasks can be used selectively to develop various digital skills.
This lesson contains eight tasks:
A discussion task that gets students thinking about advertisements and how they influence their behavior.
A reading task that develops students’ abilities to scan text for specific information
A reading task that develops students’ abilities to check and confirm information.
A discussion task that gives students the opportunity to reflect on the information and apply it to their own lives.
A social research task that gets students to create an online questionnaire to find out about people’s attitudes to advertising.
A research task that gets students to check the accuracy of information
.A research task that gets students to research the advertising techniques used by various companies.
A writing task that gives students the opportunity to consolidate their learning in the form of a blog article.
This e-booklet contains a collection of ten lesson plans to help you develop students' digital literacies and critical thinking skills. Based around authentic infographics the lessons start by using discussion to help students access what they already know about the topics and then move on to comprehension and a range of tasks that help students to explore the validity and authenticity of the information they find. They finish with structured research and presentation tasks that encourage students to work collaboratively and share what they have learned.
The aims of the lessons are to:
-: develop student's digital literacies
-: help them to think more critically about online information
-: develop their ability discuss and develop ideas around information and understand how it applies to their own lives.
The lessons progress through a range of tasks that engage student’s interest, encourage them to:
-: interact and share what they know
-: develop their abilities to extract information from text and graphics
-: view information critically
-: check the credibility and validity of information
-: develop online research skills
-: use web based tools to create surveys and data visualisations
The lessons cover a range of topics including:
-: Advertising and how it influences us
-: Body language and how to understand it
-: Introverts and extroverts and how they differ
-: Emotional intelligence and how it impacts on our relationships
-: Facts about hair
-: Happiness and what effects it
-: Developing study skills
-: The environment and waste caused by clothes manufacturing
-: Daily habits of the world's wealthiest people
-: The history of marriage and weddings
Each lesson includes:
-: A step by step teachers guide with advice and answer key
-: Worksheets to print for students
This book was the winner of the 2016 British Council Innovations Award (ELTon) for Innovations in Teacher Resources
Digital Video is a 400 page multimedia manual for language teachers to help them build activities, courses and engaging materials for their students. From exploiting mobile apps on handheld devices to building video into blended and task based learning, Digital Video covers it all.
With detailed technical support through a range of 26 tutorial videos, illustrated step-by-step guides and more than forty lesson examples and over 300 images, teachers can use this manual to build their confidence and find some of the best free video applications and resources online.
Whether you are a novice teacher or an experienced trainer looking to develop your tech skills, this manual can help you with plain English explanations and practical online and face to face classroom suggestions.
This is a PDF ebook with links to video tutorials.
Digital Video is a 400 page multimedia manual for language teachers to help them build activities, courses and engaging materials for their students. From exploiting mobile apps on handheld devices to building video into blended and task based learning, Digital Video covers it all.
With detailed technical support through a range of 26 tutorial videos, illustrated step-by-step guides and more than forty lesson examples and over 300 images, teachers can use this manual to build their confidence and find some of the best free video applications and resources online.
Whether you are a novice teacher or an experienced trainer looking to develop your tech skills, this manual can help you with plain English explanations and practical online and face to face classroom suggestions.
This is a PDF ebook with links to video tutorials.
This lesson has been designed for online or face-to-face delivery.
In this lesson, students share their experiences of doing interviews for jobs or college. They discuss the kinds of questions they may be asked at a job interview and listen to some example questions and answers. They also look at some examples of good and bad body language. They finish by role playing an interview for a job they would like.
Aims:
To develop students’ ability to do job interviews in English.
To develop students’ understanding of body language.
To help students understand the types of questions they may have to answer in a job interview.
Level:
Low intermediate + (A2/B1)
Materials:
Digital presentation: Demo Copy
Pronunciation activity: https://bit.ly/interview-dict
Printable presentation (PDF)
Audio files (Zip mp3 x 2)
Techniques, Exercise and Activities for the Creative Language Classroom
This book is for any language teacher who is interested in developing their own and their students’ creative skills while teaching languages.
The book is in two sections.
-: The first part looks at a range of teaching techniques that you can use in any lesson to help develop your students’ creativity. It also includes some suggestions and easy exercises for applying these in the classroom.
-: The second part is a collection of 30 structured activities. These include step by step instructions as well as example digital materials that you can use in the classroom.
The example materials have been designed so that you can use them on any digital device with an internet connection.
Example digital presentation: Interview Images
I hope you and your students will find this book an enjoyable and useful accompaniment for your everyday teaching.
“Behind every closed window there is a story.”
This lesson is based around a single image of a window with the shutters closed. The lesson includes a variety of discussion and conversation tasks that you can use to get students thinking and talking about the image. These are followed by language focus tasks and some more creative tasks. Finally, there are some suggestions for digital creation and research follow-up tasks.
It’s not necessary to use all of the tasks in the plan, you can choose to use any of the tasks individually or change the order of the tasks depending on the approach you want to take and the level of your students.
This book has been designed as a teachers’ guide to the use of the digital and interactive materials from the second 10 units of the Conversation & Listening series.
The book contains the step-by-step instructions outlining how to use the materials and presentations and implement the activities in each stage of the lesson units.
The Conversation & Listening series was designed to help and encourage young adult English language students (A2/B1 or higher) to engage in conversation and interaction around a range of common topics and in a range of situations that will be of interest to them.
Each unit contains materials for 90 -120 mins contact time and an additional 60+ mins interactive self-study materials.
Unit Topics
A Good Book - To enable students to discuss different types of books.
A Night Out - To enable students to talk about different places they like to go in the evening.
My Goals - To enable students to talk about their goals in life and their attitudes to achieving their goals.
My Sense of Humour - To enable students to discuss their sense of humour and describe different types of humour.
The Dancer - To enable students to share their opinions and experiences of dance.
The Gamer - To enable students to discuss their experiences of a range of issues around video games.
The News - To develop students’ abilities to think more critically about news and how they access it.
The Story - To develop students’ abilities to tell stories and anecdotes.
The Tattoo - To enable students to talk about body art, how it is viewed in different cultures and why people have tattoos.
The Vegan - To develop students’ ability to discuss the types of food they like and their attitudes to eating meat.
In this lesson, students discuss and learn about the difficult process of firing someone. They learn about the procedure and language for firing an employee, listen to three managers who made mistakes when firing someone, and role play talking to members of their team and reassuring them.
Aims
To enable students to use the processes and language for firing a member of staff.
Time: 60 mins +
Level: B1 +
Materials:
Teachers' Guide (PDF)
Presentation: [Demonstration copy](https://view.genial.ly/6173a1e32d16df0de52ff83e)
Reading 1: https://bit.ly/3vwtTw9
Activity: https://bit.ly/30UXiVJ
Dictation: https://bit.ly/2XACCAW
Role card 1 A: https://bit.ly/3jwiIij
Role card 1 B: https://bit.ly/3m4EtHE
Role card 2 A: https://bit.ly/2XFVz5q
Role card 2 B: https://bit.ly/3Gh8Wu4
Reflection task: https://bit.ly/3nnS4Jt
In this lesson, students try to understand the nature of conspiracy theories, how they evolve and how to debunk them. They also look at how to talk to people about them in a non-confrontational way.
Aims:
To develop students’ knowledge and ability to talk about and understand the nature of conspiracy theories.
Level:
Intermediate + (B1- C2)
Tools:
Note pad: https://cryptpad.fr/pad/
Whiteboard: https://cryptpad.fr/pad/
Materials:
Teachers’ Guide - PDF
Digital presentation: Demonstration copy
Infographic - Conspiracy Theories: https://bit.ly/3n30QxV
Get your students speaking and developing their listening and conversation skills with this series of 10 engaging lessons for the remote, face to face or hybrid classroom.
Each of the 10 units contains around 120 mins of learning materials.
Level:
A2/B1 and higher
Topics
Unit 1 - Study skills and habits
Unit 2 - Mobile phone and social media use
Unit 3 - Dream homes and houses
Unit 4 - Holidays and travel
Unit 5 - Music and playing an instrument
Unit 6 - Shopping and clothes styles
Unit 7 - Sport and exercise
Unit 8 - Films and going to the cinema
Unit 9 - Interviews and talking about ourselves
Unit 10 - Describing products and making presentations
The book also includes a digital workbook for students that they can use on their mobile phone to access the classroom materials, make notes and do dome of the additional interactive tasks.
This ebook was designed with English language teachers in mind but should have some value for any teacher who is interested in developing their students’ digital literacy and critical thinking skills.
The book contains a wide range of suggested activities for both the creation and exploitation of infographics in the classroom.
It also helps teachers with tips and advice on how to plan and create infographics and suggestions for which tools to use to produce different types of infographic.
Exploiting Infographics follows on from 10 Lessons in Digital Literacy, which is a collection of lesson plans based around infographics, and looks in more depth at the genre and how infographics can be used as both sources of information and as creative learning tasks for students.
The tasks that accompany the infographics are intended to encourage students to think more critically about the information they are exposed to and to question the sources of information they find whilst browsing the internet.
Exploiting Infographics should help teachers to start creating their own tasks activities and lesson plans for students and to integrate infographics in a way that will enhance students’ critical thinking, digital literacy, language and communication skills.
This ebook is 53 pages long and was originally published in 2009 so some of thetools are a bit out of date, but the ideas can still be used.
This document is intended as simple introduction to some free Web 2.0 type tools that can be used by teachers who are interested in using technology in language teaching. The tools presented here are just the tip of the iceberg and this should not be considered in anyway conclusive or even the ʻbest ofʼ Web 2.0 tools. New tools are emerging all the time, many not originally intended for education, but which can be put to good use by students and teachers alike to extent opportunities, enhance learning potential and develop the level of digital literacy that students will need for the 21st century.