A short article adapted from a newspaper, with exercises and a link to the youtube clip. I used this with my EAL class and it provoked a debate about the police. Why did he do it? He just snapped: why? What should happen now? Etc...

This is a guide on how to describe a picture. It's useful for mainstream teachers to use as an exercise or wall chart and also as a hand out to students. I love the picture! Who are they? What were they doing?

This is a short passage in the past simple about a nervous teacher's first lesson. Cloze and match up exercises provided.

I am making this into a wall display as I think it looks great! Adjectives can be added as you go along. Here, it is presented as a worksheet.

There are 25 statements, some true, some false. The students have to correct the false statements. Ask them to shade the true statements and there is a hidden letter N, so you can check if they got it right. Then, ask them to read out or discuss their corrections in pairs and this leads to whole class discussion.

Short story based on five images with a twist in the tale. A good model for third person narrative controlled assessment practice, (audience young readers). I get my students to mind map the images first. Some exercises provided.

A reading passage with language activities, about the wonderfully heart-warming rescue by the Yorkshire Wildlife Safari Park of 13 lions who had been living in cramped cages in Romania. I did this as part of a project on lions and am still trying to arrange to take my students to the safari park. One day! There are plenty of youtube clips about this.

A great picture, with two pages of activities: counting, follow the instructions to colour in, rearrange the letters to make the words, true and false and answer the questions.

A series of inkblots - what can the students see in them? There is an example on the first slide. This makes a great starter.

This is a very basic worksheet about Eva Smith for EAL students who are new to English.

This is a great set of typical British things, and the words for a match-up activity. It makes a great starter, but not beyond year 7. I played Splat! with my students. (Two students come up to the board, then I say an item and the first to touch it is the winner.) Then, I put them in groups and gave each group three images to mind map. Next, the groups moved round to see if anything could be added. We discussed which things they had seen/experienced and which things were a bit old-fashioned or out of date. Thanks to YourJigsawPuzzles for permission to use the montage.

A bit of colouring in fun for younger pupils.

A multiple choice quiz for students to complete. Then they make their resolutions for 2017.

Here is a selection of fun starters/ activities using a grid. Only one needs any preparation; you can just go with the others. Adaptable to most subject matter.

Quotes on various areas of life: happiness, success, family, technology in the classroom etc.... The students analyse, compare and contrast and make up their own. Each slide could be used as a starter to get your students thinking or to promote debate. They could end by producing an inspirational poster.

There are two lists, one taking a positive view of a Trump action, and the other, a negative take. The students match these up, then describe what the images represent. Finally, they weigh up their own opinions about Trump’s policies. This sheet could be used in a debate about Trump. Obviously, this is not an exhaustive list, but hopefully it will encourage them to find out more. Actually, I have put quite a bit of effort into this, so I hope it will be useful!

This is a play with 9 parts (easily adaptable). I am doing a topic on fairy tales, leading on to Shrek. I acted this out with my EAL students.

Six witches, each with an exercise. After completing the exercises, they can cut them up, jumble them, then match the right passage to the picture before sticking in their books. Just a bit of fun!

This is a list of sentences which the students have to re-phrase, using higher level language skills e.g. reported speech, conditionals and compound tenses.

Get your students involved and thinking, right from the start of the lesson! Turn the objective/title/'learn&' - however you refer to it in your school, into an interactive exercise. Fifteen suggestions. I hope you find them useful.