Two reading passages - this teacher's worst ever lesson and her best, with language exercises. It&'s good to let the kids know that we teachers are human too, occasionally vulnerable and also capable of doing silly things.

A reading comprehension, with language exercises. This follows on from my reading comprehension 'Snow Day&'. This is differentiated - EAL students can put the verbs in the past simple, while more advanced students can tackle the discussion points.

This is a reading passage, written as a fable, with exercises. There is a 'true or false&', some vocabulary work, and other suggested tasks. My students particularly enjoyed discussing the moral and thinking up some of their own.

A series of famous pictures to promote higher level thinking skills: what might be happening/have happened? What might happen next? Great for EAL too - describe the pictures. Ask them to start by answering the wh- questions and then make inferences. If you play the youtube clip included first, it will show your students that they can say what they think and that there are no right or wrong answers. Well, there are thousands of great paintings and each one can provide a great starter for your lesson. The questions fly in - just incase they need a prompt!

Does reporter Joe learn an important lesson, or does he just think about his own ambitions? There are 10 parts (this could be adapted). I've written this for my EAL students to practise the past simple tense, but it's not exclusively an EAL resource.

Here are some slides to complement the extract and exercises on boxing in the WJEC GCSE English and English Language Higher Level course book, pages 62, 63 and 64. There are anagrams of keywords to do with boxing, true and false on the passage on Spencer Oliver (p.62) match up the opposite words, the pros and cons of boxing and a look at keywords. Some of my group have got EAL and need this kind of differentiation.

I uploaded a different copy of this earlier, which I have now deleted. This one is better! It's a reading passage with exercises, including making resolutions for different people and a cloze exercise. Also, the main passage uses &'said&'; many times - presenting a good opportunity to practise using alternative words to 'said&'.

I made this for my Yr 7 Nurture group, for fun literacy starters. There are 27 slides, comprising 25 activities. No photocopying necessary - all activities can be done from the board. There is a variety of lexical activities: anagrams; match-ups; gap fills; error correction; find the hidden words; sentence formation; supply the adjectives and adverbs; replace the missing vowels and more. I have used a frame from fppt.com.

Short story, with a lot of synonyms and paraphrasing to make it a language learning experience. A witch casts a spell on the king, but ultimately, will it help him become a better king? Various exercises, including one on open and closed questions, and ideas provided at the end. You could use it as reading practice, or with older students, as a model for a tale with a moral.

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.

This makes a good starter or filler activity. The first slide explains the activity and the second models it. Then, give each group a picture and ask them to mind map it. For extension, have them compare any two pictures.

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.

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.