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.

I made this for a year 9 group doing Employability. The first topic was 'Punctuality.&' There are some EAL beginners in the group, so a few slides have got exercises they can access.

A variety of worksheets with the main language focus being the past simple tense. There are suggested activities on each sheet. 'Holiday did you&' is a list of questions for pair work coming back from the summer holiday. &';Crystal is not a bully' and &'Things you should do before you die&'; might be of use in PHSCE.

The first sheet is to practise past simple and to explain 'embarrassment&'. The second one is a follow up story, past simple or past continuous? After the exercise, you can cut the pictures out for sequencing. Ask the students to put the story together using time connectives, &';First, then, after that' etc.. You could practise making questions by having the students prepare qs for Jake, using the &'wh&'; words and build this into a hotseat activity.

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&'.

A passage about a boy making new year resolutions, with exercises. Can be used as a preliminary before students think up new year's resolutions for themselves. The template is by Baiba.

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.

We had some training on 'building curious minds' and were asked to think about it. Here are some ideas.

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.

Two pages on this picture by Melanie Hope Greenberg. The focus on page 2 is the past simple tense, but it could be adapted for the present continuous. Can be used with a mixed ability class: counting/colouring/recounting in the past tense.

I've re-jigged my writing mat for pupils. It&'s a step by step guide to help them check stories or recounts in the past tense. It helps student to be more independent - I ask them to go through it before I mark their work. Also, it looks beautiful! :)

A play with 14 parts (easily adapted). I wrote this for a year 9 class with a high proportion of EAL students. They really enjoyed it.

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.

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.