A set of cards requiring students to choose an option and justify it. Interesting mix of subjects: stop warfare or end disease? Give up crisps or chocolate? Be able to fly or communicate with animals...etc. They make great starter activities, practising 'I would rather...' and promoting creative thinking. The template is from eslprintables.

Excellent diagram of a house! A match up exercise - match the names of the rooms to the pictures and a true and false activity. The house template is from eslprintables.

This is a series of pictures and comments about a boy's day to reinforce the present simple - what he normally/usually/sometimes does etc.. There is reading, sequencing, match up (sentences and pictures), true or false and a gap fill activity. Thanks to my colleague Sophia in Ukraine for the template. I&'ve done this for my EAL class, but it may suit younger pupils.

Two sheets of practice with the 'wh&' words and that honorary wh word - how. Nice pictures on the template.

Mats in various formats for teachers who have EAL students in their class. Some of these I have uploaded previously - on here they are updated. The infographic could be used as staff training: what does each image mean? There is a sentence generator and a mat for teaching new items of vocabulary which I have seen elsewhere in various forms. Hope these are useful!

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.

Using visuals is a good thing! Here is an infographic on how to support EAL students within the mainstream classroom. Fully editable.

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.

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

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.

This is a grid with question openers and tasks going through Bloom's taxonomy. It avoids modals (would, could, should, might) and compound tenses and uses simple language structures that students at an early level of English language acquisition can access.

Some ideas on how to exploit pictures for teaching EAL. I also include a writing exercise to practise the past simple tense.

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.

For early learners or for a mixed ability EAL class. The beginners can count and practise 'There is a __&' &';There are __ s'. Also present continuous tense &'What is she doing?&';etc. More advanced students can write about it in the past simple 'The school trip&'. How did they get there? What did they do? etc. Also - good picture for Splat! and Hotseat activitiies. The picture is by Kait Eaton and copyrighted to Duck Egg Blue. I have permission to use it.

I ask my students to comment on each picture and make inferences. Then they have to prepare a 5 minute talk on whether they are for or against the death penalty and why. It's still a useful debate and can be linked to &'Of Mice and Men&'; and many other works they study.

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.

A few ideas for introducing the past simple - on the second sheet. On the first sheet is a little worksheet with exercises based on a street scene.

Two pages - a great picture, by Laurie A. Conley. With a picture, I normally 1) play Splat! 2) Memory game 3) Barrier game (pupil A facing picture, pupil B not allowed to look) 'she&'s wearing a pink top - what&';s she doing? 4) Hot seat - e.g.you are Will 'what are you doing?&' &';what can you see?' etc.... Here, I have made a variety of exercises for writing or homework.

A fun sheet to colour, with some activities including scrambled words, true or false and past tense exercises.

This is a list of ten great ESL websites with descriptions of what they offer.