Thirty sentences with hidden words - they have to find them: animals, parts of the body and numbers. It gets their brains working and it’s a great time filler! Key provided. (It doesn’t look right on the preview, but it is fine on downloading.)

Here are some ideas for starter activities that require little or no preparation. They can be adapted to different subject areas.

This is a great nostalgic picture, with exercises to reinforce the present continuous and past simple tenses for EAL students. I play 'Splat!' and memory games with this kind of thing. I was kindly given permission to use the picture.

A narrative of the famous county Durham legend, with comprehension questions and language exercises.

This is a short narrative in the past simple, with language exercises: true or false, cloze, match up and comprehension questions. It will be useful for years 5, 6, 7 and EAL pupils. My thanks to Ravensburger puzzles for permission to use this great picture. Isn't Flame a beaut?

Here are some starters/short activities on the language of Maths.

A great picture, with a variety of suggestions and exercises on the present continuous tense.

I have simplified the language of the NASSEA steps, so that students can be involved in their assessments and understand where they are and what their targets are.

Survivors are interviewed and asked, 'What were you doing when the ship hit the iceberg?&'

56 slides - a compilation of more or less ready-to-go fun activities. Besides ideas, I have included some exercises that you can use or adapt, also website addresses where you can access materials. I enjoyed putting this together and I hope it will be useful.

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.

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.

30 slides with brain teasers, hidden words, quiz activities.... things you may find useful for tutor period or as lesson starters to get those brains in gear. I have created some of these slides and adapted others from the net. Many of the puzzles are all time classics. On slides where the animations don't come in, answers are on the notes section at the bottom of the slide.

There are forty sentences here, with 90 mistakes to find and correct. A full key is provided. This will make a good starting point for some SPAG activities, or provide a nice little filler activity. ** Note**: it looks a bit strange on the preview, but it’s fine when downloaded.

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!

Some slides to help explain what happened in Paris, if not why. Suitable for younger students. There are some activities to ensure comprehension and hopefully promote some thinking. If there is anything inappropriate, please let me know.

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

A two page activity to get your students talking and writing about shapes. Parts of this could be used as starters and it could certainly lead to a survey: go onto the street and see how many shapes you can spot and in what circumstances. EAL teachers can use this to teach/reinforce prepositions and the present continuous tense.

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!

14 slide ppt, discussing the issues at a basic level.