Urban legend, adapted from the internet. The story is on the first slide, then there are various activities: visuals for Splat, or Q &A session; true or false/put the story in sequential order/guidelines for a hot seat and ideas on how to teach the story. My aim is to get the students to produce a recount.

This is a 20 slide powerpoint about Veganuary. There are match-ups, gap fills, true or false activities, correct the spellings, mini RCs, research tasks (design a menu for…) and hopefully, food for thought. I have designed this for advanced EAL learners, but it will make a good form time activity. My thanks to Veganuary and Rich of vegansidekick for permission to use their visuals.

A simple worksheet on whether to use past or passed. I noticed lots of people getting this wrong.

I dictate this story. Give the pupils some plain paper. Draw some lines to make a room. Add a window. Add snowflakes - it's snowing outside. Add a table, a sofa, a cooker, a TV and then, an old lady. Is she rich or poor? How do you know? Her husband died 10 years ago. She has no children. She has no brothers and sisters. The date is December 25th... Why is it special? The old lady turns around. There is a cat on her window sill (Draw it). It is skinny. Do you think she will let it in? Why? Why not? She opens the window and lets it in. It rubs her leg. (Draw the cat by her leg). She shares her turkey... Keep asking questions... Then, I do a hotseat. The pupils prepare the questions. Put the old lady in the hotseat. 'Are you married?' 'Have you got any children? 'What did you see on the window sill?' Higher level questions; 'How did you feel when you saw that cat?' And so on.

This is a sorting activity. Put the words into the right category. There are some proper nouns included.

This is designed for EAL learners, but is useful as a prompt for debate in the mainstream classroom. The arguments and counter arguments are presented as exercises: match-up, replace the words and re-arrange the words. There is also a powerful image to describe - my thanks to Rich the vegansidekick for permission to use it. A full key is included.

It’s a worksheet about the recent school strike. It is designed for EAL learners but may be of wider use, maybe in Citizenship or tutor period. I’m sure we don’t want them all downing pens, but knowledge is power!

This is a powerpoint of 52 slides. I uploaded it previously to test the waters as I was going to charge for it. From 23 views, it got 21 downloads! I was pleased. Since then, I have done nothing to make it sale-worthy, like checking image derivation and one or 2 layouts that are not really mine. However, I have faffed about with fancy borders and stuff to make it look presentable. Time to let this go live! So - there are youtube clips with exercises, match-ups, comprehensions, picture description, making inferences, games… All sorts! I hope you can use it and I hope to get a few reviews:-)

This is a questionnaire for the students to do in pairs. There is a match-up exercise on page 2. I have prepared it for my EAL students, but it could be used as an ice breaker after the holiday. Or they could answer the questions as a written exercise.

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

Some short reading activities for Christmas. I've included a link to a Jacquie Lawson card, with the cat and dog story. However, it isn't quite as I remembered it! I use her cards a lot with my EAL students - they make lovely little mini stories.

I have made this for an EAL student at beginner level. I have used images from the 2009 movie (starring Jim Carrey). Hope it will be useful for some of you!

The BBC is going to run this wonderful Christmas-themed clip until Christmas Eve, when apparently something wonderful will happen... (I think it will be Mum's return...). There are 20 questions here to test your students' observational skills. Full key included.

A reading passage with true or false exercise and the students are asked to list all the words used instead of 'said.' If you use this worksheet you might like to do the E test with your class first. What it is is explained on the ws and there is a link to an article about it. (It's a personality test).

A few slides to go with the opening scenes of the film.

I went on a course called 'Grammar for Writing.' The idea is that you teach the grammar, use the correct terms, but disguise the fact that you are teaching grammar. In this ppt, I aim to teach adverbs by asking the students to supply the opposite terms.

20 slides, each with one or 2 images. There are DARTs activities - for differentiation - with every slide and tasks based on ideas linked to the images. The images are from Clker.com, unless otherwise stated.

Two short anecdotes with language activities: 1) Socrates and the triple filter test. 2) The rest of your life. These could be used in PHSCE or English.

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!

Lots of activities - match-ups, gap fills, true or false, picture descriptions. a wordsearch and a cryptogram. Sixteen slides, with lots of great clipart, bought from this site!