This term I’ve tried out a few different ways to introduce a lesson. These ones have worked well. They might be worth reading if you’ve exhausted my previous list! Song lyric gap fill Example: 3rd conditional, regrets Do a short gap… Read More ›

teacher toolkit
Present perfect game
I’m on good form! It’s been a fun weekend of classes. Today I tried out a new task for practising the present perfect (life experiences). Well, it wasn’t exactly new, just a variation on a few well-known tasks. Still, it… Read More ›
Planning tasks for young learners
To an experienced YL teacher this post is just stating the obvious. To me it’s not, because I’m new to teaching primary aged learners. I’ve got in the habit of tweaking almost every activity to try and make it fun…. Read More ›
Word stress – footballs and sticky balls
I like teaching word stress. I have various ‘go to’ activities for noticing and practising word stress – stuff like this: Using Cuisenaire rods Humming the stress pattern Fist pumping when you say the stressed syllable Building vocab based on… Read More ›
Lesson idea: Star Wars crawl creator
I got so excited about this that I had to post it up! I found this site today where you can create your own version of the Star Wars intro! It looks like this, and you can find it here…… Read More ›
Vocabulary review – fortune tellers
Did you ever make one of those origami fortune tellers when you were a kid? They were pretty cool. Anyway, I’ve just planned a lesson on shapes with my young learners (from Incredible English), and thought the classic fortune tellers… Read More ›
Great formative assessment tools
In the first ever guest post on ELT Planning, Kirsten Anne shares her teaching experiences and offers two great ideas for formative assessment. This post has been a long time coming. I’ve been promising to write something for ELT Planning for a… Read More ›
Lesson tip: Wheel Decide
Wheel Decide allows you to create instant decision/scoring wheels in class. You can change the categories to anything you want, meaning the wheel could choose who goes next, the next topic of discussion, class groups, anything you want! I plan on… Read More ›
Help please: Frayer models
What better place to think through a lesson idea than on my blog?! Hopefully all you great teachers can offer a few ideas… I recently came across the idea of Frayer models while browsing Teacher’s Toolkit. I found other explanations and examples of… Read More ›
Lesson tip: tidy-up song
Do you use a tidy-up song at the end of class? This is mine… My primary level students start singing this with about 5 minutes of the lesson to go. They love the challenge of getting everything packed away, plus the… Read More ›