
Lateral puzzles, literal fun :)
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It's easier for the adults (they either go abroad or stay in touch with a foreigner - and communicate on their own), it may be more difficult with younger learners simply because they have stuff to learn at school anyway, don't really know WHY they may need English and lose motivation easily.

Fill in the gaps with a bit of fun
Sandra asked me to write something about gap filling exercises and tasks - I really like this kind of activity as there are so many things you can do with gap filing: revise vocabulary, sure, but also add elements of fun and creativity.

Mystery of the Abbey - solving a crime in English
The reason why I love "Mystery of the Abbey" as the beginning of the course is that it helps students to start speaking the language from the first moment and, unlike usual introductory activities, it makes them see that they can actually communicate well enough to achieve something: in this case to solve the mystery.

A new online course - interested?
Hiya, fellow teachers & students of English, just a short note today - there's a new course on Writing for University Study by University of Reading, it's free and it's online!

Blurred grammar with Weird Al
The last time I wrote about music, and somehow I completely forgot to mention one of the masters of English, the funny, intertextual, one and only Weird Al Yankovic!

Getting to know each other? Let's face the music!
September, the month in my life when I face a bunch of disillusioned teenagers who haven't met me yet but they already don't feel like learning English (or they already did meet me and decided to suffer yet another year with yours truly) - rings a bell? Do you remember being a student and doing one of the most terrifying things in the classroom: sharing stuff about oneself?

First classes dictation to boost motivation
I found this poem by Chanie Gorkin, and once I saw it, I thought I could use it on my very first classes, to make my students remember.... well, here's the poem I make my students write down as a dictation, line by line (of course, I'll have to adjust vocabulary to my students' proficiency level, but what's so difficult in replacing convince with tell etc.?):

New (school)year resolutions :)
With holidays over (holidays?! I had 2 weeks off, they do summer schools on holidays, after all!) I've decided that's the time for some changes. I've noticed there aren't many things that actually challenge me as a teacher and even if I'm not bored with my job, I feel an urge to try something new.

To be or not to be (yourself)
In his book, Jim Scrivener advises teachers to "be themselves".…

Quick review: "Classroom Management Techniques" by Jim Scrivener
Being a teacher means you have to learn at least as much as you teach, so when my language school got a copy of "Classroom Management Techniques" by Jim Scrivener I had to borrow it for a while. It's easy to read and logically organised (I love properly organised handbooks) and, naturally, I've decided I might share some of my thoughts on the book.