
Remember, remember...
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With another November the 5th it's difficult not to be reminded of Guy Fawkes. And although I don't think it is the best idea to mention him in the classroom as a man who tried to blow up the Parliament due to religious beliefs, there is something about the date that makes me feel... a little rebellious.

Stories of horror and fantasy - not only for Halloween
Cthulhu, Hercule Poirot, Sandman or brothers Grimm - what to read on Halloween?

Halloween with a zombie apocalypse? Sure thing!
With Halloween approaching, a teacher has to come up with some entertaining ideas. I'm not a fan of classes dedicated directly to the occasion, I prefer running a normal lesson with a little twist. This year I've decided to go with something new - namely, the apocalypse.

Lateral puzzles, literal fun :)
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.?):