Here's an activity to get kids putting comparative and superlative forms into practice! I've done this activity many times and it's always been very popular. It's a great way to let your students go wild (see what I did there?) and get creative. Students read a short text about an (invented) animal, then create their… Continue reading A Mad Safari for YLs
Author: Claire Parsons
Summer suitcase mingle for YLs
This lesson plan might come in useful if you're teaching summer courses with Young Learners! I tried out this lesson before the pandemic, so I'll show you what I did then, and how I adapted it to be photocopy-free and online-friendly to use with my groups this year. Language point and vocabulary: possessive pronouns (mine/yours/his/hers… Continue reading Summer suitcase mingle for YLs
Ending on a high
The end of a school year always makes me look back on what's happened since September, and reflect on what I learned about myself and my job, and what I learned from other people. I thought my learners could benefit from something similar, so I used my class of B2 teenagers as guinea pigs. I… Continue reading Ending on a high
When all is said and NOT done
We’ve all been there: you’re in class, you’ve read a text or done a listening activity, you’ve done the controlled activities in the books, and now comes freer practice. In a lot of coursebooks, this will involve a discussion in pairs with an open question which should invite students to extend their answers, and ideally… Continue reading When all is said and NOT done
Online games in a paperless classroom
My school's policy on sharing materials and photocopies at the start of the 2020-2021 school year was simple: don't share anything, don't give handouts. Easier said than done when you don't have a lot of time to digitalise (digitise?) resources you've spent several years building up. Despite an abundance of online resources and tools that… Continue reading Online games in a paperless classroom
Writing at CAE: milking the test books and upping the game
Do you currently teach CAE? Maybe you'll be familiar with some of these complaints from students in the months leading up to the exam. And if you don't teach it at the moment, but might in the future, then see below for the trials and tribulations of the average CAE student, and some ideas which… Continue reading Writing at CAE: milking the test books and upping the game
Desert Island Discs – conditionals, micro-listening and music
Photo by Asad Photo Maldives on Pexels.com I'm a huge fan of Desert Island Discs. If you haven't heard of it, here's quick breakdown: a celebrity, referred to as a castaway, is interviewed on BBC Radio 4, and is asked which 8 discs they would take with them if they were cast away to a… Continue reading Desert Island Discs – conditionals, micro-listening and music
Breathe your way to sanity
Picture the scene. It's Monday afternoon, about 5.15 pm. I can hear the distant shrieks of my 8 year-old Young Learners about to enter the building. They know, because they have been told on MANY separate occasions, that there are lessons going on around them as they come in, so it's definitely NOT OK to… Continue reading Breathe your way to sanity
Getting dicey – Part 1
I've always loved board games, and in happier, pre-pandemic times, these also featured quite heavily in my lessons. For those of you lucky enough to be able to use physical boards, counters and dice, here are some of my favourites. And for those of you who, like me, are limited to the virtual joys of… Continue reading Getting dicey – Part 1
Keep ’em in line!
One of the first things I was taught when I faced a classroom of Young Learners was that they needed a system: one that would be appealing enough to get them to stick to the class rules, and would motivate them throughout the year. I made an absolute mess of this in my first year,… Continue reading Keep ’em in line!
Claire’s English Classroom 