Keep Calm and Teach English

Roald Dahl's Revolting Rhymes is a collection of poems published in 1982. They are a parody of traditional folk tales in verse. Dahl gives a re-interpretation of six well-known fairy tales, featuring surprise endings in place of the traditional happily-ever-after. They are known for their unsentimental, often very dark humour. photo by  Kai_Vogel Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf   is an easily recognisable story with a strong rhyming pattern ideal for young learners. You can also listen to Roald Dahl reading the poem himself or watch an animated version of the story. Although it is a children's fairy tale, its humour and its unexpected ending makes it appealing to teenagers too. Level B1+. Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf If you decide to use my lesson idea, leave me a comment and let me know how it went. 

Revising vocabulary can be tedious for students (and teachers). A fun and probably more memorable way of doing it is through crossword puzzles which you will have to devise yourself of course. There is a number of pages that can help you to design your own crosswords. One of the easiest and most helpful can be found in Discovery Education  where you can also choose from a number of other word puzzles to make, such as Word Search, Letter Tiles and more. You just add the words with their definitions in the box provided and your crossword is ready with the click of a button. Below you can find the crossword I prepared for our revision of Unit 6, QSE Intermediate, Andrew Betsis Editions. Words and definitions were copied from the book's glossary.

It is always a good idea to incorporate songs in our teaching as they are highly motivating, extremely enjoyable and they promote natural learning. With the help of the Internet it is also super easy to create a lesson around a song in little time. If you are looking for songs to use after teaching about the weather here is a really big list of titles  with weather vocabulary in their lyrics. Combined with the  50 ways to use music and songs in the EFL classroom provided by EFL classroom 2.0  you can prepare a song lesson for every taste and level! A very beautiful song to use with older teenagers is "Stormy Weather" by Billie Holiday. Instead of using the typical Listening Cloze, the lyrics have been mixed-up and the students have to rearrange them by listening to the song. Stormy Weather

Our newspaper project has been awarded the National Quality Label. Congratulations to the students who worked for it and a thank you to our partners from Italy, France and Spain.

Last year I had the privilege of working with a wonderful group of students in a project about British literary works that have been adapted into film. We covered "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen, "Romeo and Juliet" and "The Taming of the Shrew" by Shakespeare, "Murder on the Orient Express" by Agatha Christie, "My Fair Lady" based on George Bernard's Shaw's "Pygmalion" and "1984" by George Orwell. The latter gave birth to a Prezi presentation for which my students and I are very proud. We discussed the multiple ways the Party exercised control on its citizens. Many of the themes we covered are frighteningly familiar... You can find the presentation below (it is in Greek).