Keep Calm and Teach English

This year my students and I are taking part in two eTwinning projects. One of them is with A2 class of the 5th Junior High School, aiming at making up a detective story concerning various important artifacts stolen from our partner's countries. For example the Embleme du Roi Soleil from Versailles France, the Castle of Count Dracula in Romania, the Armada Frigate from Portugal and the Golden Larnax from Vergina. What is really exciting is that our toy detectives are going to actually travel around these countries, trying to find clues to solve the cases. And we have just learned that our detective, Mr Owl Holmes, has arived in Portugal and is going to spend Christmas with our friends there!

An entertaining video explaining the most important British Christmas traditions. From Christmas crackers to Boxing Day, British Christmas traditions are different from what we are used to seeing in American films, because they are er... British!

There can be no Christmas without Charles Dicken's iconic short story about the cold-hearted Ebenezer Scrooge who finds the true meaning of Christmas through a journey in his past, present and future. The story has been repeatedly adapted into films and has never ceased to bring out the good in people.  photo by  TerriC The following video is an abridged version of the story for A2 to B1 students. Text and audio: Opportunities Pre-Intermediate, Longman. -A Christmas Carol- By Charles Dickens

Dramas from BBC Learning English BBC Learning English offers a range of classic literature stories dramatised for Intermediate EFL learners. Among them you can find Gulliver's Travels, based on an original story by Jonathan Swift. There's a new episode on this page every Friday. You can also listen to dramatised versions of The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde, Jamaica Inn by Daphne du Maurier, A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens and Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. And there will be more titles added in the future. You can download both the audio and the transcript together with a glossary and comprehension questions.