Keep Calm and Teach English

Who can resist the daily surprises Advent Calendars hide behind their small doors? They not only count the days till Christmas but they are great fun too so why not use them in the classroom? photo by  jill111 In the calendar that follows there is a new activity behind each door, from crossword puzzles and trivia quizes to filling in Christmas songs lyrics and making easy Christmas crafts. Day 1: This is Britain Christmas video  Day 2: Print and solve a crossword Day 3: Make easy candy cane sleighs to give as Christmas presents Day 4: Print and solve a Christmas cloze  Day 5: Write an email to Santa Day 6: What are you going to do this Christmas? Online matching activity Day 7: S olve an online Christmas Crossword Puzzle Day 8:  Play a Christmas quiz with your friends Day 9:  Make a pop-up Christmas card Day 10: Make a sock snowman Day 11: Fill in the missing lyrics of Last Christmas (online game) Day 12:  Play a Christmas quiz with your friends D

Thanksgiving Day is a national holiday celebrated mainly in the United States on the fourth Thursday of November. It is a special day for families and people travel long distances to be with their loved ones on this day. It also marks the beginning of the Christmas festive season.  Photo by  jill111 Thanksgiving Day  is a holiday so often depicted in American films and TV series that many Greek students are familiar with it, although they don't exactly know what it is about.  In the following presentation you will find activities on the origins of this popular holiday, suitable for pre-Intermediate young teenagers.  You can download the worksheets here: For the last activity you can use a voting tool like Mentimeter . Students can brainstorm their blessings and make a beautiful wordcloud. Here is what some of my students had to say:

Wheel Decide is a free online spinner tool that allows you to create your own digital wheels for decision making, prize giveaways, games, and more.The uses of Wheel Decide run as far as your imagination. In the EFL classroom and in education in general the wheels can be used for a variety of activities: Spin a wheel of questions, topics, or vocabulary terms. This is a great substitute for studying or revising, and since the topics shuffle, everyone stays on their toes. Pick a random student in class to answer a question or participate in a classroom activity. Engage your students by having them decide on the options whether they are questions, vocabulary or grammar items.  Use the wheel to randomly assign groups or teams. You can also randomly assign jobs to teams or individuals. Unlike you or your peers, Wheel Decide has no biases. Below you can find two wheels I made off the top of my head: one for playing vocabulary games and one for a pop quiz on irregular ve

It seems that I have a soft spot for Shel Silverstein's writings.  They are simple yet so rich in meanings and they are always accompanied with straightforward illustrations that make them ideal for children and adults alike. Three years ago I created a short lesson on  The Missing Piece Meets the Big O . This year I made a short video for one of Silverstein's short poems, the  "Zebra Question".  photo by  VIKTOR HANACEK Zebra Question is a poem from the book  A Light in the Attic , published in 1981. It is about a boy who asks a zebra whether it is black with white stripes or white with black stripes. The zebra replies somewhat sassily with an exhaustive list of questions: "Are you good with bad habits? Or are you bad with good habits? Are you noisy with quiet times? Or quiet with noisy times? and on and on and on in a repetitive way. The poem reminds us to look at situations but also at ourselves from different perspectives. Nothing can ev

A video on Bonfire Night, suitable for children and young teens in A2 level. The worksheet includes a True or False task, a link to an easy recipe for toffee apples, plus a cut out Guy Fawkes mask. photo by  Free-Photos Make sure you take a look at  my older post  about November 5th and the story of Guy Fawkes night. If you decide to use it, leave me a comment and tell me how it went!