My Favourite Lesson Plans & Activities

20 Minute Lesson Filler: Best of a Normal Day by Sue Lyon-Jones – Providing you’ve got a laptop (and projector too, if possible) this is a great activity to spice up the relatively mundane topic of ‘everyday activities’.

20 steps to teaching unplugged by Luke Meddings – A British Council Seminar that explains the theories and some practical advice for an unplugged approach.  If you don’t have the book, Teaching Unplugged (which you should have!) then you should at least watch this and take notes.

A close up on translation by Ceri Jones – This is a first class lesson plan for using translation for a monolingual group of Spanish speakers.  Ceri followed this post up with a look at using translation in a multi-lingual classroom.

Going, going, gone (in!) by Jason Renshaw – A detailed plan of a dogme-style progressive gap-fill on the whiteboard.

Introduction Workshop to Teaching Pronunciation by Adrian Underhill – When I have mastered this technique and get it to run smoothly in a class I’m going to shout it from the highest hill!  Click here to see a recent follow up summary to this excellent approach.

The Magnificent Seven by Alan Tait – An amazingly simple yet fantastic activity focussing on similar sounding words; book, bake, back, etc.  It takes 2 minutes to prepare and will keep your class going for at least 40 minutes if done right!  Used this one to great effect and now Alan has posted a follow up to the activity, appropriated titled The Magnificent Seven Ride Again.

Our first time with dictogloss by Dave Dodgson – A great explanation of a brilliant exercise which involves listening, group work and writing.

Peer editing and correction by Claire Spooner – A wonderful little explanation of a very effective and communicative use for OHPs.

A picture is worth a thousand… stories by Laura Patsko – A wonderful step-by-step description of how to do a story building lesson from just one photo.

Revision Workstations by Richard Whiteside – A great explanation and expansion on an activity I’ve done once or twice before and fully intend to do many more times.

Teaching with a Blank Piece of Paper by David Deubelbeiss – A great list of ideas for a very materials light lesson.