I saw this article and flowchat in the summer 2023 edition of the National Trust magazine, and it felt perfect for this blog.
What could you do with this article in your classroom? You can make any assumptions you like about the context it is used in. Post your ideas in the comments below. All ideas are welcome (there are no wrong answers!)
Click here to find out the idea behind this blog.
The Hospice Biographers project and the BBC Radio 4 Today Programme got together to ask listeners to produce their life stories in 400 words. There are excerpts from them on this page, with links to stories which I believe are permanently available, and a full episode of Today you can listen to until 9th June 2022.
What could you do with these stories in your classroom? You can make any assumptions you like about the context they are used in. Post your ideas in the comments below. All ideas are welcome (there are no wrong answers!)
Click here to find out the idea behind this blog.
Two adverts, both featuring anthropomorphic robots, which I first saw one after another at the cinema.
The first was for Toyota, celebrating their partnership with the Olympics and Paralympics:
The second was for Ikea, except I didn’t realise that until right at the end:
What could you do with these videos in your classroom? You can make any assumptions you like about the context they are used in. Post your ideas in the comments below. All ideas are welcome (there are no wrong answers!)
Click here to find out the idea behind this blog.
I’ve just finished reading Meet Me at the Museum by Anne Youngson, a really beautiful short novel, made up of the letters between Tina in England and Anders in Denmark. They share their memories of and reflections on their lives, their families, love, and so much more.
About halfway through the book, Anders describes his house. He mentions Birgitt, his wife. I thought it would be excellent for use in the classroom, if you can’t find a way to use the whole book (definitely accessible for learners from upper intermediate and above, possibly intermediate).
Let me describe my house.
It was built within the last forty years and is a simple design. The rooms are large and there few of them. On the ground floor, just the kitchen and a living space and a dining space. Upstairs, bedrooms and bathrooms. All the walls are white. I have no curtains, only blinds. In the living space there is a large, soft sofa facing a stove, and also some firmer chairs shaped like eggs. This is a standard Danish design. The lights are dramatic. The main light is also a standard Danish design. Many of the houses I go into have the same one, like an inverted flower opening its pertals. There are floor lamps that make me think of willow trees, bending over to let light fall in a pool around themselves. (I read back what I have just written and I have used nature to describe what is in fact completely unnatural.) The floor is wooden and there are rugs. In the dining space is a black wood table, black wood chairs. On a stretch of wall under the staircase I have my desk facing the wall, where I am writing this. There is a bookcase, a low table and another piece of furniture where things are kept out of sight. I don’t know what you would call it. All this is pleasant and restful and could be any of my neighbours’ houses as well as my own. On the surfaces, on the bookcase and the windowsills and other pieces of furniture, are one or two photographs, which is also usual, I think. Otherwise, there is what Birgitt chose to keep, out of the things she picked up, and bring into the house and display. Everything else I have described was chosen by me.
What could you do with this book excerpt in your classroom? You can make any assumptions you like about the context it is used in. Post your ideas in the comments below. All ideas are welcome (there are no wrong answers!)
Click here to find out the idea behind this blog. Click here for an Amazon affiliate link if you’d like to buy the book and support me with a few pennies.
I was very happy to see James continuing my sadly neglected ideas of (Almost) Infinite ELT Ideas last month with his post on speech bubbles.
Take a look at his blog to see three (so far!) great suggestions for how to use them in class. What else would you do with them?
Joss Klinck just shared this fantastic photo of two women rock climbing in Edinburgh in around 1908.
It was part of an article from Edinburgh Live about the Ladies Scottish Climbing Club. The other photo in the article is marked as being from Wikimedia Commons, but I’m not sure about the photo above – please let me know if the climbing photo is not Commons too!
It immediately took me down two different routes: one about questioning stereotypes, perhaps by showing the group photo from the article and asking students to make assumptions, then showing this photo, or by doing some kind of gradual reveal and asking students to work out what’s going on. The other route is as a speaking prompt for a lead in to a sports or extreme sports lesson.
What else could you do with this image and article in your classroom? You can make any assumptions you like about the context they are used in. Post your ideas in the comments below. All ideas are welcome (there are no wrong answers!)
Click here to find out the idea behind this blog.
Cartoon from xkcd.com https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/emoji_sports.png, shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License.
This cartoon popped up in my blog feed the other day, and I immediately thought it would make a fun addition to any sports lesson. You could show the students some of the emoticon combinations and ask them to match them to the names, then come up with the rules for this particular sport, especially if they’re not feeling very creative and are unable to come up with their own sport (the classic activity!)
What else could you do with this cartoon in your classroom? You can make any assumptions you like about the context they are used in. Post your ideas in the comments below. All ideas are welcome (there are no wrong answers!)
Click here to find out the idea behind this blog.
On Sunday, Milada Krajewska and I were looking for the amazing playphrase.me, which Anthony Schmidt had introduced to me a couple of months ago and I’d forgotten the name of. It’s a kind of audio corpus, where you can search for a particular word or phrase and it will find a series of examples from films and TV shows. It’s designed for language learners, and you can also help them to add to their database of phrases. Here’s an example for ‘if you know what I mean‘:
In the process, we came across Yarn, another tool to find video clips by quote. The interface isn’t as good as playphrase, the clips aren’t always cut smoothly and you have to manually select the next clip. However, if you choose carefully, it could work well for dictations practising connected speech, especially because each video is on a loop until you stop it. Here’s the same phrase, ‘if you know what I mean‘, on Yarn:
What would you do with these two tools in your classroom? You can make any assumptions you like about the context they are used in. Post your ideas in the comments below. All ideas are welcome (there are no wrong answers!)
Click here to find out the idea behind this blog.
Manhattan office windows by Vladimir Kudinov on Unsplash
At IATEFL 2015 I learnt about The role of the image in materials design from Ceri Jones and Ben Goldstein. One of the sources they recommended following was Unsplash, who send out a selection of photos to your email every week, all of which are available under a Creative Commons 0 license, meaning they can be used for free without requesting permission first. The photos are always beautiful, and I found this one particularly striking.
What would you do with this image in your classroom? You can make any assumptions you like about the context it is used in. Post your ideas in the comments below. All ideas are welcome (there are no wrong answers!)
You might also like to extend it by using the ELTpics Windows and Doors or Urban collections.
Click here to find out the idea behind this blog.
Ever wondered what it’s like at the top? (my photo)
The BBC gave a crane driver a camera to film his commute to the cab of his crane, then show what he does every day. It’s something I’ve often wondered about, and I found the thought very interesting – I don’t think I could do that job! If you’re in the UK, you can find the link here. Outside the UK, you need to go via the Britain homepage. [If someone could send me the exact link, that would be great!]
What would you do with this video and article in your classroom? You can make any assumptions you like about the context they are used in. Post your ideas in the comments below. All ideas are welcome (there are no wrong answers!)
Click here to find out the idea behind this blog.
30 tasks for new teachers to help them learn to reflect on their teaching, as well as build up an online community. Also great as a refresher for experienced teachers, or as session prompts for trainers and managers. The ebook is just £5/€5.50 - less than the price of a cinema ticket! Also available as a paperback. What are you waiting for? Get your copy today!
30 tasks for teacher trainers to help them learn to reflect on their teaching, as well as build up an online community.
A collection of techniques for adapting speaking activities. Click the image to read more and to find links to purchase it for less than 1 USD a copy! (Sandy's ebook, published by the round)
(Almost) Infinite ELT Ideas 