Speaking Part Three - You've done all the teaching of the various skills and phrases and now all the students need to do is to practise. This is a small, two slide power point that I like to have up on screen when my FCE & CAE students are practising this part of the exam. For the discussion it reminds them of how they should be interacting and how they need to develop their ideas and the discussion is better if both they and their partner give opinions about the same idea. The second slide is for the conclusion and helps them stage this part of the exam, avoiding either finishing too quickly or getting bogged down in a continuation of the discussion. Black text is what they should be doing, red text is the language they can use to do it.

The history of the universe in a 1 minute song - what's not to like? The theme tune to the US Sitcom The Big Bang Theory is a wonderfully geeky song by The BareNakedLadies. It runs through all of the major events in the history of the universe in about a minute and lends itself really well to speculation and discussion. Warm-up In order for the main activity to be successful, it's good to guide students towards some likely answers first. Get them to discuss these questions in pairs or small groups: 1. What was the universe like at the start? (think of some adjectives to describe it) 2. What happened 100-200 thousand years ago 3.8 billion years ago? 4.5 billion years ago? 3. How did the earth have to change in order for the first life to evolve? 4. What caused the extinction of the dinosaurs? why? 5. What made early humans different to other animals? Pre-listening Task Give students the song lyrics with missing words and get them to speculate about what might go in each space. Don't expect students to have all the answers, the key is that they think about what kind of information is likely. Online: share the powerpoint below so they can look in pairs. BigBang no music.pptx Classroom: print the handout below: Listening Task Students listen to check their answers. Again, if you're teaching online, share the second powerpoint so that students can listen in pairs. BigBang music.pptx Or, just show them the video:

For Cambridge exams (especially PET) students need to be able to reply to an informal letter or email. They need to use structures to begin and end their letters effectively and to refer back and respond to the message in the exam question (see image below). This post has activities for referring back to points made in the exam task and at the bottom of the page you'll see a link for my previous post on starting the letter. This activity uses really useful phrases which I stole from Michele Rankin at The School (thanks Shelly!) In the letter above, I have used these phrases to refer back to the email in the exam task: Your idea about ............. sounds great! Regarding your question about ............., I use this PowerPoint to practise using the phrases: Informal Writing Responding to Questions and Suggestions HighImpactEnglish.pptx Once students have practised this and the previous activity for starting their letter (here), give them some exam-style letter questions for homework. They should now be ready to pass letter writing exam tasks!

For Cambridge exams (especially PET) students need to be able to reply to an informal letter or email. They need to use structures to begin and end their letters effectively and to refer back and respond to the message in the exam question (see image below). This post has activities for starting the letter and at the bottom of the page you'll see a link for my post on referring back to points made in the exam task. Starting the letter I think it's really important that students refer back to the letter they have received (whether in real life, or in an exam) so I give my students a phrase like: Thanks for your letter, I'm so glad that ..(thing that they said in the letter). What wonderful news! If it's a B2 class or higher, I might add some extra layers and use something like: Thanks for your letter. It's wonderful to hear from you, and I'm so glad that ..... I'm not much of an expert on ............. to be honest but I'll do my best to help. Next, I give them a series of situations to respond to orally, with Dear name and the opening phrase: Chris is doing a project on prerodactyls Marta has joined a religeous cult Bill is going to be the next president of Space, Lucia is going to space Obviously, it adds to their engagement if you use student names for this. Here is a PowerPoint that I use with lots of silly situations: Informal Letter - Respond to situation HighImpactEnglish.pptx or (in case you have problems accessing it) as a PDF At the end of the activity. Ask students to swap notebooks and write the opening of a letter to their partner responding to some good news: Dear Ling, Thanks for your letter. I'm so glad that you have just won the lottery, what absolutely wonderful news! Then swap again and write another opening paragraph addressed to the notebook owner. This time responding to bad news: Dear Natacha, Thanks for your letter. I'm so sorry that you have lost your pencil, what absolutely terrible news! Students have now practised starting their letters by speaking and writing and everyone has a record of the structures in their notebook - stage one complete!

It's often tempting to shy away from formal letter writing as the language involved is so distinct from spoken English and it can seem like such a dry topic. However, writing formal emails and letters is one of the skills students are most likely to benefit from in the real world and it really doesn't need to be dull. Here is a basic template which I give to my FCE and CAE students to help them approach the most common types of formal letter: I usually give them the template before class and ask them to learn some of the phrases, then in class I share this powerpoint: Formal Letter Practice HighImpactEnglish.pptx For online classes I give it to students to go through it in pairs, but it could equally be displayed on the classroom whiteboard. The PowerPoint has a series of prompts for silly versions of the three principal formal letter types: Complaining, Appying, Requesting information. In pairs, students predict/remember the exact phrases to begin each letter, then use prompts on subsequent slides to "say" (not write) the middle. After going through the four letters outlined in the PowerPoint, they should feel much more confident about the language they need in a formal letter or email. Finally, set them a more conventional formal letter for homework to consolidate.

Communication is king, long live communication! As the students grow in both confidence and level we want them to communicate with each other and use the language to have natural (well, as natural as possible in the classroom environment) conversations with each other. However, responding to other people is a skill and we need to make sure that the students have the ability to respond to each other in order to turn single utterances into conversations. This is a mingling activity I usually take my students through early on in a B1 course, although you can do it with lower levels or indeed higher levels if you feel they would benefit from a refresher in how to respond to one another. Instructions Before the lesson I usually write up sentences using some structures we have done recently in class and cut then up into individual strips, one sentence per piece of paper. I like to do these myself in order to review language but also to ensure a variety of structures are used. You can, of course, get the students to write their own sentences. Commenting Start by eliciting a finish to a simple sentence, such as - I like... So you end up with something like I like pizza written on the board. I tend to role play as 2 students; the first student saying the sentence and then the second student just looking blankly at them. I ham it up a lot. Of course, if you've got a good rapport with your students you could ask one of them to read the sentence and then just blankly stare at them. Whatever works. Elicit what was wrong - There was no response! Then elicit/teach phrases and words to respond. Importantly at this stage all the students have to do is share words or short phrases. Play with the idea of how you say the words being as important as what you say, especially with the, "How...!". You might find teen classes enjoy being sarcastic. At this stage we don't want to be using questions, that'll come later. The mingle activity: With the words up on a power point or on the board each student takes a piece of paper, mingles (making sure they talk to everyone in the class) reading their sentence, getting a response and then responding to their partner's sentence. Everyone sits down. Asking a question for more information Repeat step 5, this time eliciting questions that the listener could ask to get more information. Repeat step 6, this time with people responding to the sentence with a question, which the student responds to. For the sake of variety I tend to get them to change their sentence. Everyone sits down. Adding a question to involve the listener Repeat step 5, this time eliciting questions that could be added to the end of the sentence to involve the listener. Your students will probably point out that the questions are more or less the same, which is what we want as it shows they are paying attention. Repeat step 6, this time with the students tacking the question onto the end of their sentence. Make sure they create a new question for each partner! Everyone sits down. Final pair work activity to bring it all together Each pair picks one of the sentences and using the 3 things practised earlier in the activity have a conversation using that sentence as the starting sentence. I usually ask them to go for 3 minutes but you can make it more or less depending on level (or motivation!) Notes Where I teach we have projectors that project onto the white boards so I normally have power points with some of the language and a space to add students suggestions. Note taking: either give them time to copy down the phrases or have them take a photo. If you want them to take notes and the students aren't big fans of taking I usually give them the option of writing down their favourite 3 or 4 phrases/questions. At the end of the activity I usually tell them this is how I expect them to interact during all speaking activities during the course. I've attached some sample sentences I have used in the past and a power point that can be used to teach the language.

Helping students identify what they must write about in the writing part of the Cambridge First Exam. Rationale With the way the Cambridge exams are marked it's really important that the students stay on topic and answer the specific questions asked of them. Content is 25% of the mark. There is always a topic and some specific points or questions that must be addressed. For example, above is the letter and the review from the Cambridge First for Schools Handbook. It's really important for exam candidates to identify what the task is and what information must be included in their answer. I always have my students highlight the key points and idea before they write and put a tick or a smiley face next to these questions/idea when they have added them to their plan (I get my students to plan and then check that they have everything needed in their plan on the grounds that it's easier to adjust/add to a plan than it is to a 200 odd word piece of writing. I always tell my students to pause after they have done their plan and check for content at this stage). Anyway, taking a look at the above questions: The letter Topic: A place that is special TO YOU! It's important, especially for the essay, that students identify the specific slant the question has been given. It's not just special places here. They are specifically asked to write about a place that is important to them, not their country, not their grandparents, not their teacher, them. Specific questions: Where is this place? What does it look like? Why is it important to you? The Review Topic: A clothes shop FOR TEENAGERS WHERE YOU LIVE Specific information to include: What the shop looks like The kind of clothes the shop sells The shop assistants Would you recommend it to people your age? In order to get a good mark with regards to content they need to make sure they cover all these points. So, how can we help the students do this on their own? The activity The first thing to do is play the students the following Star Wars clip, asking them what the fighter pilots are told to do and what this means for them in terms of the written exam. Make sure you stop the video after about 8 seconds as at the end the pilot told to stay on target gets blown up and that's not really the message we want to convey. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnP5iDKwuwk If your students don't get the connection (it is a bit tenuous), tell them it's about how important it is to answer the questions in the written exam. Then, show the slides from the PowerPoint. For each slide: Identify the topic and the specific questions. Then have them, in pairs, answer the questions. Give each pair one minute. One person speaks, their partner holds up the correct number of fingers for the number of things the person speaking needs to mention. As each idea/question is mentioned the partner drops one of their fingers. Finish after a minute or when everything has been mentioned. The person listening can wave their fingers around as a prompt to help their partner or even ask a question to guide them. Best to have them hold up their fingers with their palms facing outwards, we don't want to be rude. Swap roles for the next slide Notes Some of the questions are quite strange. This is for two reasons. Firstly to try and make this idea more memorable, so it sticks but secondly, as it gives us, as teachers, the opportunity to remind the students that if they don't know (what their best friend's next door neighbour's daughter's teacher's favourite colour is) they should invent and/or speculate. A useful reminder for the speaking parts of the exam too.

Discussing and sharing ideas and opinions is a common part not only of the communicative classroom but also most of the exams we are likely to be preparing students for. This is a fun activity that can be used to review the language once it has been taught in order to help the language stick and avoid the students constantly leading into their ideas with the dreaded, "I think..." The great thing about this activity is that it can be used with any discussion based activity in class, whether it's one you've come up with yourself, one from your coursebook or exam practice. Once you've got the discussion activity you want to use this with either bring up on the screen or hand out the phrases you want to review but with key words replaced by the relevant form of 'dance'. Examples supplied here. The students do the speaking task as normal but using the modified phrases. As with most faintly ridiculous activities it works best if they students really go for it. Afterwards clarify the phrases with them and hopefully these phrases will be easier for the students to access in the future. Materials Ready to use:

A recurring issue for EFL students is deciding between the infinitive or gerund verb form. It's a decision they face whenever they put more than one verb into a clause and yet, even after years of study, many learners still have difficulty making the right choice. There are two main reasons for this. First, the infinitive/gerund option probably doesn't exist in the same way in their first language. Second, teachers and learning material often shy away from explaining why the two forms exist and what role they should perform. To students the explanation may feel a bit like this: "want is followed by to and enjoy is followed by -ing because........ just because. Now memorise it!". Learning the lists of verbs which are followed by to verb or verbing without any deeper understanding is fine for some students, but for others it can be frustrating and what happens when we come across the verbs which weren't on the list? Ok, so let's do better! In many languages, unconjugated verbs almost always take the same (infinitive) form - no thinking required, so the distinction between "I like dancing" and "I would like to dance" is probably not at all intuitive to learners. There is a difference however and the two verb forms exist only because they have distinct functions. Let's present some clues: Have I been to the beach yet? I want to go to the beach today. I regret going to the beach today. I remember going to the beach today. I was planning to go to the beach today. I loved going to the beach today. I would love to go to the beach today. If you look at the sentences above, whenever the action has yet to occur we use the to go form. In order to choose correctly between the gerund and infinitive, students need to understand the following: The infinitive is used to describe the second of 2 actions/events The gerund is used to talk about an action/event which happened before or at the same time. Some people find this tricky to get their head around (hence the need for examples like the beach one above) and of course there are some exceptions which have to be learnt. The powerpoint below has information and activities which my students found helpful. HighImpactEnglish Infinitive or Gerund .pptx n.b. click on the slide itself rather than the page arrows for the animations to work.

Motivational quotes from famous people and an upbeat Imagine Dragons song to inspire students to discuss their own motivation and how they can achieve their goals. Includes a couple of Cambridge Exam style gap fill activities, phrasal verbs and a chance to practise reported speech. Warmer Dictate this for students to note down: Be bananas Look out for the banana This is the banana of our lives and we're going to banana Whatever it bananas! Explain that there may be some inaccuracies in the speech. Play the captain America clip 0.30-0.44. Students listen and change incorrect words. (careful / each other / the fight / to win / takes) Students discuss these questions in pairs: Do you think of yourself as highly motivated? Think of some famous examples of people who faced a huge challenge and were willing to do “whatever it takes” Famous High-Achievers Motivation Famous Quotes.pptx Show Slides 2 and 3 of the PowerPoint above. Each time you click it will progressively reveal more information about a famous person. In pairs students have to guess who it is. You could gamify it: The first pair to answer correctly gets a point. Each pair is only allowed to give one answer. (if you have one or two students who tend to dominate this kind of activity, get the class to write on mini whiteboards and show their answers at the end). Phrasal Verbs The biographies include a number of useful phrasal verbs (highlighted) Slide 4 has a gap fill exercise to review them and recap the main points of each person. Motivational Quotes Once you have introduced the famous figures, give each group a set of the 10 motivational quotes and ask them to predict who each one is by. Display Slide 5 while they do this. Then use Slides 6 and 7 to reveal the answers. Reported speech Ask students to tell you what each person said using reported speech and write down 3 quotes they like in reported structure. Slides 8 and 9 show some of the quotes with the words which need to change highlighted in red. Song Lyric gap-fill activities for intermediate, Upper-intermediate and Advanced are all in this document: Whatever it takes - imagine dragons.docx Verse 1 Give students the gap-fill for the first verse, either on paper or by displaying it on the board. It's designed as a part 2 Use of English exercise, so students should be able to predict the words before listening. Here are verse 1 lyrics with the potential grammar gaps (depending on difficulty). Falling too fast to prepare for this Tripping in the world could be dangerous Everybody circling, it's vulturous, negative, nepotist Everybody waiting for the fall of man Everybody praying for the end of times Everybody hoping they could be the one I was born to run, I was born for this When students have had time to guess the missing words, play 0.00 - 0.28 to check. Pre-Chorus Next, give students the "pre-chorus" table with picture clues (see image) and allow them a minute to speculate about possible answers then play 0.28 - 0.41. Chorus Finally, display the chorus and ask students to guess what words might go in the spaces. Then play 0.41-1.11. Whatever it _____ 'Cause I love the _____ in my veins I do whatever it ______ 'Cause I love how it feels when I break the ____ Whatever it _____ Yeah, take me to the ______ I'm ready for whatever it _____ 'Cause I love the ________ in my veins I do what it ____ Song Follow up If the class liked the song, share this lyrics training link so they can practice at home. Motivation Follow up So, we've opened them up to the topic of goals and played some super positive power rock to get learners upbeat and motivated and now it's time for the killer blow: What are your English Goals? To improve your vocabulary? To pass a test? Are you going to do "what it takes?" Once students have identified their objectives, ask them to come up with 3 things that they can do to achieve them. Board some suggestions from the class then get students to write down what they will do this week to achieve their goal. If this class is going to have any effect, it's really important the target is to do something in the short term and try and establish habits that remain once the enthusiasm inevitably wears off! Writing Follow up My Pet students chose interesting goals, then wrote a writing part 2 style article for homework: Write an article about an achievement. What was your achievement? Why did you want to achieve it? What did you do in order to achieve it? How did you feel when you achieved it? (I was very keen for them to learn the word "achieve"!) In the next class we did roleplay celebrity interviews in which they discussed their successes.

Catchy Taylor Swift song with a fun visual video promoting tolerance and gay rights. Leads nicely towards debating social issues and a roleplay in which students take on extreme liberal or conservative personas. Warmer Set the Scene. The first few activities can be done with either one of these: You Need to Calm Down Lower.pptx You Need to Calm Down Higher.pptx Play the song (or part of it) sound only as background during a previous activity or as students walk into class. Anyone know this song? Who do you think it's by? Slide 2 (lower only) – You´re going to see these activities (run through vocab – click on image to reveal) Slide 3 – You´re going to see these people. Do you recognise any of them? (for a full list of the video's cameo appearances, see this article) Show the video. Play 0.00 - 2.04. Can spot the celebrities? Try to remember what they are doing. Slide 4: Students recount what they saw tell each other what they saw “first I saw Ellen getting married” What is the video about? What do the celebrities have in common? Language focus and Listening Slides 5-9 go through lyrics. In each slide you can play the relevant section by clicking on the speaker in the top right corner. Every time you click elsewhere on the slide, it will reveal more of the lyrics (the reason they are yellow rather than blacked out is it allows you to write over it on the board if you wish) Spot the Pop Queen Speculation and Fun Tell students they are going to see 8 of the world's most famous singers on stage and ask them to see how many they can recognise. Play 2.17 - 2.40. Slide 10 Students speculate about who each queen is imitating. Slide 11 Reveal the answers Follow up Debating Social Issues Calm Down Debates.pptx Calm Down Debates Advanced.pptx The song critiques socially conservative viewpoints (ironically, there is little tolorerance of the intolerant). Slide 2: Show a reactionary and stereotypical hippy. What issues might these two characters differ on? Optional Grammar Activity (B1-2) The idea of this is to showcase a mock debate and encourage longer more complex language in the next task using linkers. Slide 3: This shows a mock debate between these two characters on the issue of car use - students have to place the linking words. Slide 4: remember key vocabulary. Debating Game Slide 5: students choose a topic, then toss a coin. They then have to adopt a role depending on the coin toss. Slide 5has phrases for introducing and responding to opinions, or you may choose to use slide 6 in order to focus on a different language aspect. In my experience, teens tend to really enjoy taking on extreme viewpoints and embrace the freedom of taking on an alternative identity. However, the activity doesn't always go so well with adult groups who may prefer to debate the issues without adopting roles.

Ingeniously funny and catchy song with lots of useful language. This lesson is a regular favourite for kids and adults alike and easy to teach. In order to make the most of the language, I've included several follow-up activities which you can return to in subsequent classes. Optional Warmer Introduce the topic of The Darwin Awards, get students to rank the activities on Slide 3 (see ppt. below) in terms of stupidity. Play the Song. You may choose to pause during each chorus, to recap what each of the characters did. Go Through the PowerPoint Gap-Fill Activities. The Powerpoint below has 3 sets of questions based on the song, each a little trickier than the last. HighImpactEnglish Dumbways to Die.pptx On each slide you can play the relevant part of the song by clicking on the speaker in the bottom right-hand corner. If you're teaching online, try giving the PowerPoint to your students directly via email or whatever sharing platform you use. This allows them to take control and stronger or weaker pairs can work with different difficulty levels. Because the song is entertaining, you'll probably find they genuinely want to learn it and you can give them more control over the activity. Follow up 1 Project the image on Slide 23 on the whiteboard. Students throw a ball at the board and have to identify the action for whichever character they hit in order to claim it for their team. Follow up 2 Use the grid on slide 25 to play noughts and crosses (TicTacToe/Line of 3). Students have to identify the dumb deed in order to claim the square for their team.