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Video is often used in the EFL classroom for listening comprehension activities, facilitating discussions and, of course, language work. But how can you exploit silent films without any language in them? Since developing learners' linguistic resources should be our primary goal (well, at least the blogger behind the blog thinks so), here are four suggestions on how language (grammar and vocabulary) can be generated from silent clips. Split-viewing Split-viewing is an information gap activity where the class is split into groups with one group facing the screen and the other with their back to the screen. The ones facing the screen than report on what they have seen - this can be done WHILE as well as AFTER they watch. Alternatively, students who are not watching (the ones sitting with their backs to the screen) can be send out of the classroom and come up with a list of the questions to ask the 'watching group'. This works particularly well with action or crime scenes with ...

Images by Tim Evanson ,   Gene  Hunt &  Alex Alishevskikh  via Flickr As usual, as a follow up to the traditional end-of-year news quiz, here are language-focused activities aimed at reviewing and consolidating lexis from quiz. If you haven't seen the news quiz 2013, click HERE This is how I usually use the quiz with my students. Please note the quiz and the activities below come in two levels. Lesson 1 : (first lesson of a new year) Students answer the questions the quiz. Optionally, I may give out the correct answers. We highlight interesting chunks of language (see the teachers' notes that accompany the quiz) Lesson 2 : Students' mini-presentations on the news stories they chose in Lesson 1 OR the ones they didn't know the answers to. Vocabulary review and practice 1. (available in two levels) Lesson 3 : Vocabulary review and practice 2 (available in two levels) Scroll all the way down for the teachers' notes for the vocabulary activities for both levels. ...

Photo by Sandy Millin via eltpics A bit less heavy on political news this year and featuring more sports, showbiz and gossip items, here is my traditional annual news quiz. As in the previous years, it is available in two levels: upper-intermediate/advanced and lower intermediate, and comes complete with 7-page teachers notes (scroll all the way down). The notes contain ideas on how to use the quiz in class and, no less importantly, how to explore the language. Check back in the first days of the New Year for vocabulary review activities ( update - click here ) Quiz The London Olympics kicked off with a spectacular and at times peculiar Opening Ceremony directed by the acclaimed British director Danny Boyle. Who jumped from a helicopter as part of the Opening Ceremony?  In October 2012 the New York Stock Exchange was closed for two consecutive days for the first time in over a hundred years. What caused the shutdown? The music video for "Gangnam Style" by the Korean singer P...

April 30th is celebrated in the USA and some other countries as Honesty Day. To mark this day, Billy Joel's classic ballad was an obvious choice for my upper-intermediate students but then I also decided to develop some activities around it. The activity outlined below is suitable for both teen and adult learners at Upper-Intermediate (B2) level and up Outline Step 1 - Discussion Before the discussion you can brainstorm with your students examples of dishonesty (e.g. lying, cheating in an exam, stealing etc) Step 2 - Situations I found a quiz on the CBS website which I adapted for this activity. I was very tempted to use "What would you do?" to get the students to practise hypothetical modal would but "What do you do?" seemed more natural in the given context. Step 3 - Song Gapfill activities with songs can be a trite affair; however using them before listening is highly beneficial especially if you gap parts of a collocation or another common expression - and s...

This activity based on Beyonce's song is suitable for older teens and adults at pre-intermediate level and up. The lesson plan is based on the listening activity template I blogged about earlier (click here ). An Interactive WhiteBoard (IWB) is desirable but not essential. IWB techniques Two IWB techniques are used here: in the pre- and post-listening stages of the lesson. Drag-and-Drop Display the  If I were.. . activity on IWB and elicit from students which statement should go in which column ( Boys' answers / Girls' answers ). Drag them to the appropriate columns or get one of your students to do it. There might be some confusion here as the statements should not correspond with what they do but with what they would do (if they were boys/girls). This later can be exploited to focus on the hypothetical nature of would. Erase-and-Reveal Colour over the answers on IWB page 3 with white ink. Then reveal one by one as you go through the answers with the class. The rest of th...

Pre-listening activities: what to focus on? At last year's IATEFL conference in Brighton I was at a presentation on teaching listening where I got into a bit of an argument with the speaker. I don't know if it was my nerves before my own, first presentation at IATEFL but I wasn't on my best behaviour, which I later regretted. The whole situation was rather ridiculous. Even more ridiculous was the fact that in principle I agreed with the presenter who argued that there is little benefit in pre-teaching vocabulary before listening activities - I wouldn't agree though with his claim the word "prowl", one my favourite words in English, is useless :) There is an interesting piece of research to substantiate the speaker's argument, which he surprisingly did not mention. Chang and Read (2006) administered a listening comprehension test to160 students who were divided into four groups and received a different kind of support: 1.     Providing background informatio...