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Activities for reviewing and recycling the language  from News Quiz 2021 Image credits: NASA  [PD];  TapTheForwardAssist  [CC BY-SA 4.0]; Glenn Francis  [CC BY-SA 4.0] I hope you enjoyed the latest edition of the News Quiz and didn't find too difficult. Like last year, the follow-up activities come in different formats, most of which can be edited and adapted for your needs. These include drag'n'drop activities on LearningApps, one matching activity on WordWall (Intermediate level only) and 'traditional' worksheets in PDF/editable Google Docs. If you haven't seen News Quiz 2021 - click HERE Accompanying Quizlet sets :  https://quizlet.com/leosel/folders/news-quiz-2021/  (two for Advanced and one for Intermediate level) The activities are grouped by level according to the two versions of the News Quiz. Online activities Advanced (B2+/C1) Drag'n'drop 1a  https://learningapps.org/watch?v=pb8myy57522 (preview below) Drag'n'drop 1b  https://...

Photo by Hello I'm Nik on Unsplash This blog is alive! And so is the blogger. Yes, as you can see, I've survived the apocalypse and am proud to present the 2021 edition of the traditional News Quiz. Unlike the previous year, the news stories related to coronavirus (oops, COVID-19) are kept to a minimum. But just like last year, the quiz is available in three formats: Google Slides, Quizizz and a PDF / editable Google Docs. The first two can be used in both in-person and remote teaching scenarios, while the last one is suitable for face-to-face teaching only. Also, I've kept the multiple choice format from last year to keep the trivia part of the activity brief and devote more time to the language. The quiz is available in two levels: Advanced (B2+/C1 or higher) Intermediate (B1/B2) and three formats, all of which are editable so you can adapt them if you wish. a Google Slides presentation. To edit, click on File -> Make a copy a Google Doc. To edit, click on File -...

Activities for reviewing and recycling the language  from News Quiz 2020 Image credits: Frankie Fouganthin  [CC BY-SA 4.0],  TenAsia  [CC BY 3.0],  U.S. Secretary of Defense   [CC BY 2.0] - via Wikimedia Commons The traditional news quiz has changed its format this year so the follow up, which usually consists of paper-and-pen activities, had to follow suit. I've created a series of interactive online activities on WordWall and LearningApps, which you can adapt if necessary and share with your students. There are also 'traditional' worksheets in Word and PDF, which those of you teaching remotely can display via ScreenShare on Zoom or Teams or simply send to students by email. If you haven't seen News Quiz 2020 - click HERE . See also this Jeopardy version (Advanced level) kindly shared by a colleague of mine, Marlene Saban Accompanying Quizlet sets ( work in progress ):  https://quizlet.com/leosel/folders/news-quiz-2020/ The activities are groupe...

Photos of the Week section in The Atlantic Although the lockdown restrictions are gradually being eased in many countries, remote teaching is still in effect - and looks set to continue for the unforeseeable future. Here is an activity I’ve been using a lot at the beginning of my Zoom lessons lately. I suppose you can call it a warmer. Activity Level:   any - but would work best with B1+ students; a bit of a struggle for A2 but can be done with a lot of support from the teacher Focus:  Speaking and later  Writing Aim:   Come up with captions for memorable images depicting current events  Preparation Google: BBC Week in Pictures . Find the latest one. The new photo collection is always published on Saturday so, at the moment of writing this, the latest one is for the week of 16 - 22 May 2020:  www.bbc.com/news/in-pictures-52768835 Other sources are I use are: - The Guardian  - 20 Photographs of the Week:  www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/series/twe...

Image credits: Frankie Fouganthin ; Milliped ; SounderBruce ; under Creative Commons license [CC BY-SA 4.0] Activities for reviewing lexis from News Quiz 2019 Some of my followers have already been asking me for follow-up activities, particularly Quizlet sets, for the traditional end-of-year news quiz, which I posted last week. Incidentally, it was the 10th News Quiz I'd posted here, on my blog (you can see all of them HERE ), since I first launched the blog at the end of 2010...  by posting News Quiz 2010 . So, how's that for a #10yearchallenge? I'm actually surprised I've kept at it for so long! As usual, there are lots of activities here aimed at practising and expanding on the vocabulary and a bit of grammar) from the news quiz - about 4-5 pages for each level. These can be spread across and integrated into a series of lessons; some of them can be done at home, others are more suitable for You can download the activities in Word and edit/adapt them as you wich. They...

Traditional end-of-year news quiz for the first lesson of the new year Photo by Katherine Cheng [CC BY-ND 2.0] via Flickr  Just as I finished working on this, a thought crossed my mind: perhaps it should have been an end-of-decade news quiz this time? Ah well... Anyhow, in keeping with the tradition, here's an end-of-year quiz based on the hottest news stories of the past year. It's a usual mix of politics, sports and entertainment - but no mention of Brexit whatsoever! And as usual, it's packed with lots of lexical chunks and other vocabulary items for your students to explore. The quiz is available in two levels: - Intermediate (B1+/B2-) including a multiple choice version - Advanced (B2/C1 or higher) Both versions can be downloaded in Word format if you wish to adapt them. Some questions are adapted from  News Quiz: 2019 in review  in The New York Times The Intermediate level quiz has been checked using  English Vocabulary Profile  (EVP) and  VocabProfi...

Activities for reviewing lexis from News Quiz 2018 Image credits: John Bauld   flic.kr/p/McsiQi [CC BY 2.0]; Alisdare Hickson flic.kr/p/24W89b5 [CC BY-SA 2.0]; NASA [PD image] I hope you and - your students - liked the end-of-year news quiz, which I posted last week. As always, it is followed up by lots of activities aimed at reviewing and consolidating the language from the quiz, which I share below. If you haven't seen the news quiz, it's not to late - click  HERE You can preview the activities below or download them in Word format and edit/adapt them as you wish. The key (answers) and teachers' notes are provided at the end of each level. UPDATE: a Quizlet set for advanced level: quizlet.com/_5wm0we   Downloads Intermediate (B1+/B2) with Answer Key click  HERE  to download Word doc or preview below: Advanced (C1+) with Answer Key click  HERE  to download Word doc or preview below:  

Photo by Hana Ticha via eltpics on Flickr A friend of mine has mastered English - which is attested by a CPE certificate - by looking up a word and carefully studying examples in a dictionary every day before going to bed. It was before the days of online dictionaries, so he was using a copy of the excellent Longman Dictionary for Advanced Learners . In the 1990s learners' dictionaries, such as Longman or Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary (OALD), started breaking away from the native speaker dictionary format (such as dictionary.com ) by introducing two innovations. First, they started providing definitions using a controlled vocabulary - in the case of Longman it was the Longman Defining Vocabulary (LDV), a carefully graded list of the 2000 most frequent words in English, similar to West's General Service List (GSL). Second, they shifted the emphasis from purely defining meanings to highlighting usage through carefully chosen examples. As dictionary publishers moved ...

Activities for reviewing the language from News Quiz 2017 Collage made with photos by www.kremlin.ru [CC BY 4.0],  Beyoncé ( @beyonce )  on Instagram [fair use], Alex Fau on Flickr https://flic.kr/p/qKyoQ2 [CC BY 2.0] I hope you enjoyed the traditional end-of-year news quiz I posted  last week .  As promised, here's a follow up: lots of activities aimed at reviewing and practising vocabulary (and a bit of grammar) from the quiz. If you haven't seen the news quiz, click  HERE . You can preview the activities below or download them in Word format and edit/adapt them as you wish. This year, the key (answers) and teachers' notes are provided at the end of each level - not as a separate file. For a suggested sequence of activities, see last year's News Quiz Follow Up - click HERE Update : Vocabulary from the quiz on Quizlet:  https://quizlet.com/leosel/folders/news-quiz-2017/ Downloads Advanced level (with answer key) click  HERE  to download Word doc...

Photo by Christina Martidou via ELTpics on Flickr How do you explain the notion of collocation to your students?  Apart from using this great song , I often employ this simple technique: I write on the board: make and   do (in the left column), homework and a mistake (in the right) and ask students to match. I then use the matched combinations ( do+homework ; make+mistake ) as a springboard to talk about how certain words go with certain other words, how these combinations may seem arbitrary and how they may differ significantly from the learners' L1. In fact, in many languages do and make correspond to the same word: cf. ~ faire in French; ~ делать (dyelat') in Russian, which shows how words with similar meanings often differ in their collocational behaviour.  To illustrate this phenomenon, Michael Halliday, the founder of Systemic Functional Linguistics, who coined the term "lexicogrammar",  used the words powerful  and strong . In his 1966 article, Hall...