World Elephant Day – 12 August, 2015

9 Aug

August 12 is World Elephant Day, so here are some activities about elephants. Speaking Activity Put students in small groups. Assign one of them the role of a note-taker. Then give students a few minutes to answer the question, “What’s … Read More »

World Ocean Day – June 8, 2015

6 Jun

Take 5 minutes of class time for World Ocean Day. You can print the poster (above), or play the one-minute audio (below),

Loop Listening

12 Nov

I like to use audio loops for listening activities. Students in small groups hear the words a lot of times until they recreate the text.

Who’s Got What? Fruits

30 Jul

Hey! You may have seen a demonstration of Who’s Got What? at a conference. I’m putting these audios online for a limited time. I would love any comments, as these are pilots and I’m trying to perfect them before they … Read More »

Who’s Got What? Objects

17 Aug

You know that game where somebody has three cups and they put a little ball under one and then move them around, and your job is to keep you eye on the one with the ball, and say where it … Read More »

Phrasal Verbs In The Beatles, An Audio Crossword

28 Jun

Click to enlarge. That’s right. This crossword has audio clues. There is one mp3 file for “Across” clues, and one for “Down” clues. Your task, when listening to the very short clips from Beatles tunes, is to isolate and identify … Read More »

Venera Rotation Dictation

31 Jul

Here’s how to do a rotation dictation. It’s a lot of fun. Step 1 Put students in teams of three or four. One person will be a Writer. The others will be Runners. Introduce students to the words/phrases they might … Read More »

Sound Pile

20 Jun

It’s a simple activity – so small and easy and quick that it’s practically a crime not to do it. Play the audio file. Students will hear 10 sounds, more or less piled on top of each other, within the … Read More »

Sound Effect Bingo

19 Jun

This is how you do this fun activity: Step 1. Understand the Language of Sound Hand out the list of sounds (see below). Give students a few minutes to look it over. One easy way to proceed is to ask … Read More »

The Sound Of Blank Blanking

5 Dec

Here’s another sort of sound dictation, but this one promotes understanding of word partners (or collocations). Tell students to number from 1-10 on a piece of paper. Play the audio. It’s the students’ job to identify the source of the … Read More »