Responding correctly to negative statements can be a bit tricky for some students. For example, you might say to a student:
      You didn't finish your homework?
    Some people will naturally say:
      Yes, I didn't!
    Although we can understand what the student means (most of the time, anyway,) this lesson gives them a chance to practice responding accurately to negative statements.
    This is a Tri-Work (3-student) activity. Students have to discover the items that they promised to bring (but forgot) to a pre-planned camping trip.
    'You Didn't Bring The Tent' is also very flexible; higher-ability learners can get involved with suggesting alternatives, debating those alternatives and offering excuses.

     This whole class activity is a wonderful ice breaker or pick-me-up when the class needs a little umph. It only takes a few minutes and it's really fun!

    For large classes (20+), this lesson will keep everyone busy for about 15 - 20 minutes. Students mill around the classroom asking each other "Can you...?" questions.
    For example:
       "Can you say your name backwards?"
      "Can you hold your breath for 20 seconds?"
      "Can you wiggle your ears?"

All of the questions involve actions. When students say, "Yes, I can," the interviewer shouts: "Prove It!

    If students perform the action well enough, they sign their names on the interviewer's worksheet. Students race against each other to be the first to acquire signatures for all of the questions.

    This is not for children only - adults love it, too!

     This is a spectacular ice breaker or class energizer. It only takes a few minutes and it's really fun!

    Like Prove It! (above), this lesson will also keep everyone busy for about 15 minutes. Students mill around the classroom asking each other "Can you...?" questions.
    For example:
       "Can you count to 10 in four languages?"
      "Can you touch your toes without bending your legs?"
      "Can you say the alphabet backwards?"

All of the questions involve actions. When students say, "Yes, I can," the interviewer shouts: "Prove It!

    If students perform the action well enough, they sign their names on the interviewer's worksheet. Students race against each other to be the first to acquire signatures for all of the questions.

    Adults love this lesson, too!

    This is a great lesson for learning proverbs - it's unique and fun. It seems that a couple of vandals have placed stickers over the first part of 12 common English proverbs. In pairs, students must listen to each other carefully into order to restore the original proverbs.
    For example, Student A's vandalized proverb reads:
      A bird in the hand makes waste.
    (The underlined part is where the vandals have struck.) The original word was Haste, but this has been covered over with a sticker that says: A bird in the hand.
    Student B has six choices from the worksheet to restore the original proverb including:
      Silence
      The grass
      Two heads
      Haste
      Birds of a feather ...and
      A leopard
    Student B suggests which of the choices best completes the proverb ...makes waste. Then the pair of students discuss whether or not Haste makes waste is a reasonable proverb and its meaning.
    When finished, students will have corrected all of the proverbs and will have had a lot of fun doing it.

    A great activity for students to work in pairs or small groups (and compete against others??). Students receive a pack of words that need to be put into order to create a sentence. But, that's just the first step. There are 18 sentences to compose and write down. And then, they have to organize the 18 sentences into a story.
    Here's a sample jumbled sentence:
        man  trunk   The  touched  fourth  elephant's  the
    Students work together to place the words into the correct order:
         The  fourth  man   touched  the  elephant's  trunk.
    They'll be VERY busy, and while they doing this lesson, they'll (unknowingly) be practicing English word order, grammar, articles, ordinals and sentence structure.
    Students will remain actively involved for the better part of an hour with this lesson. The story itself is also a great discussion starter!

    Students get physically involved with this worksheet; they have to cut a circle from the worksheet, place it on a piece of carbon paper and pin the circle into place. Then, and most importantly, they have to listen carefully to their partner and rotate the circle so that it aligns correctly with the appropriate word.
    Once done, they have to trace squiggly lines and rotate again. Each partner has to do this eleven times.
    When finished, they remove the circle from the carbon paper and PRESTO! There will be an image. It will be correct if both the pronunciation and the listening were accurate.

    These are the last worksheets in the Personal Profile series. Worksheet #7 has students describe themselves using the preface: "I am... ." For example,
      "I am a little moody."
      "I am usuallyoptimistic."
      "I am slightly interested in fashion," etc.
    Section 2 asks the question: "If I could change anything... ," and Section 3 looks at good and bad habits.
    Personal Profiles #8 offers a long list of favorites (and least favorites for superlative practice!) including favorite TV program, favorite band and favorite place in the house.
    There is also a section for students to discuss Collections including past and present collections. Just this small section by itself will generate massive amounts of discussion.
    In total, there are 8 pages of Personal Profile information; when complete, students will have an extensive profile of their partner including information about his/her birth, education, family, travel experiences, first time experiences, best friends, self-characterization, desires, habits, personal preferences and on and on.     Perhaps the greatest element of this lesson is the natural conversation and discussion that ensues when students start talking about themselves and asking their partner questions.

    There are three similar worksheets called:

       Personal Profiles #1 & #2 (Lesson Collection Set #2 - Lesson 9)
       Personal Profiles #3 & #4 (Lesson Collection Set #3 - Lesson 6)
       Personal Profiles #5 & #6 (Lesson Collection Set #5 - Lesson 28).

    On this worksheet, there are 21 common expressions from 21 corresponding professions. In pairs, students try to match the two.
      For example, who would say the following:
         "Your rent's late!"
         "If elected, I promise to cut taxes."
         "We should be touching down in a few minutes."
         "Please step put of your vehicle."
         "It's a four bedroom ranch with 3 1/2 baths."
    Partners have to listen carefully and decide who would say the sentences. They choose from, an usher, a teacher, a comedian, a pilot, a camp director, there's even a caveman and 17 others.

    We see thousands of advertisements every week. A large percentage of them try to demonstrate the advantages of their product over the competition. That is a natural form of using comparatives.
    Superlatives are also important; i.e., our product is the best, the fastest, the most delicious, the easiest to use, etc.
    Small groups of students use this worksheet to dream up an advertisement. They have limited space to show off their product therefore theyšll want to do it the best they can.
    Afterward, students circulate their finished advertisement throughout the class and show it (and try to sell their product) to other students.
    Copy writing is not as easy as it looks, all ages and English abilities will enjoy this lesson.

    Always on the lookout for great comparative and superlatives lessons, this is an ideal lesson. Just think of how many commercials we have all seen on the tube. Students have, too! So this shouldn't be very difficult for them - and they'll be using natural English comparatives and superlatives.
    There are five scenes on this worksheet. In groups, students think of a product to sell then create a commercial using the story boxes. They need to show that their product is better than the others, and they should try to make the commercial fun as well.
    Higher ability students can easily begin an interesting discussion of the wide array of advertising techniques and methods.

    This is a really fun pair-work lesson for students to practice phrases of possibility and probability. One student makes a statement about something that has happened, for example: "My watch doesn't work. I wonder what happened?"
    The other student tries to suggest possible reasons.
    Each student has a collection of seven (7) situations that beg for an explanation, ex:
       "My telephone suddenly stopped working!"
       "Many police officers were in the bank."
       "My train was 20 minutes late!"
    Each situation has the reason printed on the worksheet, but partners can not see the reasons, therefore, they have to offer possible explanations. Some of these include:
      Perhaps...
      Maybe...
      ...might have...
      ...could have... and
      Išll bet...
    Each situation has the reason printed on the worksheet, but partners can not see the reasons, therefore, they have to offer possible explanations.

    Letšs face it, the study of grammar is not only dull, but can be stressful for many students. When students hear phrases such as: Please compose an essay using the future continuous tense, the battlešs already been lost in terms of effective grammar teaching.
    What could be less stressful than watching an aquarium? And this lesson is a game as well! Twelve basic tenses of English are easily laid out, six in Verb Aquarium 1 and the other in Verb Aquarium 2.
    Using the Verb Cards (ssee Lesson 17 below), a student draws a card then follows the simple patterns on the worksheet to compose a sentence. The other students in the group must identify which of the six grammar patterns was used. To do this, they have to listen carefully.
    Because this is a game, students will forget that they are actually learning or reinforcing their knowledge of grammar. What a pleasant way to learn!

    Part 2 of this lesson is for more advanced learners; the six grammar patterns here are more difficult, but because of the way the lesson is designed, even these will not be a problem because of the many examples given on the worksheet.
    The six grammar patterns present in this game are:
      Present Perfect Tense
      Present Perfect Continuous Tense
      Past Perfect Tense
      Past Perfect Continuous Tense
      Future Perfect Tense
      Future Perfect Continuous Tense
    Up to five students can play this game together, and with each player, one of the six grammar patterns will be used to create a sentence. All of the students have to listen carefully to identify which grammar pattern was used.

    When receiving information, it's always a good idea to confirm and/or ask for clarification when in doubt.
    This pair work lesson is a wonderful and fun way to practice working with phrases of confirmation and responses of possibility while working with common idiomatic metaphors.
    At the top of each worksheet are six common English metaphors which many students will not know. At the bottom of the worksheets are six corresponding answer lists, each with four possible answers.
    Students have to work together closely to be able to identify the correct meaning to each metaphor. To do that, they have to ask for confirmation and clarification as well as express phrases of possibility, including:
      You mean...?
      Do you mean...?
      Are you telling me...?
      You don't mean..., do you?
      Are you trying to say...?

    There is even a point system built into the lesson to encourage students to guess the meaning of the idioms as quickly as possible.
    This is a very practical and fun lesson, and best of all, the students will be busy, not you!

    This wonderful lesson is a riot. Students will be having so much fun that they may not even realize the work that they're putting in.
    The Amateur Psychologist is a fun way to work with adjectives of description while learning many new words.
    After spending a little time on their worksheets, the "Psychological" interpretations will begin to come out. There are three areas:
        I think I am...
       Others think I am... AND
       I am really....
    Afterward, the students will automatically begin discussing among themselves accepting and/or denying their psychological interpretations!

    There is an accompanying worksheet which offers three different lists of adjectives depending upon the English ability of the students. There is a list of Easy Adjectives, Medium Difficulty Adjectives and Difficult Adjectives.

    As students improve, the same lesson can be used again with a more difficult vocabulary list.

    In addition, the lists can be given to students as a study guide or homework assignment to create a story using the words from the list.

    Cut out an appropriate list, paste it on the master worksheet, copy and hand out to your students.

    Students really enjoy this fun lesson with which they practice indirect questions (Ask him if he is a serious person, Ask her if she watches more than 20 hours of TV a week, etc.) while building their vocabulary and listening skills.
    In groups of three, one student asks a second student to ask a third student a question. The dialogue goes like this:

      Student A: Ask Joanne if she is usually a serious person.
      Student B: Are you usually a serious person?
      Student C: Yes, I am. / No, I'm not.

      Student A: Ask Joanne if she watches more than 20 hours of TV a week.
      Student B: Do you watch more than 20 hours of TV a week?
      Student C: Yes, I do.

    After asking the questions and following the guide on the worksheet, students will arrive at a result which may (or may not) accurately describe What Kind of Person You Are.

    These cards go hand in hand with the Time Cards (Prism 9) and the Mood Cards (Prism 10).
    There are 64 Verb Cards in total, 48 of which are irregular verbs. Each card shows the verb's three main tenses, present, past and past participle. For example:
         begin  began  begun
         drink  drank  drunk
         fly  flew  flown     -and-
         write  wrote  written
    Whether the class has been working on Simple Present, Past or Future Tense, any of the Continuous Tenses or any of the Perfect Tenses, you're sure to find an activity that will be appropriate for your students.
    If you discover a new way to use these cards, send me an Email Verb Cards and I'll add it to the list.

    This fun lesson activity uses simple pictures which depict common English phrases. The position of the words or letters within each puzzle box is important for students to figure out the phrases. Some of them are a bit trickier than others.
    Some of the phrases include:
      A Trip Over Seas
      Good afternoon
       I Understand     -and-
      Engagement Ring

    The arrangement of letters and words offers visual clues to solve each puzzle. Look at this puzzle:

    Can you figure it out? If you look carefully, you'll see that the word hole has been inserted in the middle of the word one so the puzzle reads: A Hole in One. Get it? Incidentally, this lesson is an excellent way to see prepositions in use. Groups of students will be busy trying be the first to finish the 20 fun puzzles on this worksheet.

    There is a similar worksheet called: A Snack Between Meals (Lesson Collection Set #5 - 12).

    Guaranteed to get students enlivened - wouldn't it be great if we could just push a button to make anyone do anything we'd like? Well, with this lesson, students can do just that - and they will really be forced to use English to get someone else to do something.
    In groups of four, students "program" remote control devices for their classmates. At the push of a button they will be able to get any of their classmates to do anything. That's the power (and fun) of the Human Remote Controller!
    'Human Remote Controller' is a guaranteed explosive lesson, and because of the built in timer mechanism, youšll never know when someone will start barking like a dog, running around the desk, hopping on one leg - just about anything can (and will happen).

    This series of lessons is a really fun way to develop discussion and persuasion skills for English learners. For example, how would you answer this question:
      What % of U.S. married women would marry the same man?
    Or this one:
      What % of U.S. drivers love their car more than their spouse?
    All three of these What % of . . .? worksheets offer a controlled structure in which students agree, disagree, persuade, negotiate and compromise with each other through discussion.
    There are a total of 14 interesting questions on the worksheet and all of them will spur a lively discussion. But therešs more. Students first make an Individual Guess which they keep secret, and then they discuss each question with the other members of their group. They must discuss the questions until the entire group finally arrives at a Group Guess. This is often not easy and students are guaranteed to get animated.

    There are two similar worksheets called:
    What % of British...? (see Lesson 20b below) and
     What % of Japanese...? (see Lesson 21 below).

    How would you answer this question:
      What % of British married couples sleep in the same bed?
    Or this one:
      What % of British men use bubble bath?
    Working with higher-level communication skills within a controlled structure, students will be agreeing, disagreeing, discussing, negotiating and compromising with each other.
    There are a total of 14 interesting questions on the worksheet and all of them will spur a lively discussion. But therešs more. Students first make an Individual Guess which they keep secret, and then they discuss each question with the other members of their group. They must discuss the questions until the entire group finally arrives at a Group Guess. Students will really enjoy defending their opinions.

    There are two similar worksheets called:
    What % of U.S. ...? (see Lesson 20a above) and
     What % of Japanese...? (see Lesson 21 below).

    How would you answer this question:
      What % of Japanese husbands remember their wedding anniversaries?
    Or this one:
      What % of Japanese teenagers drink alcohol?
    Working with higher-level communication skills within a controlled structure, students will be agreeing, disagreeing, discussing, negotiating and compromising with each other.
    There are a total of 14 interesting questions on the worksheet and all of them will spur a lively discussion. But therešs more. Students first make an Individual Guess which they keep secret, and then they discuss each question with the other members of their group. They must discuss the questions until the entire group finally arrives at a Group Guess. This is often not easy and your students are guaranteed to get animated.

    There are two similar worksheets called:
    What % of U.S. ...? (see Lesson 20a above) and
     What % of British...? (see Lesson 20b above).

    This lesson is guaranteed to make everyone laugh. One student is the waiter or waitress. The other is the customer. Once students have finished the initial work of gathering information from their partners, they will have a very odd conversation with some surprising requests for food!
    No one will be able to keep a straight face, yet beneath the silliness, students will be working with grammar including parts of speech, subject/verb agreement, count vs. non-count nouns and distinguishing between the articles ŗa˛ and ŗan.˛
    There are four other similar worksheets. They are:
       A Call to Santa Lesson Collection Set #2 - 19
       Cupid's Solution Lesson Collection Set #3 - 2
       Lost City of Ohmygosh this Lesson Collection Set #3 - 11
       The Doctor's Office Lesson Collection Set #5 - Lesson 13.

    A slightly high-level discussion starter where students discuss values and opinions concerning the characteristics of a couple, first when they are young and in love - second after they have been married for 20 years. The worksheet offers typical opinions young lovers have about each other such as:
      "I love him because tells a lot of funny jokes."
    Then students try to imagine the same guy twenty years later. His wife might say something like:
      "I love him but he has told the same jokes for 20 years."

    Or, a young man in love might say this about his girlfriend:
      "I love her because she always asks for my opinion."

    But after 20 years of marriage, he might say something like:
      "I love her but she can never decide anything by herself."

    There are descriptions for both the husband and wife - 20 years into their marriage - though no one has changed at all, the perspectives have.

    This is a fun and active lesson for learning new vocabulary (natural disasters) and for working with schedules to find an available time for three Super Heroes to get together for a photo shoot.
    All three Super Heroes have to fly all over the world to stop natural disasters from occurring, so they're pretty busy.
    There are two worksheets with this lesson, Part 1 and Part 2, Part 1 introduces 12 natural disasters. They are illustrated, and students need to identify them from the list of 12 natural disaster words.
    Once done, and students are familiar with the natural disasters, students (in groups of three) assume the role of a Super Hero character and have a discussion to arrange their schedules so they can meet.

    This is an easy, yet captivating lesson that concentrates on the correct usage of verbs. Look at the following sentence and identify what's wrong with it:
      Once upon a time, there is a great King who loves to listened to stories.
    See anything not quite right? Actually, there are three mistakes in the above sentence, all of the verbs are in the wrong tense. It should read:
      Once upon a time, there was a great King who loved to listen to stories.
    With this two-page lesson, students will be busy correcting the verbs, and that's all that they will need to correct. (Spelling, grammar and punctuation are all OK.) The story is broken into lines and a number to the right of the line tells the students how many errors there are in each.
    When finished, students can read the story in unison and discuss the story itself; it's a really fun story.

    A wonderfully realistic way to practice future tense is to discuss the weather forecast. Students can practice weather terminology as they plan a Ski Trip. The object here is to decide on the best place to take a 5-day ski trip depending on the weather and temperature conditions.
    A typical dialogue would go something like this:

      Student A: What will the weather be like in Whistler on Thursday?
      Student B: It will be windy with heavy snow.
      Student A: What will the high temperature be?
      Student B: It will be -19 degrees.
      Student A: What will the low temperature be?
      Student B: It will be -26 degrees.

    After gathering all of the necessary information from each other, students rate their vacation destinations as 1st, 2nd and 3rd choice.

    Students will be able to improve their vocabulary easily and effortlessly with this lesson. On the worksheet, there are three synonyms for a very simple adjective. For example:
      frigid  freezing  chilly
    Of course, the simple synonym is cold.
    Here are a few other groups of synonyms from the worksheet:

      ancient  aged  elderly     (old)
      soiled  filthy  messy     (dirty)
      awful  horrible  terrible     (bad)

    This lesson is a wonderful follow-up to Synonyms 1(See Lesson 04 above).

    This is an all around grammar review lesson for parts of speech, verb tenses and conditionals (if clauses). And - it's fun, too!
    In groups, students roll a die and move around the game board. When they land on a hexagon, someone in the group asks a question relative to the space on which they landed.
    Some sample Q & A dialogues might sound like these:

      Student A: What do you wish you were doing?
      Student B: I wish I were reading a book.


      Student A: What do you wish you had done when you were a junior high school student?
      Student B: I wish I could have studied English harder when I was a junior high school student, because if I had studied English harder when I was a junior high school student, I would have become a better English speaker.

    Although lower ability students will be able to manage their way through this game board with a little help from the teacher, higher ability students will become animated and immensely involved with their group mate's answers. Often students will take the initiative to ask additional follow-up questions to get to the "nitty gritty" details.

    Students travel from time to time and classmates are always interested in hearing what happened during the trip. Lower-ability students, however, are fairly limited in what they are able to report. This lesson offers a structure for students to talk about their travels.
    Some of the questions include:
      How was the weather?
      What did you think of the food?
      What was the highlight of your trip?
    Although this worksheet is very simple, it is also extremely practical in helping students build fluency in relating their travel experiences. They will be able to make a smooth presentation and classmates will have practice in asking questions, writing and discussing.

    Everyone loves popcorn, right? The topics given on these two worksheets need to be cut into cards and then folded over and over until they are small. When placed into a bowl, they look a bit like popcorn.

    Students, in groups of three or four, then have a choice to use this "popcorn" to do one of the following:

       a) make a speech
       b) have a discussion -or-
       c) have a debate.

    Each card has three current event topics printed on it. A student takes one of the pieces from the bowl and then decides which (one) of the three topics is the most interesting. Then, either a speech, a discussion or a debate will ensue.

    This lesson is really very fun for students, even if they struggle with English - the topics have been carefully selected and are especially topical for our generation.

    It's even possible to make a combination of activities; a speech will often lead into a discussion which can, in turn, lead into a debate. All of these "real-life" English tasks will help students practice asking and answering questions, (doing research??) and discussing.