Archive
Teaching English without a Course Book – Week 4
Teaching English without a Course Book – Week 2
Auto Mode 3 – Practise vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation skills together!
NEW! Free Vocabulary Teaching Material: Talk a Lot – Railway Station – Discussion Words
How to Pronounce: “I like ice cream” (Stress & Connected Speech Mini-Lesson)
A New Series of Self-Study Worksheets – Stress, Reduce, Merge
Introducing new material from English Banana.com that will give you some practice in using connected speech and stress in English. You can download the free .pdf worksheet pack here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/105327558/A-New-Series-of-Self-Study-Worksheets-Stress-Reduce-Merge
Any feedback would be most welcome! Thanks. 
FREE DOWNLOAD! Clear Alphabet Dictionary – Read and Write English as it Sounds!
NEW FREE DOWNLOAD! Translate 40 Famous People From the NEA (English Phonetic Alphabet)
Using the Phonetic Alphabet in an English Class #3 (Notes – 07.08.12)
Two New Podcast Lessons FREE to Download – Just Added!
We’ve just added two new podcast lessons, which are yours to download and keep absolutely free!
(Right-click to download to your computer, or left-click to play in your browser.)
You Are The Course Book (Mode 2) – Demo:
http://www.englishbanana.com/podcasts/yatcb-mode-2-demo-20062012.mp3
Understanding Connected Speech in English #1:
http://www.englishbanana.com/podcasts/connected-speech-1-26062012.mp3
FREE! 80 Common Functions of Spoken English – Putting the FUN back into Functions!
Download the MP3 Recording of our Latest Class
You can now download the MP3 recording of our latest class.
Left-click to open in your browser and right-click to download to your computer:
Planning an English Class without a Course Book to Hold your Hand
by Matt Purland (4th June 2012)
Planning an English Class without a Course Book to Hold your Hand
New Free Teaching Manual! “You Are The Course Book”
Internet Usage Questionnaire (New Talk a Lot Material!)
This is a class survey or questionnaire that I made and used with one of my classes recently. It helps students to test question forms as well as discuss attitudes towards using the internet. You could use it in conjunction with material from Talk a Lot Elementary Book 3 – Unit 9: Internet. Have fun!
Some New Talk a Lot Discussion Questions on the Topic of “Homes”
Yesterday I was teaching a pre-intermediate class and needed a few general discussion questions on the topic of “Homes”, so I came up with the following. Maybe you will be able to use them in your class too!
You could include them in a lesson based on the “Home” unit in Talk a Lot Elementary Book 1, for example.
Discussion Questions - Homes...
1. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be? Why?
2. Which is better – a house or a flat? Why? What are the advantages and disadvantages of each?
3. How many different kinds of home can you think of?
4. How will our homes be different in 50 years from now?
5. Which city in the world would be… a) the best, b) the worst, c) [insert other superlatives!] to live in? Why?
6. What are the most important factors in choosing a home?
7. Describe… a) your home, b) your grandparents’ home, c) [insert other!]. Compare them.
8. Who would you like to live with, if you could choose? Why?
Talk a Lot Intermediate Book 2 – Unit 2 – Lesson 4
How I used the Love and Relationships Idioms in my lesson today
I wrote twenty idioms on the board which kind of told a story of a relationship from the beginning to the end:
Method (Pre-Int to Intermediate Level):
Pre-task: Elicit: what is an idiom? i.e. A fixed phrase with a meaning that isn’t clear from the words used in the phrase.
1. SS work in pairs. They discuss together which ones they know already.
2. Group feedback.
3. SS check ones they don’t know in the dictionary or online.
4. Group feedback. Go through the list in order. Give examples. Elicit examples from SS. Check that everyone understands each idiom.
5. SS work together to prepare a dialogue or performance that includes all 20 idioms. Give them around 15 mins. Make a cup of tea for yourself; have a break; er, I mean monitor SS… Dialogues could be set in the past, with SS talking about a past relationship, or in various scenes set throughout the course of a relationship; or discussing future foreseen problems that might arise in a present relationship… etc.
6. SS read out or act their dialogues/scenes. Give feedback. Solicit feedback from other groups. Make a note of errors.
7. Error correction on the board with the whole group.
8. Homework, or follow-on activity: find 10 more idioms or phrasal verbs on the topic of Love and Relationships, and write a sentence using each one.
Note: for higher levels, you could mix up the order and get them to put them into their own order to make a story of a relationship.
It worked well and passed the time nicely for about 50 minutes. SS seemed happy to be learning (a lot) of new idioms. Do let me know how you got on, if you used this lesson plan! Thanks 
