This is a lesson plan for C1+ Spanish speaking students. Students use contrastive analysis to compare Spanish idioms and expressions with their English equivalent. It was inspired by an activity in Leo Selivan’s book Lexical Grammar. Download the student handout and key below:
This is a lesson plan designed to help students make their written and spoken English more emphatic and engaging. Students will learn various rhetorical devices, then put them to use in conversation. Download the handout and key below:
Rhetorical Devices in Speech and Writing – Student Handout
We can use the following rhetorical devices to make our speeches and writings more engaging.
Ask a question that you don’t expect an answer to.
“How can we encourage more people to recycle? Well, one way would be to…”
“How much impact do one person’s habits really have on the environment? Surprisingly, ….
Giving human actions or emotions to non-living/inanimate things.
“I could hear the pack of cookies calling to me from the cupboard.”
“The music industry chewed him up and spat him out.”
“The soft bed welcomed me with open arms.”
“The fear of failure chased him wherever he went.”
Using exaggeration to draw attention to the severity of the matter or to make a strong point.
“I called her a thousand times.”
“I will literally die if they ask me to give a speech to the whole class.”
“I’m so hungry I could eat a horse.”
Ironic understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by the negative of its contrary
“How did Steve look when you visited him? Not great to be honest.”
“How was the film? Yeah, not bad.”
“Let’s just say he doesn’t have the best attendance record.”
Repetition of the last word in a phrase at the beginning of the next phrase or sentence.
“Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate and hate leads to suffering.” –Yoda, Star Wars
“We ordered a pizza. A pizza that changed our lives.”
“She got on the bus, and on that bus she met a man. A man who would turn out to be the love of her life. A life that would be tragically cut short at only 25 years old.”
A simile is a comparison in which something is said to figuratively be like something else. They usually contain “like” or “as”.
“It was as hot as a desert this morning.”
“His heart was beating like a broken clock.”
“My grandad is as blind as a bat and as deaf as a post.”
Identify the different rhetorical devices:
Long time no post! Since I started a full-time materials writing job in the summer keeping up with the blog has been a bit of a struggle. I’ve still been creating new content for my C2 students just haven’t found the time to post it. Hopefully this will be the first of a little flurry of activity.
I was inspired by two recent episodes of Sean Hutchman’s wonderful podcast Ethos English on the topic of adverb use for higher level students. He quotes a bunch of great, colourful collocations in the episodes that I thought my C2 students would really benefit from, so I decided to make this lesson plan. Be prepared to offer your students a lot of support as mine found some bits a bit tricky, but very rewarding. Based on Sean’s recommendation, I used Sketch Engine for inspiration for some of the collocations. You can get a 30-day trial, but then you have to pay, it might be worth asking your director of studies to pay for an academic account as it’s a very useful tool.
Download the student handout and answer key below. Please post some of your students’ gapped sentences in the comments!
This is a guest post by teacher, teacher trainer, director of studies and materials writer Suzy Ratcliff. The lesson plan is based around the Collin’s Dictionary’s annual blog post revealing the shortlist for the words of the year. It’s a great example of how to exploit a piece of authentic materials to the max!
Download the student’s handout and teacher’s notes below:
Blog post
1st Nov 2022
The 2020s have certainly seen their fair share of upheaval – and we’re only two years in! Already this decade we’ve had to contend with a pandemic and its aftermath, a brutal new war in Europe, and in the UK an economic crisis that saw the Bank of England warning of a “material risk to financial stability”. We’ve also had three prime ministers – so far.
How fitting, then, that 2022’s Word of the Year is permacrisis, a term that perfectly embodies the dizzyingsense of lurching from one unprecedented event to another, as we wonder bleakly what new horrors might be around the corner. Collins defines it as “an extended period of instability and insecurity” and that certainly rings true. Much more of this and we might have forgotten what stability and security ever felt like.
The current permacrisis also happens to be responsible for some of the other words on this year’s shortlist – not surprising given its all-consuming nature. Partygate, of course, is one of the events that set off the period of political turbulence whoseramifications are still playing out. It proves that the “-gate” suffix – made famous by the discovery of secret recordings in Washington DC’s Watergate Hotel – still has some life in it.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine produced an energy shock to which warm banks – places where those too poor to heat their own homes can gather in the event of a cold snap –are one proposed solution. The lexical analogy here is with another grim indicator of economic crisis, the food bank. The invasion also meant that we all quickly learned the Ukrainian spelling and pronunciation of the city of Kyiv. And while warfare may be Russia’s preferred tactic, increased scrutiny of Russia’s super-rich has led to a crackdown on lawfare, the use (or abuse) of legal powers to silence opponents.
In the labour market, changes have been afoot too. There’s been a vibe shift away from the culture that defined the world of work pre-pandemic: now people are less concerned with climbing the greasy pole, and more with quality of life. This has led to an epidemic of so-called quiet quitting, which, as Collins puts it, involves “doing no more work than one is contractually obliged to do”. For burnt-out millennials, it’s a third way between making your job your life and quitting altogether. Work-life balance is important, so why not relax as the year draws to a close by watching some football? The FIFA World Cup is due to start this month in Qatar – but beware the spectre of sportswashing, which some have accused the Qatari authorities of doing, given concerns around human rights and the welfare of migrant workers. This follows the pattern that has given us “greenwashing“, and of course goes back ultimately to “whitewashing“– blotting out imperfections with a thin coat of paint.
All in all, it’s a difficult note on which to begin the Carolean era, which the new king, Charles III, will preside over (the medieval Latin for Charles is, of course, Carolus). Let’s hope this is just a shaky start, and things will improve soon, Your Majesty. In the meantime, we all could be forgiven for just wanting to join our furry friends in splooting – which, Collins explains, is the act of lying flat on the stomach with the legs stretched out – until all of these problems have gone away.
Written by David Shariatmadari, author of Don’t Believe A Word: From Myths to Misunderstandings – How Language Really Works
Ex 1. Complete the sentences with your own ideas, then compare and discuss with your partner.
Ex 2. Discuss these questions:
I’ve been crazy busy doing three jobs recently so not had a chance to post. Got a lot of recently made materials that I just haven’t had a chance to post, but hopefully that’ll change soon. Anyway, here goes:
This is a writing task for C2 Proficiency students. The task is taken from Proficiency test book one and the friendship expressions come from my old BFFs lesson plan. Download the handout with answer key below:
This is a quick activity I threw together to help higher level students with expressing opinions on a range of controversial or “hot button” topics. I got the list of opinion expressions from the excellent englishclub.com, they have some great lists of functional language exponents organised by level, check them out:
https://www.englishclub.com/vocabulary/fl-giving-opinions.htm
Download the handout and PowerPoint below:
Procedure
Give out the handout and have students work together to try to complete the opinion expressions.
Go over their answers in open class.
Drill natural pronunciation of the expressions. Point out to students that we often emphasise or stress the part that identifies the stated opinion as our own:
In MY opinion,…
As far as I’M concerned,…
You know what *I* think?
For the hot-button topics you could either brainstorm some with your students by asking:
What issues are people debating fiercely these days?
What was the last heated argument/debate you had about?
Or, you could use the ones in the PowerPoint. Show a slide and have students express their opinions in small groups.
If you have an exam preparation group, the activity would work well as a warm-up to tackling some of the collaborative tasks such as Advanced speaking parts 3&4.
This time on the pod Katy & Tim talk to teacher, materials developer, teacher trainer and master storyteller Jamie Keddie about how to use images and stories in the English classroom.
Check out Lessonstream, Jamie’s online community below:
lessonstream.com/
Also, check out Jamie’s video class based on the streaker photo here:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hH6rCbd9RI
Here’s another training worksheet for C2 students preparing to take the C2 Proficiency exam. Students guess the meaning of some common idioms and expressions, attempt to recall them, then put them into practice in conversation. Download the handout below:
Some quick speaking activities combining chatting about Easter holidays with some practice for exam speaking tasks. Download the PowerPoints and handout below:
The long turn task is modelled on the C2 Proficiency speaking part 3 in which students have to speak for 2 minutes about a given topic with 3 bullet points to guide them. Give out the speaking phrases and go over the “cheat sheet” of useful expressions on the first slide. Then put students in pairs and have them take it in turns to complete the task seeing who can use the most expressions, they need to speak on their own for 2 minutes. Once they have finished they should find 5 similarities between their Easter holiday experiences and share them with the class.
Alternatively, if you want something more collaborative, I’ve added a C1 Advanced part 3 style task in a separate PowerPoint. Students should first look at the cheat sheet, clear up any doubts, then have them answer the central question in pairs. You could then give them a further question: “which of these 5 types of activities do you appreciate doing most in your holidays.”
This is a reading and vocabulary lesson plan for C2 students who are preparing to take the Cambridge C2 Proficiency exam. Students read a text about a boy, his grandad and football then look at expressions and collocations from the text. Download the handout and key below:
You may also want to use this quizziz game to review the language at a later date.
The class procedure is pretty self-explanatory and should take the best part of 90 minutes. Follow the instructions on the student handout.