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Bushfires Devastate Large Parts of Australia
Fueled by one of the worst droughts in a century, bushfires have scarred a slice of Australia nearly three times the size of Britain -- or almost as big as the second largest U.S. state, Texas. (Bushfires, natural disasters, Australia, true or false, jigsaw reading, complete the table, comparisons of equality and comparing the size of things, Internet research.)
Upper-Intermediate
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"Between" and "Among"
When can I use "between" and when can I use "among"?
Intermediate
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Happy Pigs
England's farmers must keep their pigs happy with toys and straw or receive a big fine, the government said. (Animals, farming, finding the main idea, questions and answers, gap fill, listening for mistakes, prefix 'un', following instructions, pair crossword, discussion.)
Pre-Intermediate
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Idioms - True and False - Clothes
This warmer about idioms encourages discussion and should also be a lot of fun!
Upper-Intermediate
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Using "Make" and "Do"
When do you use the verb "make" in a sentence and when do you use the verb "do"?
Intermediate
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Binge Drinkers
Researchers say that more Americans are getting drunk each year. (Binge drinking, negative effects of drinking too much, finding the main idea, predicting, comprehension, discussion, reference words, likely to, crossword, project work.)
Pre-Intermediate
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Profile
This warmer was developed to precede an IT lesson that asked students to create a newspaper front page with news stories from the day they were born.
Pre-Intermediate to Intermediate
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Unsafe Swings
A European Union rule has forced a British parish council to close its playground swings which are used by hundreds of children a year. (Playgrounds and safety, children's games, prediction, reading for detail, comprehension, question words, discussion, nouns and adjectives, word find puzzle, group design project.)
Elementary
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T-Shirt Not So Peaceful
A lawyer was arrested and charged with trespassing at a public mall in the state of New York after refusing to take off a T-shirt advocating peace that he had just purchased at the mall. (Slogans on T-shirts, choose the best answer, complete the information, sequencing, true, false or not given, writing slogans, discussion, the prefix 'mis'.)
Intermediate
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Idioms - True and False - Heads and Hearts
This warmer about idioms encourages discussion and should also be a lot of fun!
Intermediate
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A Women's Sport
Legions of young and not-so-young women are plunging into waves at surf beaches worldwide, ending the male domination of a sport once restricted to Hawaiian kings. (Surfing, women's sports, comprehension, sentence completion, vocabulary in context, reading for specific information, true, false or not given, peer dictation, 'like' used to show similarity, role play.)
Upper-Intermediate
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'Except' and 'Except for'
Anna answers a question about the difference between 'except' and 'except for'.
Intermediate
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For a Laugh
The usual swag of April Fool's Day pranks and jokes. Has the world gone mad? No. It was just another April Fool's Day, the international day of tomfoolery when pranks, hoaxes, and practical jokes remind us not to take ourselves too seriously. (April Fool's Day, tricks and hoaxes, listening for specific information, scanning, reading for meaning, information exchange.)
Intermediate
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Hear and Listen
Anna gives a suggestion for explaining the difference between hear and listen to eighth-graders.
Intermediate
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Safe SUVs?
In a land where bigger is usually thought of as better, Americans love their sports utility vehicles and they are not going to give them up. (SUVs, fuel consumption, talking about cars, prediction, scanning, true or false, reading for detail, suffixes, discussion, matching sentence beginnings and endings, sell a car information transfer activity.)
Pre-Intermediate
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Simon Said...
This is a fun way to review reported speech for orders using the sentence structure told + object + to + infinitive.
Intermediate
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Up, up and away!
It's a bird! It's a plane! It's a strap-on flying machine. And it could be yours on eBay for $1 million with just one catch -- you have to agree not to use it. (Flying machines, auctions, listening for gist, information exchange, reading for specific information, adjectives, persuasive essay.)
Advanced
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The Memory Game
This is an exciting and active way for students to review vocabulary.
Elementary
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Using "unless otherwise"
Anna answers a question about how to use "unless otherwise" in sentences.
Intermediate
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What's Up, Doc?
A multiyear survey of about 12,000 U.S. physicians has found that nearly 18 percent of them don't like their jobs. (Doctors and job satisfaction, vocabulary, scanning, correcting mistakes, true or false, led to..., survey.)
Upper-Intermediate
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Music Sales Sinking
Slumping music sales left the recording industry with a whopping New Year's hangover, but rap star Eminem has plenty to celebrate. (Music sales in 2002, talking about music, summarizing the main idea, jigsaw reading, multiple choice questions, reading interview with hip-hop musician, Michael Franti, discussion, writing a statistical report.)
Advanced
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Idioms - True and False - Insects and Animals
This warmer about idioms encourages discussion and should also be a lot of fun!
Upper-Intermediate
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'Have' and 'Have got'
Anna answers a question about how she would teach the verb 'have got' versus 'have'.
Intermediate
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One Upmanship
This is an entertaining way to get students to use the second conditional correctly.
Intermediate
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Negative Prefixes
Anna answers a question from Argentina about negative prefixes.
Intermediate
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Days, Weeks, Months and Years
Max looks at the history of words to do with the calendar.
Intermediate
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An Eel Pet
A German family has kept an eel in its bathtub for the last 33 years and even trained it to swim into a bucket when someone needs to wash. (Pets, eels, discussion, predicting, main idea, sequencing, reading for detail, present perfect, simple past and simple present tenses, gap fill, pair crossword, information exchange.)
Elementary
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A Very Popular Mousetrap
Queen Elizabeth and "The Mousetrap" got together for a double celebration. In her Golden Jubilee year, the British monarch saw the Agatha Christie whodunit on the night that performance number 20,807 marked its 50th anniversary as the world's longest-running play. ("The Mousetrap", plays, gap fill, matching ideas, true, false or not given, meanings in context, discussion, form and uses of present perfect simple tense, simple past vs present perfect simple.)
Upper-Intermediate
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Don't Be Alarmed!
Police in Los Angeles have settled on a new way of handling those pesky burglar alarms that take up so much of their time. They will now ignore them -- unless someone can prove that there is a genuine emergency. (Crimes, burglary, predicting from the headline, guessing words from context, comprehension, true or false, summarizing, the present perfect simple, vocabulary: robbery, theft, burglary, giving an opinion in speaking and writing.)
Intermediate
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An Unusual Job
A missile storage space on a US aircraft carrier is a strange place to find a car salesman, but Paul St Pierre has spent the last five years on US navy ships selling motorbikes and cars to sailors with plenty of time on their hands and nowhere to spend their money. (Life on a warship, motorbikes, 'find someone who' game, different types of employment, understanding the headline, choose the best answer, true or false, 'even though'.)
Pre-Intermediate
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Idioms - True and False - Feet and Fingers
By popular demand, another warmer about idioms that encourages discussion and should also be a lot of fun!
Upper-Intermediate
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"On a team" and "In a team"
Anna answers a question about "Tom and I are on the same volleyball team" and "Tom and I are in the same volleyball team".
Intermediate
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Peace Training Grounds
McCarthy loves the long-shot. Good thing, too, because the journalist-turned-peace activist is betting that warlike humanity will some day evolve into enlightened creatures guided by love and harmony. (Peace studies, finding the main idea, true, false or not given, missing sentences, sharing information, gap fill, suffixes, finding grammatical errors, essay.)
Advanced
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Traffic Fine
An Austrian woman has begun a 500-day jail sentence for ignoring parking tickets and a woman in Glasgow, Scotland is one of the world's worst parking offenders. (Parking and rules, bizarre stories, infinitive of purpose.)
Elementary
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Germans Lose Shirts Over Taxes
Angry Germans who think Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder wants to tear the shirts off their backs with his plans to raise taxes have decided to spare him the trouble. His office is being deluged with old shirts. (Tax increases and protests, comprehension, true, false or not given, thinking carefully, main idea, the past perfect tense, discussion.)
Intermediate
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"We are said..." and Question Word Order
Anna answers a question about when "We are said..." can be used, and about word order in questions.
Intermediate
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A short question from Dalian
Anna is asked to solve a raging controversy in Dalian, China!
Intermediate
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Idioms - True and False - Water and Boats
Another warmer about idioms that encourages discussion and should also be a lot of fun!
Intermediate
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Signing a Petition
A baby elephant in Germany has signed a petition to protect wild elephants around the world, an environmental protection group says. (Ivory trade and elephants, ranking, predicting, writing questions, guessing the meanings of words in context, true or false, verb forms, short talks, describing an animal.)
Intermediate
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Knowing How to Drive a Car
Two Canadians learned that knowing how to drive a car is important when you want to steal one. (Bizarre crimes, matching pictures and information, gap fill, comprehension, to know how to do something, word find puzzle, discussion.)
Elementary
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Idioms - True and False - Food etc.
This warmer about idioms encourages discussion and should also be a lot of fun!
Upper-Intermediate
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Phrasal / Two-Word Verbs
Anna answers a question from Brazil about the difference between a verb using a preposition and a verb using a particle.
Intermediate
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Work Stress Health Woes
Healthy people with stressful jobs who work long hours but get little satisfaction from what they do have twice the risk of dying from heart disease as satisfied employees, according to a study. (Work stress and heart disease, causes of work stress, summarizing, matching information, discussion, interviews, suffix -ful, brainstorming.)
Upper-Intermediate
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New Pet Craze in Japan
Depressed by rising unemployment and an uncertain future, more and more Japanese are turning to an unlikely source of solace -- miniature pigs. (Unusual pets, scanning, matching details, true or false, choosing a headline, prefixes, percentages and numerical expressions.)
Pre-Intermediate to Intermediate
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Pampering Pets in Style
Pet salons are but the latest sybaritic development that help make a dog's life in Tokyo these days very, very good indeed. Statistics are not kept on Japanese pet spending, but the industry seems immune to the chill economic winds that have caused consumer spending to otherwise slump. (Beauty treatments for dogs in Japan, how people spoil their pets, predicting, reading and matching pictures, text organization, comprehension, descriptive language, writing an ad.)
Advanced
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Topic Cards
This is a spoken fluency Warmer that you can use to arrange impromptu talks with your class.
Intermediate
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More Bark Than Bite
Dogs are probably much cleverer than most people think, according to a new study. Scientists are convinced that dogs can count and researchers at the University of California Davis say they try to convey different messages through the pitch and pace of their barks. (Intelligent animals, dogs, true or false, scanning, fill the gaps, error recognition, guessing by context, comparative and superlative adjectives.)
Intermediate
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Kinds of Adjectives in English
How many kinds of adjectives are there in English?
Intermediate
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"I like reading" and "I like to read."
What's the difference between "I like reading" and "I like to read"?
Intermediate
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Eavesdropping
This fun conversation warmer asks students to not only make small talk but to eavesdrop as well.
Intermediate
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