Activities for reviewing and recycling the language from News Quiz 2023 Image credits: Isaac Mayne/DCMS, Steve Swayne [Public Domain];  Les Zg [CC BY-SA 4.0], Geoffrey Chandler [CC BY 2.0] Welcome back, fellow EFL/ESL educators! I hope that the recent installment of the News Quiz did not only engage your students but also offered some valuable learning opportunities. Now, let's delve into a variety of language-focused follow-up activities.  As in the past few years, these activities come in various formats. You'll find interactive drag'n'drop exercise ..read more

 Penny Ur shares research she finds interesting at IATEFL 2023 Penny Ur posting for photos with fans after her IATEFL talk (19.4.23) This is the second instalment of my two-part post about Penny Ur’s session at IATEFL matter-of-factly entitled Interesting recent research, in which, in a span of 30 minutes, I learned more than during the rest of the conference.  Click HERE for the first part. The reason why it’s taken me so long to publish this (IATEFL took place in April) is that it’s not merely a summary of the talk. Upon my return I did some digging into the sources Penny ..read more

Insights from Penny Ur’s IATEFL 2023 talk in lieu of a proper conference report Few people in the industry can make research sound sexy the way Penny Ur and Scott Thornbury can. But it’s probably only the now retired Penny Ur who can get away with a conference session entitled Interesting recent research and the blurb that goes:  “One of the advantages of being retired but still involved in ELT is that one has more time to browse through recent books and journals in search of interesting research studies. In this session, I’ll share some of the ones I’ve found on a variety of topics ..read more

Activities for reviewing and recycling the language from News Quiz 2022 Image credits: Matt Hrkac [CC BY 2.0]; Heo Manjin | Korea.net [CC BY-SA 2.0]; Number 10 [CC BY-NC-ND 2.0]; Steve Jurvetson [CC BY 2.0]  I hope the latest edition of the News Quiz provided some learning opportunities for your students and you're ready to do some further language-focused work. Like in the past two (pandemic) years, the follow-up activities come in different formats. Below you will find drag'n'drop activities on LearningApps, one matching activity on WordWall (Intermediate leve ..read more

Traditional end-of-year news quiz for the first lesson of the new year Here's the 2022 edition of the annual news quiz some of you have already been asking me about. And yes, I did it myself - took me just a few days - without any assistance from AI! As you may know, ChatGPT has no concept of 2022 because its training ended in 2021, and it was basically useless (when I tried, it generated quiz questions based on fictional events, including a new pandemic and a divorce of a celebrity couple who broke up years ago). Just like in the past two years - since the start of the pandemic - the quiz com ..read more

Some highlights from the annual IATEFL conference, which took place in Belfast on 17-20 May The first post-pandemic 'in-person' IATEFL conference saw a slight dip in attendance figures – about 1600 delegates compared to the pre-pandemic figures of nearly 2500 attendees – but it didn't detract from the electric atmosphere, which was largely due to the ability to interact face-to-face again. Indeed, I didn't see members of my PLN for three long years! Between networking and catching up with friends and colleagues I managed to see some sessions. Here are some highlights ..read more

 A lesson based on Janine di Giovanni's TED talk Image source: TED.com [Fair use] I came across this talk, which is shorter than usual TED talks, while looking for some materials on the topic of war and conflict - in view of the current events. The reactions from the students I've showed it to this week have been: "touching", "impressive" and "outstanding". I've made two versions of this activity for different levels - just like with my news quizzes. At both levels, the activity starts with pre-teaching key vocabulary. Although it's debatable whether pre-teaching vocabulary befo ..read more

Activities for reviewing and recycling the language from News Quiz 2021 Image credits: NASA [PD];  TapTheForwardAssist [CC BY-SA 4.0]; Glenn Francis [CC BY-SA 4.0] I hope you enjoyed the latest edition of the News Quiz and didn't find too difficult. Like last year, the follow-up activities come in different formats, most of which can be edited and adapted for your needs. These include drag'n'drop activities on LearningApps, one matching activity on WordWall (Intermediate level only) and 'traditional' worksheets in PDF/editable Google Docs. If you ha ..read more

Photo by Hello I'm Nik on Unsplash This blog is alive! And so is the blogger. Yes, as you can see, I've survived the apocalypse and am proud to present the 2021 edition of the traditional News Quiz. Unlike the previous year, the news stories related to coronavirus (oops, COVID-19) are kept to a minimum. But just like last year, the quiz is available in three formats: Google Slides, Quizizz and a PDF / editable Google Docs. The first two can be used in both in-person and remote teaching scenarios, while the last one is suitable for face-to-face teaching only. Also, I've kept the mu ..read more

Activities for reviewing and recycling the language from News Quiz 2020 Image credits: Frankie Fouganthin [CC BY-SA 4.0],  TenAsia [CC BY 3.0], U.S. Secretary of Defense  [CC BY 2.0] - via Wikimedia Commons The traditional news quiz has changed its format this year so the follow up, which usually consists of paper-and-pen activities, had to follow suit. I've created a series of interactive online activities on WordWall and LearningApps, which you can adapt if necessary and share with your students. There are also 'traditional' worksheets in Word an ..read more