One of the best things in life is loving what you do, and I have been very lucky in that respect. Can you guess? I have 33 years’ experience under my belt (OMG, am I that old?) and when I started, we could only teach with a textbook and a chalkboard. Computers in the classroom? Not found!  And guess what? I had a blast with just those! So, I am not going to tell you to ditch the book altogether, I am going to suggest blending it with a bit of tech. Back to my story: After some years, cool educational apps started popping up.  But though I tried and used lots of websites and created t ..read more

Freemium but with a robust free version, transcribing audio or video, downloadable in different formats and much more.  This little, easy-to-use speech-to-text AI tool is making my life way easier!! Picture this: in one of your folders in your computer desktop or Google Drive, you find the perfect audio/ video that fits like a glove in the lesson you are teaching, but…. no transcript available. It sucks, huh?? No sweat! I got you covered! TurbosScribe.ai is just what you need!!! Important:  Although it might look like a paid ad, it is not. None of my posts are sponsored. I just writ ..read more

Packed with engaging activities, this lesson plan about the animal kingdom is going to become your favourite. Trust me!!! Have you noticed that it seems like everyone’s got a furry friend these days, and not so many babies? Parks are full of dog walkers, not strollers, you know what I mean? This is one of the things we’ll talk about in this lesson. I was actually planning to publish this when I was not so busy with classes and teacher’s sessions, but I could not wait to get this into your hands because it is a lesson that worked really well. So before I forget, here it is! A lesson plan for C ..read more

Imagine having a tireless, always-available language tutor for your students – that’s the magic of chatbots! Can they replace teachers? Of course not! They are never ever going to substitute teachers. But, can they help students when teachers are not available? There you have it!  Chatbots are fun, interactive, and students can practise anytime, anywhere. I tried and tested my first chatbot  in early February and wrote about it here. They worked so well that I have been on a creation spree, designing and testing chatbots for different purposes. Ready to see my chatbots in action ..read more

Hello hello! Still enjoying Easter holidays? Yeahhh me, too! So, I just wanted to pop in real quick with an activity I think might make going back to the grind a little bit easier. What are the main goals of this activity? Revise and activate newly-acquired vocabulary Reinforce how to formulate questions Boost students’ speaking abilities Introduce movement in the classroom: gallery walks How to do it Write six to eight words or expressions you want to revise on cards, big enough to see from a distance. Stick them on the walls of the class for everybody to see. Depending on the number of ..read more

Who can resist playing tic-tac-toe with a wooden board and small wooden Xs and Os? If you can’t, then you’re gonna love this game! Do you like giving your students short translation activities? I do. They allow me to target specific vocabulary and grammar structures and help students to make fewer mistakes. So, Tic Tac Toe or a translation exercise? Why not have both?  I’ve had this version of a tic-tac-toe game sitting on the shelves for some time now, but life! Time! Work! Life! More work! You get it. Recently I’ve met several teachers who shared how much they have enjoyed the games I h ..read more

Diffit: an IA free tool to easily create resources for differentiation and inclusivity. I’ve been meaning to write about this website for a few months. To be honest, it is not just this website I’d like to write about but some others as well. The problem with me is always lack of time. Juggling being a full-time teacher, a part-time tech coach, mum, housewife, friend, daughter, and blogger is difficult. You can relate, can’t you? Every time I swear I am going to write about them all, something comes across, and I feel I must write about that “something” first. But today I have decided to forge ..read more

Picture this. Me announcing to my C1 students that the next lesson in the textbook was going to revolve around Politics. To be honest, any other year, I would have probably shared my students’ feeling of apathy or disinterest.  But this year I was really looking forward to this lesson as AI is shaking things up in my English class! Imagine my students’ jaws dropping when I announced a class debate featuring… wait for it… virtual versions of Biden and Trump! And both using the vocabulary we have been studying, revising and reinforcing. In this lesson for C1 students, you will find Tailor ..read more

Imagine being asked this question: If you were abducted by aliens, would you tell anybody? or this one, If you could switch lives with someone for a week, living their experiences and routines, who would it be and why?   Imagine being prompted to use an alternative to IF in your answer like, for example, as long as or provided. Fun, challenging and …. grammar-oriented When preparing a lesson, I normally try to design activities that help students reinforce what we have been working with; more often than not, they have a communicative approach, as I firmly believe in giving students ..read more

I am AI-addicted. I cannot help it. Artificial Intelligence- you can choose to embrace it or ignore it, but I assure you it is not going anywhere. It is here to stay, so I choose to love it and use it, to squeeze it and to have fun with it. I am so into it that if I see something AI-related that seems like it can remotely be useful for my classes, I want to try it straight away. So, I had been experimenting with chatbots for a while but being a simple English teacher, all the platforms I tried were either too difficult, not free or not student friendly. And these things  were essential n ..read more