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

It might not be your case, but most teachers, including myself, do not dedicate enough time to practise writing in class. And this needs to be fixed because students may simply get better if given the right guidance and enough practice. However, I think it’s crucial that we ask them to reflect on their errors and then, ask them to make the necessary corrections, rather than just correcting them ourselves. This exercise you are about to read is fun, creative, and collaborative; it gets students out of their seats but most importantly, gives them an opportunity to learn from their mistakes and ..read more

Just like everyone else on this planet, I’m dealing with a pesky flu. The good news is that I’ve almost managed to defeat it. Now I just need to regain my voice. These days, in class, all activities revolve around the topic of Education and the problems in our education system. The video shared in this post proves to be an excellent resource for engaging discussions on these issues. This video is perfect as it hits several birds with one stone. In the video, we’ll find a brief introduction, followed by the presentation of six potential problems in our education system. Wondering why I say it ..read more

First off, Happy New Year! Fresh starts and the time of the year when you start thinking about New Year’s Resolutions. I always try and think of some New Year’s Resolutions to accomplish but, let’s face it, I don’t have enough fingers or toes to count the number of times I have broken them, and then I think why bother? Do you know anyone who keeps their New Year’s resolutions? Or even remembers them after January 15? I sure don’t. Anyway, let’s begin this new year with a post on New Year’s resolutions.  To be honest, I just wanted an excuse to create some beautiful images using AI. They ..read more