This week, I have opted to examine the Gaokao, China’s university entrance exam. By doing so, I aim to stimulate conversation about higher education qualifications, students’ expectations and the justness of competitive tests, like the Gaokao. As a warmer, you can have a look at the slides and think about your own answers. Gaokao, the… The post B2 Listening and Speaking: The Bright and Dark Side of the Gaokao appeared first on Serena's blog ..read more

If you want to have some fun during these last classes and happen to be dealing with the topic of Education and your groups need to revise for verb tenses and some work on reported speech, this is for you. I’ve just set up an escape room (for the first time because I’m doing a… The post B1-B2 Escape Room Virus at  Cruncham Hall  appeared first on Serena's blog ..read more

I just can’t get over this Matilda scene. Not only do I find it hilarious, but also sort of empowering. I love to use a short extract from films in my classes and I use this one as a reported speech activity. For this scene, I usually give my students a sheet of paper with… The post B2.1 Listening: Matilda scene – Bruce and the Chocolate Cake as a reported speech activity appeared first on Serena's blog ..read more

How good are you at managing money? Do you spend all your earnings before the end of the month, or are you what your friends generally refer to as ‘tightfisted’? In this personality quiz, you will be able to brush up on some money expressions and learn some more because this week we are dealing… The post B2 Personality quiz Are You a Money Maestro? appeared first on Serena's blog ..read more

For this post, I’ve set up a role-play for my students (but here’s a copy for you). We’ve been talking about jobs around the house, advantages and disadvantages of living in certain areas and so on. So now it’s time for a role-play and ever since Cristina Cabal started ‘having fun’ ? with Mizou, I’ve… The post B2 Role-play Buying a property appeared first on Serena's blog ..read more

If money were not a problem and you could choose where you wanted to live, are you sure you would make the right choice? While you’re climbing up that property ladder or not, you may want to take this personality quiz after all, not all houses are homes, are they? By assigning personality quizzes to… The post B2 Personality quiz: Finding the Perfect Home appeared first on Serena's blog ..read more

Just for a bit of fun and to encourage my B2.1 students to practise asking questions related to housework using the song “The Boy Does Nothing” by Alesha Dixonand while also learning how to use ‘nothing’ and dropping the habit of leaving out ‘do/does’ in questions. By engaging with these questions, students can deepen their… The post Learning English with songs: Alesha Dixon – The Boy Does Nothing appeared first on Serena's blog ..read more

I’ve just come back from a week’s stay with my mum in the UK. And as she’s been a bit under the weather, we spent our afternoons watching TV, chatting, and drinking cuppas. Then, last Wednesday, a programme about what this amazing woman was doing to her hometown just caught all my attention, and I… The post B2 Listening and speaking about neighbourhoods appeared first on Serena's blog ..read more

In this post I would like my students to learn a little history of the country where the English language originally came from. It’s true that the coursebook mentions the Battle of Hastings, but I thought that it would also be a great opportunity to do a listening with this video by the BBC. For… The post B2 Listening The Battle Of Hastings appeared first on Serena's blog ..read more

After days and days of messing around and sending umpteen emails to WordPress support, with absolutely no reply whatsoever, I’ve finally managed to get the quizzes back to normalcy. Having over 400 quizzes glitched and not being able to use the content has been quite an annoying issue, but it seems that the worst is… The post Quizzes working again!!! appeared first on Serena's blog ..read more