A simple “Find someone who” activity for unit 4 of English Firsthand 1. It’s a Word file so you can change the items as you like.

Find someone - room

Something for the first EAP lesson - here is the original “Get to know” sheet that Jim made with questions in the 3rd-person (eg: Does he/she?) …

Get to know (3rd person)

And here’s the same sheet slightly modified so that the questions are in the 2nd-person (eg: Do you? Are you?)…

Get to know (2nd person)

Another EAP work in progress…

This is a corpus-based consciousness-raising activity that focuses on the words “percent” and “percentage”. The activity contains a concordance listing for these two words followed by questions which encourage students to identify different patterns in their usage. At the end of the activity there is an opportunity for students to produce sentences using these patterns.

CR Activity - percent

Most of the instances in the concordance listing (20 out of 29) come from two readings in the “Reasons for attending college” topic of the spring term:
- “Why women delay college”
- “Poll: Students growing more self-centered”

I hope to knock out a few more activities like this on other AWL vocabulary items that come up in the spring term readings…

This is something I started working on last year, and is still very much a work in progress… might get it finished in the next year or two!

Academic vocabulary in the article “Reconsider purpose of study” is listed in the following document, together with the number of occurrences and the immediate co-text.

AWL - Reconsider purpose of study

I’m planning to make this the focus of my vocabulary teaching in the spring term. It would also be easy to knock up gap fill activities from this listing.

Hopefully I’ll be able to compile similar lists for the other readings in the “Reasons for attending college” topic before too long, and then I’ll move on to other topics.

This level 1 activity goes with the third writing cycle in the spring term, “Describing a shop or restaurant”. It includes a student sheet and a teacher sheet with answers.

Milk Hall internet activity

Students click on the url to see the homepage of the “Milk Hall” cafe in Kamakura, and then answer the questions. The same cafe is featured in the materials for the third writing cycle.

Students can design their own living room by selecting different kinds of furniture and wallpaper and so on at the following website:

See My Design

For level 1 classes, it might be a useful resource for:
- unit 4 of English Firsthand 1 (Listening & Speaking course)
- the second spring writing cycle, “Describing a room” (Writing course)

Featured vocabulary includes: texture, floor, wallpaper, blinds, rug, wall art, sofa, chair and table.

NB: This website can also be accessed through the following site, which has links to online activities and tests for English Firsthand 1:

English Firsthand Activities

Downloadable tests (and answers) for every unit of the Totally True textbooks are available at the following website. You can also download answer keys for exercises in the Student Books.

Totally True

NB: The material downloads as PDF files - these can be viewed and printed, but they are password protected to prevent the text being copied.

Finding Let’s Talk a bit lean?
Need something to beef up your lessons?
Well go to this website and click on “Teacher Support”…

Let’s Talk Resources

“Optional Activities” has downloadable games and activities for each unit of the Let’s Talk textbooks. There’s also a handy feature at the bottom of the page which allows you to download all the activities for one book in one go.

“Review Board Games” has downloadable games to review 4 units at a time.

If you try any of these materials, please let us know how they go.

Looking for extra ideas or material for English Firsthand? Well look no further…

Go to the following website and click on “Teacher Resources”:

English Firsthand Cafe

Click on “Supplementary Activities for English Firsthand” and you can find lesson plans, extra listening activities and supplementary materials for each unit of English Firsthand 1 (as well as the other books in the series).

Click on “English Firsthand 1 Supplementary activities” for online activities and tests for units 1-9 of the textbook.

Do let us know how these activities go, and which work best. Cheers.

This is a set of materials for the first writing cycle in the spring term, “Describing a friend or family member”. This writing cycle is intended to last for approximately 3 lessons, and teachers are encouraged to supplement with other materials as they see fit.

There are 3 activities and 1 task sheet:
- activity 1 covers brainstorming and writing sentences;
- activity 2 introduces two simple correction symbols (for spelling and capitalisation errors);
- activity 3 has the students revise the first draft of a paragraph, and introduces a wider range of correction symbols;
- the task has students write a paragraph about one of their own friends or family members, and takes them from brainstorming through to writing the second draft of their paragraph.

Each of the activities contains a worksheet for students and a worksheet for teachers (with suggested answers). The task has 3 pages for students, which can be printed on double-sided A3 paper, plus one page of suggestions for teachers.

Please let us know how these materials work in class, and any suggestions you have for improving them. ‘Word’ versions of these materials are available in Shared Files, and hard copies are in the level 1 binder. Thanks.

Describing a friend or family member - Activity 1
Describing a friend or family member - Activity 2
Describing a friend or family member - Activity 3
Describing a friend or family member - Task

This is a set of materials for the second writing cycle in the spring term, “Describing a room”. This writing cycle is intended to last for approximately 3 lessons, and teachers are encouraged to supplement with other materials as they see fit.

There are 3 activities and 1 task sheet:
- activity 1 covers brainstorming and writing sentences;
- activity 2 looks at simple correction symbols (for spelling, capitalisation and singular/plural errors);
- activity 3 has the students revise the first draft of a paragraph, and includes a wider range of correction symbols;
- the task has students write a paragraph about their own room, and takes them from brainstorming through to writing the second draft of their paragraph.

Each of the activities contains a worksheet for students and a worksheet for teachers (with suggested answers). The task has 3 pages for students, which can be printed on double-sided A3 paper, plus one page of suggestions for teachers.

Please let us know how these materials work in class, and any suggestions you have for improving them. ‘Word’ versions of these materials are available in Shared Files, and hard copies are in the level 1 binder. Thanks.

Describing a room - Activity 1
Describing a room - Activity 2
Describing a room - Activity 3
Describing a room - Task

This is a set of materials for the third writing cycle in the spring term, “Describing a shop or restaurant”. This writing cycle is intended to last for approximately 3 lessons, and teachers are encouraged to supplement with other materials as they see fit.

There are 3 activities and 1 task sheet:
- activity 1 covers brainstorming and writing sentences;
- activity 2 looks at a few correction symbols (for capitalisation, singular/plural and subject-verb agreement errors);
- activity 3 has the students revise the first draft of a paragraph, and includes a wider range of correction symbols;
- the task has students write a paragraph about a shop or restaurant of their choosing, and takes them from brainstorming through to writing the second draft of their paragraph.

Each of the activities contains a worksheet for students and a worksheet for teachers (with suggested answers). The task has 3 pages for students, which can be printed on double-sided A3 paper, plus one page of suggestions for teachers.

Please let us know how these materials work in class, and any suggestions you have for improving them. ‘Word’ versions of these materials are available in Shared Files, and hard copies are in the level 1 binder. Thanks.

Describing a shop or restaurant - Activity 1
Describing a shop or restaurant - Activity 2
Describing a shop or restaurant - Activity 3
Describing a shop or restaurant - Task

This is a set of materials for the fourth writing cycle in the spring term, “Describing how to get to a shop or restaurant”. This is an optional writing cycle which can either be used instead of one of the other cycles, or as extra material for higher-level classes.

There are 3 activities and 1 task sheet:
- activity 1 covers brainstorming and writing sentences;
- activity 2 looks at a few correction symbols (for singular/plural, subject-verb agreement or missing word errors);
- activity 3 has the students revise the first draft of a paragraph, and includes a wider range of correction symbols;
- the task has students write a paragraph describing how to get to a shop or restaurant of their choosing, and takes them from brainstorming through to writing the second draft of their paragraph.

Each of the activities contains a worksheet for students and a worksheet for teachers (with suggested answers). The task has 3 pages for students, which can be printed on double-sided A3 paper, plus one page of suggestions for teachers.

Please let us know how these materials work in class, and any suggestions you have for improving them. ‘Word’ versions of these materials are available in Shared Files, and hard copies are in the level 1 binder. Thanks.

Describing how to get to a shop or restaurant - Activity 1
Describing how to get to a shop or restaurant - Activity 2
Describing how to get to a shop or restaurant - Activity 3
Describing how to get to a shop or restaurant - Task

Cloze activities for Holes, in the autumn EAP course, including master Hot Potato files as well as html files. To view the exercise in your web browser click on “index.html”.

These cloze exercises are based on chapter summaries available at the following website:
Holes lesson plans

Vocabulary lists to go with the EAP cloze activities. There are 10-12 vocabulary items for each chapter in the novel.

Holes vocabulary lists