HANDOUTS ONLINE

Here's a lovely page full of ready-to-use handouts for busy teachers. Unfortunately, there you have to be a registered user to profit fully from all the handouts (to date, $20 a year). There are loads to choose from and the handouts are nicely organised so it is easy to find what you are looking for. Here's the direct link to HANDOUTS ONLINE . Below you can see some pictures taken from the page:

LESSON PLANS / READYMADE WORKSHEETS

Here are some wonderful links to lesson plans and worksheets about grammar, vocabulary, skills, CLIL (content and language integrated learning), business, games and quizzes etc. etc.
There are loads of ideas, but you need to browse around yourself to see what YOU can use.

• My favorite at the moment is http://www.teachitworld.com/ Some worksheets are free, some you have to pay for. Lots of ideas and really great worksheets. Some lessons also include interactive smartboard activities or audio material etc. I've used it a lot, and always with positive feedback from the students!
• http://www.onestopenglish.com Lots of material on all kinds of topic, grammar, vocabulary, skills work, CLIL, business etc. etc. You will have to register for some of the activities.
• http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/ One new exercise every week based on a news article with lots of additional exercises, e.g. blank filling, vocabulary training, speaking, matching, T/F, multiple choice, writing etc.. What's so special about this page is the very special topics. Eg. how a haircut can save money; if your own breath can generate electric power; whether Sweden is going to become the very first country with a cashless economy; and finally how Kate Middleton has been elected hat lady of 2011.

AUTHENTIC ENGLISH ONLINE

Here are some pages with 'real English' speaking material. Thank you, Uli, for providing these links!

• http://www.real-english.com/reo/index.html  Various lessons with film sequences and language training exercises where students can also record themselves speaking. In particular for beginners' level of English.
• http://www.winkball.com/ Lots of different people giving their opinion on various topics. Totally authentic. Teacher would need to create their own exercises to use with the film clips, though.
• http://lessonstream.org/browse-lessons/ 72 Lesson plans (so far) with various focus points ranging from speaking and reading exercises to watching films and looking at grammar, vocabulary and English usage. Brilliant!! Very nice and clear survey of the topics on first page (see picture below).

USING TOO MUCH MOTHER TONGUE

   In some classes students tend to revert to German when I turn my back. Alas, I still have not found THE perfect solution to this problem yet.. However, in some of my lessons I have introduced the ‘paper on the table’ method. Which simply means that if somebody in class is caught speaking German, the teacher will put a ball of crumpled paper on their desk. This ‘ball’ then moves on to other ‘culprits’’ desks during the lesson. The last one to have the ball at the end of the lesson will get an extra assignment to do at home. Believe me, it works wonders :-)

PRODUKTIVE UNTERRICHTSEINSTIEGE

A wonderful book if you are interested in special lesson lead-ins. Unfortunately, the book is only available in German. 

Below you can see an example page, - one of my favourites. It describes how you can use a ball of yarn in a speaking exercise to produce a web. When somebody in the group speaks, they hold on to the yarn and then give the coil on to the next speaker and so on. In the end a thick web will (hopefully) have been produced. Students can thus see how much they spoke - maybe even in comparison with other groups? Did anybody not say anything? Well, then they will not be holding on to any piece of the yarn..

Here's a direct link to the book information at Amazon.