At the beginning of my solo journey, I was quite excited. I realized that for once in my ESL teaching career, I can decide the type of students I teach. I always preferred a company of teenagers and adult students. My wish came true! Unfortunately, I forgot about one tiny thing - adult students are… Continue reading The flakiness of adult students
Tag: esl
Halloween Comparatives and Superlatives
Grammar doesn't have to be boring! Ask your students to come dressed in their best costumes and practise comparatives and superlatives for short adjectives, using different Halloween objects and creatures. I love themed lessons. However, I don't think they should always be the same and focus on the vocabulary. That's why I've prepared a set… Continue reading Halloween Comparatives and Superlatives
Cambridge FCE Exam Practice: Halloween Speaking
Happy October! If you’re teaching Cambridge exam classes, Halloween is a great opportunity to step away from the usual exam topics and make speaking practice a little more fun. Instead of another lesson about the history of Halloween, why not turn the entire Cambridge B2 First Speaking exam into a spooky challenge? Last year, I… Continue reading Cambridge FCE Exam Practice: Halloween Speaking
Journey to freelancing – one month later
So it's officially been a month since I've decided on becoming my own boss. Let's do a recap and see how things are ACTUALLY going. So I started this solo journey with a lot of optimism. In reality, I wanted to work one more year at an academy and then go on my own. However,… Continue reading Journey to freelancing – one month later
Cambridge PET – Listening Part 1
Listening is one of the two receptive skills, which is quite polarising. Your students will either love it or hate it! I enjoy Listening Part 1 as it's entertaining and possibly the easiest of them all. On the flip side, it requires a wide range of vocabulary to choose the correct answers. I've already done… Continue reading Cambridge PET – Listening Part 1
Cambridge Exam Score Templates
Who said that ESL teachers don't need to know math? We do math more than we would like to admit. All Cambridge exam preparation teachers, I've got something just for you! As a teacher in Spain, you do quite a lot of things. You get to teach all ages and levels, and probably one of… Continue reading Cambridge Exam Score Templates
First lesson for B2 Cambridge exam preparation
I was always looking for the perfect first class for exam preparation. Right after I finished CELTA, I had the pleasure of teaching B1 and B2 Cambridge intensive summer courses. As I was still on the high from passing CELTA, I analysed and prepared two full Compact books, including language analysis, possible problems (with solutions)… Continue reading First lesson for B2 Cambridge exam preparation
(ESL) job interview red flags
Imagine that you are a brand new ESL teacher. You sent your CV everywhere, and now you wait. Finally, it happens! You got a job interview. You go to the academy full of energy and hope, but it's nothing like what you had imagined. Sounds familiar? As the first part of becoming a freelancer, I… Continue reading (ESL) job interview red flags
Adapting lesson plans to other levels
I used to work at an academy that required all plans to be posted onto the server by Monday. At first, it's fine, you do it, full of energy and happiness. However, then comes the time when you reach the limit and you start thinking about how you can prepare one lesson plan that can… Continue reading Adapting lesson plans to other levels
Compound words for Starters
If there is one thing that I enjoy teaching to my YL is compound nouns. I like to think about them as two pieces of a jigsaw which create new words once they are put together. Here is a lesson plan and a set of worksheets I came up with for Cambridge Starters. It's been… Continue reading Compound words for Starters
