This is an interview sheet with questions using the simple present with a bunch of different verbs.

This document contains a couple of conversations and then a schedule grid. The idea is to work through the sample conversations, highlighting the idioms and common expressions that are in bold, and then have students book their social life for the week solid through practice conversations. This lets students practice present continuous (what are you doing tomorrow night?) and also gets them a lot more fluid with making plans in general. Which, if you spend time with them outside of class, is a skill that’s helpful not only for them, but for you, too…

Here’s a handout to be used with 20-sided dice, which works on present perfect and on telling times. The idea is, the students roll twice, to obtain a time and to obtain an activity. Then they role play phone calls from one to the other, at first just answering the phone and roleplaying as if they were in the middle of that activity. After a few tries, get them doing followup questions. Of course, the phone call is coming from overseas and the friend who is calling has no idea what local time is. So students get practice at transforming …

Here’s a worksheet focused on different forms of present continuous statements using the verb to be. There are statements, and questions as well. The students should (a) be told not simply to ask the questions on the sheet, but also to ask follow-up questions, and (b) to make a few of them own in pairs to ask their classmates.

Here’s a new test for Let’s Go 4A Unit 3.

This is a document containing just one thing: a large-print list of adjectives for clothing, to be using in question forming exercises at a very basic level.

This document is an exercise for description. The first part is for dealing with physical description. The teacher has students ask him questions about some specific person (I usually say his best friend). As he answers the questions, he draws a picture of the person on the board, element by element, only drawing what is known from his answers. Students must ask more questions, about specific elements, until the picture is complete. The second half of the document includes some material for questioning one’s partner about the best friend’s character. (No picture is necessary here, but students should be asked …

Hey, for ESL teachers… I was asked to plug it, so what the hell. I don’t have time to test myself, but… there’s a new ESL information source that supposed to “enable teachers to interact and add information on agents, schools, countries, working, living, travelling, teaching and even write a personal diary complete with photo galleries!” If you wanna take part in the beta-test, go here. But I don’t know any more about it. This is just a plug for something that might (or might not) be interesting.

Here is an idioms sheet for describing people that’s more suited to Intro A level, taking of course for granted the level of English that most Korean Uni students (the bulk of my Intro A students are these) have these days… which isn’t astounding but is better than one might imagine.

Here’s an interview sheet for my Let’s Go 4A kids, where they can practice using the past perfect (was going, was doing).