Something Just Like This

A listening activity based on a Coldplay's song, which can be optionally followed by jigsaw reading.

This is a song activity based on a surprise collaboration between Coldplay and the Chainsmokers from a couple of years ago. I've used it successfully with students of different ages: teenagers and young adults, who complimented me on my musical taste (!)

Note that the teacher's notes are not provided because the student worksheet is pretty self-explanatory. To check the answers for the While Listening activities, see this lyrics video:

Zoom activity: Photos of the week

Photos of the Week section in The Atlantic

Although the lockdown restrictions are gradually being eased in many countries, remote teaching is still in effect - and looks set to continue for the unforeseeable future. Here is an activity I’ve been using a lot at the beginning of my Zoom lessons lately. I suppose you can call it a warmer.

3 ideas for synchronous online lessons on Zoom

Photo by Caroline Feelgood on Unsplash

Now that many schools around the Coronavirus-stricken globe have been closed, teachers have had to come to grips with the idea that many have heard about or maybe even experimented with, but never really implemented in earnest - teaching online. I've lost count of how many webinars and online tutorials on various online tools and platforms I have attended in the past week. Most of them were organised by various institutions I work for with each one choosing to use a different synchronous learning platform. The fact that most of these webinars were delivered by tech people exemplifies pretty much how you should not go about implementing edtech: instead of inviting (and paying!) a teacher experienced in remote teaching to do the job, let's ask the college's Moodle guy!

On the other hand, teachers have taken to Twitter sharing activities, ideas and advice that is more pedagogy- rather than technology-driven. In a matter of a few days, the somewhat morbid hashtag #coronavirusteaching has gone viral (pun intended!).

So consider me jumping on the bandwagon. In this post, I'd like to share some activities that have worked well for me in this past week under a partial lockdown.

News Quiz 2019 - Follow Up

Image credits: Frankie Fouganthin; Milliped; SounderBruce;
under Creative Commons license [CC BY-SA 4.0]

Activities for reviewing lexis from News Quiz 2019

Some of my followers have already been asking me for follow-up activities, particularly Quizlet sets, for the traditional end-of-year news quiz, which I posted last week. Incidentally, it was the 10th News Quiz I'd posted here, on my blog (you can see all of them HERE), since I first launched the blog at the end of 2010...  by posting News Quiz 2010. So, how's that for a #10yearchallenge? I'm actually surprised I've kept at it for so long!