News Quiz 2025: follow up

Image credits: Ruven Afanador [CC BY-SA 3.0]; 
Montclair Film [CC BY 2.0]; F darkbladeus [Public Domain]

Activities for reviewing and practising the language from News Quiz 2025

I hope you enjoyed the 2025 edition of the News Quiz. It’s true that sport was a little underrepresented this year – these things happen! That said, the quiz aims to reflect a broad range of news and topics, and I hope the accompanying activities provide an engaging way for students to work further with the language.

News Quiz 2025

Traditional end-of-year news quiz for your first lesson of the new year

Image generated by ChatGPT

The new year is here, and so is the News Quiz 2025! Judging by the requests I continue to get from teachers around the world, this annual quiz is still a popular classroom tradition for many. Whether you're a returning user or discovering it for the first time, this quiz offers an engaging, language-rich way to start the year with your students.

As usual, the quiz follows the multiple-choice format that allows you to move through questions fairly quickly while leaving plenty of time for discussions about the stories and language exploration.

As before, the quiz is packed with common lexical chunks and other vocabulary that students can learn, practice and recycle. I admit I tend to gravitate toward the same news-heavy phrases year after year – take to the streets, went viral, protests broke out – so this year I've tried to incorporate everyday expressions such (to be) an item, hitch a ride and a thorn in someone's side (see Advanced level) to give students a broader range of useful language.

News Quiz 2024: follow up

 Activities for reviewing and recycling the language from News Quiz 2024

Fictional newspaper clippings generated with ChatGPT

I hope you enjoyed the latest edition of the News Quiz. I also hope that your students didn't feel it was too celebrity-focused, or found it lacking in tech news or leaning too heavily on politics - you can't please everyone! But I hope the follow-up activities will give you a balanced and engaging way to continue practising the language covered in the quiz.

News Quiz 2023: follow up

Activities for reviewing and recycling the language from News Quiz 2023

Image credits: Isaac Mayne/DCMS, Steve Swayne [Public Domain];
 Les Zg [CC BY-SA 4.0], Geoffrey Chandler [CC BY 2.0]

Welcome back, fellow EFL/ESL educators! I hope that the recent installment of the News Quiz did not only engage your students but also offered some valuable learning opportunities. Now, let's delve into a variety of language-focused follow-up activities. 

As in the past few years, these activities come in various formats. You'll find interactive drag'n'drop exercises on LearningApps, a matching activity on WordWall (Advanced level), interactive quiz on Quizizz (Intermediate level) and good old fashioned worksheets in editable Google Docs.

News Quiz 2023

Traditional end-of-year news quiz for the first lesson of the new year

Image by Fulton County Sheriff's Office,
State of Georgia via Wikipedia [Fair Use]

It's time for... News Quiz 2023! Following the annual tradition since the start of this blog, here comes the news quiz some of you have been waiting for.

As in the past three editions, the quiz uses a multiple choice format. This way you can get through the questions quickly and devote more time to discussing the stories and learning some language. As usual, the text is packed with very common lexical chunks (verified with the help of COCA) and other vocabulary items for your students to learn, practise and use. Some of these, such as made headlines, cause controversy and went viral (all from the Intermediate version), make recurring appearances in my news quizzes.

News Quiz 2022

Traditional end-of-year news quiz for the first lesson of the new year

Here's the 2022 edition of the annual news quiz some of you have already been asking me about. And yes, I did it myself - took me just a few days - without any assistance from AI! As you may know, ChatGPT has no concept of 2022 because its training ended in 2021, and it was basically useless (when I tried, it generated quiz questions based on fictional events, including a new pandemic and a divorce of a celebrity couple who broke up years ago).

Just like in the past two years - since the start of the pandemic - the quiz comes in several different formats, suitable for different teaching scenarios (face-to-face or online). And as usual, it's packed with lots of juicy lexical chunks and other vocabulary items for your students to explore.

News Quiz 2021 - Follow Up

Activities for reviewing and recycling the language from News Quiz 2021

Image credits: NASA [PD]; 
TapTheForwardAssist [CC BY-SA 4.0];
Glenn Francis [CC BY-SA 4.0]

I hope you enjoyed the latest edition of the News Quiz and didn't find too difficult. Like last year, the follow-up activities come in different formats, most of which can be edited and adapted for your needs. These include drag'n'drop activities on LearningApps, one matching activity on WordWall (Intermediate level only) and 'traditional' worksheets in PDF/editable Google Docs.

News Quiz 2021

Photo by Hello I'm Nik on Unsplash

This blog is alive! And so is the blogger. Yes, as you can see, I've survived the apocalypse and am proud to present the 2021 edition of the traditional News Quiz.

Unlike the previous year, the news stories related to coronavirus (oops, COVID-19) are kept to a minimum. But just like last year, the quiz is available in three formats: Google Slides, Quizizz and a

PDF / editable Google Docs.

News Quiz 2020 - Follow Up

Activities for reviewing and recycling the language from News Quiz 2020

Image credits: Frankie Fouganthin [CC BY-SA 4.0], 
TenAsia [CC BY 3.0], U.S. Secretary of Defense 
[CC BY 2.0] - via Wikimedia Commons

The traditional news quiz has changed its format this year so the follow up, which usually consists of paper-and-pen activities, had to follow suit. I've created a series of interactive online activities on WordWall and LearningApps, which you can adapt if necessary and share with your students. There are also 'traditional' worksheets in Word and PDF, which those of you teaching remotely can display via ScreenShare on Zoom or Teams or simply send to students by email.

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.

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!

News Quiz 2019

Traditional end-of-year news quiz for the first lesson of the new year

Photo by Katherine Cheng
[CC BY-ND 2.0] via Flickr 

Just as I finished working on this, a thought crossed my mind: perhaps it should have been an end-of-decade news quiz this time? Ah well... Anyhow, in keeping with the tradition, here's an end-of-year quiz based on the hottest news stories of the past year.

It's a usual mix of politics, sports and entertainment - but no mention of Brexit whatsoever!

And as usual, it's packed with lots of lexical chunks and other vocabulary items for your students to explore.

News Quiz 2018 - Follow Up

Activities for reviewing lexis from News Quiz 2018

Image credits: John Bauld  flic.kr/p/McsiQi [CC BY 2.0];
Alisdare Hickson flic.kr/p/24W89b5 [CC BY-SA 2.0];
NASA [PD image]

I hope you and - your students - liked the end-of-year news quiz, which I posted last week. As always, it is followed up by lots of activities aimed at reviewing and consolidating the language from the quiz, which I share below.

If you haven't seen the news quiz, it's not to late - click HERE

You can preview the activities below or download them in Word format and edit/adapt them as you wish. The key (answers) and teachers' notes are provided at the end of each level.

UPDATE: a Quizlet set for advanced level: quizlet.com/_5wm0we 

8 dictionary activities

Photo by Hana Ticha
via eltpics on Flickr

A friend of mine has mastered English - which is attested by a CPE certificate - by looking up a word and carefully studying examples in a dictionary every day before going to bed. It was before the days of online dictionaries, so he was using a copy of the excellent Longman Dictionary for Advanced Learners. In the 1990s learners' dictionaries, such as Longman or Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary (OALD), started breaking away from the native speaker dictionary format (such as dictionary.com) by introducing two innovations. First, they started providing definitions using a controlled vocabulary - in the case of Longman it was the Longman Defining Vocabulary (LDV), a carefully graded list of the 2000 most frequent words in English, similar to West's General Service List (GSL). Second, they shifted the emphasis from purely defining meanings to highlighting usage through carefully chosen examples.

As dictionary publishers moved increasingly towards online platforms in the 2000s - and some discontinued the printed version, for example Macmillan - learners' dictionaries made further strides towards improving learner experience. Today's online learners' dictionaries (see the list in my Essential lexical tools) not only offer natural examples and highlight co-text, their entries come complete with collocation boxes, grammar information and common error warnings. All this makes a good learner’s dictionary an essential, indeed indispensable, learning tool. Yet, despite their obvious benefits, I find, much to my regret, that online dictionaries are underused by learners and teachers alike. Here are some activities to get your students using learner's dictionaries and hopefully starting to appreciate their value.

News Quiz 2017 - Follow Up

Activities for reviewing the language from News Quiz 2017

Collage made with photos by www.kremlin.ru [CC BY 4.0], 

Beyoncé (@beyonce) on Instagram [fair use],

Alex Fau on Flickr https://flic.kr/p/qKyoQ2 [CC BY 2.0]

I hope you enjoyed the traditional end-of-year news quiz I posted last week. As promised, here's a follow up: lots of activities aimed at reviewing and practising vocabulary (and a bit of grammar) from the quiz. If you haven't seen the news quiz, click HERE.

You can preview the activities below or download them in Word format and edit/adapt them as you wish. This year, the key (answers) and teachers' notes are provided at the end of each level - not as a separate file.

For a suggested sequence of activities, see last year's News Quiz Follow Up - click HERE

Update: Vocabulary from the quiz on Quizlet: https://quizlet.com/leosel/folders/news-quiz-2017/

Powerful tea and other (im)possible collocations

Photo by Christina Martidou
via ELTpics on Flickr

How do you explain the notion of collocation to your students? Apart from using this great song, I often employ this simple technique: I write on the board: make and do (in the left column), homework and a mistake (in the right) and ask students to match.

News quiz 2016 - Follow up

Photo by iphonedigital via Flickr 

flic.kr/p/J6zv2j [CC BY-SA 2.0]

Activities for reviewing the language from News Quiz 2016

Like in previous years, here's the follow-up to last week's news quiz: 13 pages of practice activities and exercises aimed at reviewing and consolidating lexis from the quiz (in 2 levels).

I hope you and students enjoy them as much as you enjoyed the quiz. If you still haven't seen this quiz, it's not to late - click HERE.

Update: Vocabulary from the quiz on Quizlet: https://quizlet.com/leosel/folders/news-quiz-2016

News quiz 2016

Photos by Chatham House [CC BY 2.0], 
Marie Lan-Nguyen [CC BY 2.0], 
wowser [CC BY-BC 2.0] on Flickr

There has been an unusually high number of celebrity deaths this year - so many that I could have built the whole quiz around it! Anyhow, here's my end-of-year offering in its traditional format, focusing on some key news stories of 2016. Like last year, I've tried to keep it light-hearted as much as possible. Politics is still there, but it's fairly evenly balanced by sports, travel and technology news.

Criticism of the Lexical Approach

"All chunks and no pineapple?"
Image by Andrew Malone via Flickr [CC BY 2.0]

Writing an essay or working on a paper on the Lexical Approach and looking to include some sources that criticise it to make your writing balanced? I've collated a list of relevant articles here.

Be like Bill for grammar (and vocabulary) practice

The third person singular of the Present Simple tense is known to be particularly problematic for learners and when the "Be Like Bill" meme took social media by storm last week, I thought that it presents a wonderful opportunity to practise the problematic structure.

Background

If you don't know Be Like Bill, it works something like this: you see in your feed an image one of your Facebook friends has posted which looks like this.