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Image credits: Matt Hrkac [CC BY 2.0]; Heo Manjin | Korea.net [CC BY-SA 2.0]; Number 10 [CC BY-NC-ND 2.0]; Steve Jurvetson [CC BY 2.0] |
Jan 7, 2023
News Quiz 2022: follow up
Dec 30, 2022
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.
May 29, 2022
IATEFL 2022 report and reflection
Some highlights from the annual IATEFL conference, which took place in Belfast on 17-20 May
The first post-pandemic 'in-person' IATEFL conference saw a slight dip in attendance figures – about 1600 delegates compared to the pre-pandemic figures of nearly 2500 attendees – but it didn't detract from the electric atmosphere, which was largely due to the ability to interact face-to-face again. Indeed, I didn't see members of my PLN for three long years! Between networking and catching up with friends and colleagues I managed to see some sessions. Here are some highlights.Mar 4, 2022
What I saw in the war
A lesson based on Janine di Giovanni's TED talk
Image source: TED.com [Fair use] |
Jan 6, 2022
News Quiz 2021 - Follow Up
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.
Dec 30, 2021
News Quiz 2021
Photo by Hello I'm Nik on Unsplash |
Jan 10, 2021
News Quiz 2020 - Follow Up
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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 |
Jan 3, 2021
News Quiz 2020
Aug 13, 2020
Something Just Like This
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:
May 25, 2020
Zoom activity: Photos of the week
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Photos of the Week section in The Atlantic |
Mar 22, 2020
3 ideas for synchronous online lessons on Zoom
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Photo by Caroline Feelgood on Unsplash
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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.
Jan 5, 2020
News Quiz 2019 - Follow Up
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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!Dec 29, 2019
News Quiz 2019
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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.
Dec 14, 2019
10 paper-and-pencil activities using Quizlet
Mar 12, 2019
Still blogging - but elsewhere
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CUP booth at IATEFL Poland in Wroclaw (September 2018) Can you spot my book? |
Jan 7, 2019
News Quiz 2018 - Follow Up
Activities for reviewing lexis from News Quiz 2018
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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] |
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
Dec 29, 2018
News Quiz 2018
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Photo by KRIS AUS67 on Flickr [CC BY 2.0] |
Aug 30, 2018
Present Simple or Hard Present ?
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'The sun rises in the east' - a commonly used example of the Present Simple Photo by @CliveSir via ELTpics on Flickr |
Apr 6, 2018
8 dictionary activities
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Photo by Hana Ticha via eltpics on Flickr |
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.
Jan 6, 2018
News Quiz 2017 - Follow Up
Activities for reviewing the language from News Quiz 2017
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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]
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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/
Dec 29, 2017
News Quiz 2017
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Image source: Billboard |
Dec 18, 2017
The state of stative verbs
or why I've stopped teaching them (and why you shouldn't bother with them either)
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Photo by Emma Newman Segev via ELTpics on Flickr |
Sep 29, 2017
The double life of the asterisk sign
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A small glyph with lots of functions |