Building connection through conversation
Level: A1, A2, B1 Handout: free Google docs Language focus: modal auxiliaries, daily actions, action verbs Media: video Can kindness make you happy? Altruism was a hotly debated topic in my philosophy classes. For instance, if we do something nice, and it makes us happy, are we doing it for…
Level: A2, B1, B2 Discussion questions: in the post Media: Video Language focus: environment, action verbs, household items Can you live a zero-waste life? I know I can’t…not yet anyway. But every year I try to incorporate a new environmentally friendly practice. For example, I switched my paper napkins for…
Level: A1-A2 Handout on TPT Media: Video Language focus: food, verbs, cooking, imperative How do you poach an egg? Yes, that is my discussion question for today. Easy right? In my humble experience, poaching an egg is one of the harder cooking skills I have ever had to master. It’s…
Can you describe what emotions you are experiencing right now? This is the question Tiffany Watt Smith asks her TED audience to sensitize them on how easy or how hard it is to put words on our emotions. This is a fantastic presentation to conjure the vocabulary of emotions and…
What have I learned from soap operas? Honestly, nothing. Except, there was one particularly boring summer, I was a teenager, no friends close by, and no motivation to get off the basement sofa. I got sucked into the soap opera vortex. There I learnt that I could spend an entire…
Level: B1, B2, C1 Handout on TPT 0.99$ (task cards included) Language focus: modal auxiliaries, opinions Media: video What matters most in life? A nice juicy ESL discussion question that is maybe not so easy to answer. Or is it? The main categories We could start by exploring the large…
Who is an entrepreneur? As you may have noticed from its odd pronunciation, the word comes from the French–it means someone who takes something on by him or herself. In French, entreprendre means to endeavour. So perhaps its meaning could be clarified if we re-coined the term as an endeavouror.…
Are you an introvert, extrovert or ambivert? You probably already know the answer, but wouldn’t you like to check? Organizational Psychologist Adam Grant shares his psycho-quiz on the TED site, which for us ESL practitioners can be transformed into a fantastic interactive reading exercise. I would suggest you pair up…
Being environmentally mindful can mean much more than composting your food scraps and recycling packaging. There are hundreds of little gestures that can contribute to making the planet healthier. How many try to pack litterless lunches? Do you use plastic produce bags for your fruits and vegetables? Do you use…
If you could go anywhere on vacation, no budget, no constraints, where would you go? Erik Conover is a filmmaker and traveler and he has used social media to help him discover new and little know traveling gems. He challenged his YouTube followers to make suggestions for the most incredible…
