I’ve published a stack of PDFs on names of jobs over the years, so not sure how I never thought of making a page of worksheets on the topic before, but here it finally is:
Jobs vocabulary page – NEW PAGE
Includes many combining the topic with other points like modal verbs, present tenses, present perfect, adverbs of frequency, ed and ing adjectives, advantages and disadvantages, requests and reported speech.
Newest ones not mentioned before top of each section.
Lists of useful language
The big list of classroom language with gestures – NEW
New TEFL Articles
Using body language and gestures to teach grammar – NEW
The top six grammar points for IELTS
How to teach British and American English (summary of the articles on specific points like those below, with activities that work with a mix of grammar, vocab, functions, etc)
How to teach British and American times, dates and numbers
How to teach British and American vocabulary
New TEFL PDFs
Movie vocabulary opinions – NEW
Travel English imperatives and requests practice
Countable and uncountable in IELTS
Phrasal verbs storytelling game
Giving directions free and controlled speaking
Gradable and extreme adjectives discussion questions
House and home likes and recommendations
Clothes and appearance recommendations
Past, present and future in IELTS Writing Part One
Past regrets with should have and advice speaking
Social issues discuss and agree determiners speaking practice
Possessives, body and adjectives pick and draw
Requests and future forms review
Superlatives reversi memory game
Present Simple questions with be speaking
Likes and dislikes guessing game
Countable and uncountable nouns pick and draw
Describing people and things bluff
Adverbs of frequency and times dice bluff
Feelings plus nouns pick and draw drawing game
Comparing places comparative adjectives random pelmanism game
News and media countable and uncountable
Adverbs in CAE and CPE Use of English Part One
Adverbs in CPE Use of English Part Three game
Positive and negative reviews language
Abilities of animals with can and can’t games
Singular, plural and uncountable in IELTS Listening
Future in IELTS Speaking and Writing
New article, new worksheets, old worksheets and places for upcoming worksheets on the most vital grammar points for IELTS on my new page on the topic here:
Put up a new worksheet on “How long is it?”, “What does it look like?” etc and then realised there was no page on the topic. So now there is one, with links to related stuff on colours, materials, etc:
Describing objects page – NEW
I’ve recently been researching the next book for my Cambridge CPE class and found that all the info online is out of date, so thought I’d summarise my findings here.
The only CPE textbooks which are updated for the post-2013 exam and are available new are, in order of personal preference:
Objective Proficiency
textbook with key, textbook without key, workbook with key, workbook without key, and teacher’s book
Proficiency Masterclass
There is no physical workbook, but the student’s book comes with online practice.
Proficiency Expert
The Proficiency Expert teacher’s book is no longer being sold, but your local Pearson rep will give you PDF copies of that, the answer keys and the transcripts for free if you ask.
And that’s it! Other old CPE textbooks such as Proficiency Gold are no longer being sold, and other exam series from the big publishers such as Compact don’t have CPE level books.
You’ll also need a practice exam book or two. The only three ones for the updated exam are:
Cambridge English: Proficiency Practice Tests with Key by Mark Harrison (OUP)
There are also two full tests available online for free, one as an online test and in the CPE teacher’s handbook, and the other as a downloadable PDF paper-based practice test.
The best other CPE book available is Advanced Language Practice, a grammar and vocabulary book designed for both CAE and CPE (although no longer marketed as such) and which I liked a lot when I used it for homework with my Proficiency classes many many years ago. As the language content of the test hasn’t changed much, it should still be useful.
On a related note, students can now get exactly the same level (C2) from getting an A in CAE as from passing CPE, so another possibility is just to put all your higher-level students in a CAE class, for which many more materials are available. However, you’d have to stop students going straight from passing FCE into a CAE class and put an Advanced-level general English class between the two, as otherwise you’d have a huge range of levels and needs in one class.
Another possibility is to use a very high-level Advanced textbook between CPE textbooks with supplements such as the exam practice books and/ or Advanced Language Practice above, something which I did many years ago and went okay. Headway Advanced is too high-level and too heavy in topics for most standard Advanced classes, so would probably be suitable for this.
I don’t particularly recommend Common Mistakes in Proficiency, which doesn’t actually cover the things that my students find tricky, but it’s worth looking at for teachers.
If you want to supplement or avoid the books above, it might also be worth looking at my own rapidly growing page of CPE materials:
Over the last few months I’ve put up articles on teaching UK and US grammar, vocabulary, spelling, punctuation, numbers, body language and gestures, dates and times, and functional language, plus carefully collated lists of the important vocabulary differences to teach and a new couple of worksheets. And I’ve just rounded all that off with a summary of the highlights. All available on my now very large page of UK and US English resources here:
British and American English games, worksheets and articles
I recently published a list of 32 bad IELTS tips. That seemed like a lot, but then I remembered even more bad advice from textbooks, websites and students which I think is worth a mention. Would love to hear other people’s ideas too.
Bad IELTS Speaking Part Two tips
Some IELTS books have completely pointless activities where they get students to draw mind maps as preparation for Speaking Part Two presentations. Interestingly, none of them even pretend that this can be done in one minute, which makes it completely useless in the exam. Worse, it is likely to make students say anything they like about the topic on the card, whereas in fact they have to answer just the four questions on that topic which are given on the card. They should therefore just write brief answers or key words to each of those questions on their scrap paper.
I very occasionally see students going the other way and trying to really save time by writing answers to the questions in their own language, but this is likely to affect their fluency and even possibly accuracy while speaking and so should avoided.
Please share any other bad ideas in this and other parts of the test below.
Many worksheets and articles with better tips here:
In approximate order of how often I have used them and am likely to use them myself. They are all also on the pages for each topic, and mentioned in any relevant TEFLtastic Classics posts on the most adaptable TEFL games and activities.
Talking about the future The same or different?
Speaker or listener simplest responses game (turn taking and active listening) – NEW
Giving directions miming games
Giving directions drawing games
Opinions on travel vocabulary (with travel collocations)
Crime and punishment extended speaking bluffing game
Time expressions meetings roleplay
Time expressions the same or different
Turn taking and active listening game
Solutions to countable and uncountable problems discussion
Academic writing cultural differences and useful phrases
Pick and act imperatives card game – NEW
Prepositions and determiners in Academic Writing pairwork guessing game
Passive voice problems and solutions speaking
Comparatives make me say yes game
Passive voice discuss and agree
Plurals simplest responses game
CPE Use of English collocations dominoes
Phrasal verbs random pelmanism game
Feelings- Miming & Drawing Game
Telling the time warmer cooler guessing game
Comparatives make me say yes questions game
Verb patterns discussion questions
Country and nationality words drawing games
Academic writing error correction pairwork
Opinions on science and technology
This that these those pick and draw drawing game
Present and past ability sentence completion games
Comparative adjectives drawing games
Academic discussions prepositions and determiners pairwork guessing game
Simple irregular and regular plurals presentation
Business meetings vocabulary and turn taking practice
Passive voice Yes No questions games
Academic discussions cultural differences and useful phrases
Designing and selling inventions with passive voice
Verb patterns sentence completion guessing games
How British is your Technical English?
Phonics yes no questions pelmanism game
Can you questions personalised pelmanism game
Asking questions to get more details drawing game
Past, present and future listening (especially useful for TOEIC Listening)
Guess the future time predictions practice
Irregular plurals reversi memory game
Regular and irregular plurals storytelling
British and American technical English collocations dominoes
Spot the odd one out ordinal numbers practice
Telephoning challenges dice game
Was were past time guessing game
Possessive adjectives pick and draw drawing game
Country and nationality words sentence completion games
Medical English present progressive mimes
Want and feelings guessing game
How many are there drawing game
Cultural differences extended speaking
Past and present modals of permission and obligation sentence completion games
Ordinal numbers flashcard memory games
Looking at both sides dominoes
Basic adjectives and nouns drawing games
Does he she like pick and draw drawing game
Like and don’t like TPR coin game
Prepositions and pronouns drawing game
Positive and negative words to talk about architecture
Adjectives and prepositions pick and draw
Guess the dates from hints game
Which is plus comparative drawing game
Nationality word endings maze games
Nationality words syllables and stress card games (pelmanism and snap)
Dates the Same or Different game
Comparing animals random pelmanism
Days of the week flashcard memory game
Telephoning roleplays dice game
Travel English telephone roleplays dice game
Strong and weak opinions collocations dominoes
Nationality word endings card games
Singular and plural competitions speaking game
Plurals of words ending In -y activities
Days of the week pick and draw drawing game
First contact and further contact dice game
Johnny Quickly, Jeremy Normal and Jimmy Quickly telling the time story
Days of the week Make me say Yes
Do you like categories pelmanism game
Different kinds of business communication dice game
Making arrangements roleplay dice game
Basic question formation dice game
Superlative adjectives dice bluffing game
Personal phone calls roleplays dice games
Giving directions on how to get somewhere dice game
Making shapes from blocks games
Supporting your opinions dice games
Lucy Was Not Impressed months of the year story
Can and can’t drawing coin game
I Brushed My Teeth in January past time expressions poem (Present Perfect and Past Simple)
1999 was a Strange Year months story
There is/ There are stacking games
Passive voice rhyming past participles poems activities
Present Perfect rhyming past participles poem activities
Environmental collocations first conditional pelmanism
Clothes and accessories to sell
John Finally Came First ordinal numbers story
Marketing discussion questions
Ordinal number word jigsaw games
Put the days of the week in order
Feelings and want pelmanism card game
Explaining Japanese performing arts
Different meanings in British and American English jigsaw – NEW
Past and future opposites reversi memory game
IELTS Speaking Part Two dice game
Countable and uncountable nouns Answer Me questions game
As my last article of the year is already up, I thought I’d give a list of all the ones in 2018, in approximate order of how often I’ve been using those ideas in my own classes.
If you’ve found any of my teaching ideas or materials useful in 2018, it would really help if you could donate a couple of pounds by buying a copy of my e-book. This will allow me to continue updating, improving and expanding TEFLtastic next year, and if I can make a few more pounds it would also give me time to finish off some of my 12 half-finished e-books. Thanks for all your support in 2018, and all the best for 2019!
How to teach British and American grammar
Having a ball – EFL ball games
Matching games part two – pelmanism
Stacks of fun: EFL blocks games
How to teach prepositions of time
How to teach giving and asking for directions
How to teach the language of feelings
How to teach telling the time in English
How to teach TOEIC Listening Part Two: Question Response
How to teach irregular plurals
Matching games part one – TEFL dominoes
Teaching ordinal numbers to EFL learners
How to teach British and American spelling and punctuation – NEW
How to teach British and American functional language
British and American body language and gestures
How to teach days of the week in English
How to teach past time expressions
How to teach future time expression
Most recent top of each section
New teaching materials pages
Imperative games, worksheets, stories and songs
New TEFL articles
How to teach British and American functional language
How to teach giving and asking for directions
British and American body language and gestures
How to teach TOEIC Listening Part Two: Question Response
List of useful language for EFL teachers and learners
The 100 most useful acronyms for EFL learners
The 100 most useful abbreviations for EFL learners
New TEFL pdfs
Dates- Different or the Same game
Singular and Plural Competitions Speaking Game
Designing and Selling Inventions with Passive Voice
Verb Patterns Sentence Completion Guessing Games
Past and Future Opposites Reversi Memory Game
Opinions on Travel Vocabulary (with Travel Collocations)
Past, Present and Future Listening (especially useful for TOEIC Listening)
How British is your Technical English?
Days of the week Make me say Yes
Comparing animals random pelmanism
Crime & Punishment- Extended Speaking Bluffing Game
Can you questions personalised pelmanism game
