The most TEFLtastic worksheets of 2021

As the TEFL blog boom years during which I started TEFLtastic fade further from view and more social-media-savvy generations have taken over, I more and more picture myself as an ageing rock star saying “We feel like our new album is our best ever” while everyone just wants the same old hits or are surprised you are still alive. Unlike the Rolling Stones, however, I am correct when I say that right now I am definitely producing the best work of my life by far(and certainly much better than the crap I was churning out when I first went online). Anyway, you can be the judge of that, with a selection of what I consider to be the cream of that new crop. As with previous years, this list is mainly my own personal preferences, but I’ve also included a few that were surprisingly popular and I also think are not too bad. And if those aren’t enough or aren’t good enough, there are also the materials I think are good enough to be worth paying for.

Which thing had already happened? Past Perfect trivia quiz

Classroom language for Zoom lessons New version

What were people doing? Past Continuous trivia quiz

Can you eat your house? abilities mix and match

Prepositions of position mix and match

How long had…? Past Perfect trivia quiz

Weather vocabulary bluffing game

Good and taboo Present Perfect Simple and Continuous questions

Good and taboo Present Continuous questions

Good and taboo Past Continuous questions

Appearance words storytelling task

IELTS Writing Task 2 prepositions and determiners pairwork

IELTS Writing Task 1 prepositions and determiners pairwork

Business reports disappearing text

Emailing rotating revision board game

Social English rotating revision board game

Be used to and get used to sentence completion games (bluffing, things in common and guessing game)

Past numbers trivia board game narrative tenses review

Email enquiries disappearing text memory game

Starting and ending conversations disappearing text memory game

Prepositions of position things in common speaking

Good and taboo questions with Have Something Done

Emailing prepositions and determiners pairwork

Presentations prepositions and determiners pairwork

Good and taboo countable and uncountable questions

Ordinal numbers trivia quiz

Socialising prepositions and determiners pairwork

Nouns which are both countable and uncountable pictionary

Used to, be used to and get used to sentence completion games

Used to, be used to and get used to discuss and agree

ed and ing adjectives bluffing games

Too and enough discuss and agree

Basic adjectives make me say ‘Yes’

Get Up Stand Up by Bob Marley quantifiers practice

Body vocabulary bluffing game

There is & there are guess the place

UK or USA? British and American English trivia quiz

Imperative practice ball games

Some and any things in common speaking

Telephoning determiners and prepositions pairwork

How many… did…? trivia quiz irregular Past Simple practice

How many with irregular plurals trivia quiz

Strong and weak opinions on the news and media

Family members trivia quiz

How often trivia quiz

Time of day trivia quiz

There is/ are + Xmas vocabulary drawing game

Passive voice numbers quiz

Used to trivia quiz

Good and taboo passive voice questions

Good and taboo Past Simple questions

Enquiries about Zoom emailing lesson 

Directions flashcard memory game

Festivals and celebrations vocabulary and discussion

Business Result Pre-Intermediate revision games

A and An mini-presentations

Classroom vocabulary first letters games

Talking about seasons with adverbs of frequency

COVID-compliant invitations lesson

Weather and advice practice

Telecommuting policies roleplay meeting 

Life events guessing and bluffing

Personal questions with appearance words

Jobs vocabulary random pelmanism

Short answers quick folding game (a great new variation on the Simplest Responses game)

Opinions on current affairs vocabulary

ed and ing adjectives coin games

How many… have? simple numbers quiz

How many times Present Perfect and Past Simple trivia quiz

Is there & Are there spelling games

Where is…? I don’t know game

Talking about cultural differences with ‘be used to’ and ‘get used to’

British or American food and drink trivia quiz

Adverbs of frequency good and taboo questions coin game

Is there/Are there Trivia Quiz

Giving medical advice Present Perfect practice

Ordering products on the phone line by line disappearing text

Gradable and extreme adjectives guessing game (with modals of deduction)

Guess the medical problems from the advice

Verbs of sensation mini-presentations

British or American transport trivia quiz

British and American household vocabulary quiz

British or American fashion trivia quiz

Talking about life changes with be used to/ get used to

Changes to culture be used to/ get used to discussion

Talking about problems and solutions with quantifiers

Be used to and get used to ranking discussion

Be used to and get used to dice games

Emails from other countries guess the place

Who in this class…? superlatives practice

Medical controversies vocabulary and discussion

Learning and using English ranking language practice

What places used to be called trivia quiz

Needs analyis and instant personalised practice (TEFLtastic Classics Part 50)

Back when I was studying to teach English for Business for the first time, what I most appreciated and gained from were lessons on doing needs analysis and on planning first lessons that cover things that most students are likely to need like practice of English numbers. When I then started teaching Business English and ESP, it slowly dawned on me that however good your guesses about those students, it would make more sense to use what you learn about their needs in the first class to get straight down to those things. For example, if they tell you that they most need emailing, you can move straight onto eliciting typical work emails for them onto the board, at least in one-to-one and other small classes.

It took me longer to work out how to set up instant personalised practice in bigger groups, especially if you want to cover each student’s biggest needs all in that first class. However, it is worth the effort, as it helps students appreciate that different people have different needs, and can help bond them as a group as they work together to improve everyone’s English.

The necessary steps to be able to do instant personalised practice in first classes with groups are:

• get them to interview each other on their jobs, uses of English, previous studies, etc
• give them more ideas for kinds of communication, functional language, levels of formality, etc that they might need to add to their needs analysis discussion
• ask them to choose one particularly common, important and/ or difficult situation in which they communicate in English (or a similar situation in other languages if they don’t yet know how they will need to use English)
• roleplay that situation with them as themselves and their partner as the person or people that they will have to communicate with
• give feedback and/ or input on that kind of/ those kinds of communication

Here are some of the many possible materials using that approach:

Photocopiable needs and instant personalised practice activities

Personalised instant practice for logistics staff – NEW

Needs analysis extended speaking and instant practice – NEW

Business communication needs analysis and instant personalised practice

English for logistics needs analysis and instant personalised practice

Different kinds of meetings needs analysis and instant practice (in this e-book)

Emailing needs analysis and instant personalised practice (in this e-book)

Discuss and practise your priorities

Telephoning in English discussion and personalised practice

Telephoning and teleconferences discussion and personalised practice

Needs analysis and small talk (in this e-book)

Academic Writing needs analysis and defining your terms phrases

Personal information in academic writing (for academic applications, academic bios, etc)

Writing academic bios lead-in/ needs analysis (a good first lesson for Academic Writing classes)

If that’s not enough, a few more needs and instant practice worksheets coming soon, and 49 other TEFLtastic Classics here.

New Teaching Meetings e-book

Over 300 pages of classroom-tested photocopiable activities on starting meetings, chairing, turn taking, giving and responding to opinions and advice, smoothly progressing through the meeting and bringing them to an end, etc, etc. Includes stacks of roleplays and meetings language games, and links to other language points like numbers, trends, and business abbreviations. For all levels from Elementary to Advanced (depending on which materials you use).

Available now here:

Teaching Meetings: Interactive Classroom Activities – NEW

As well as being full of great material, all the cash goes to me and so can help me find time for writing more stuff for TEFLtastic and Usingenglish, and to finish off my e-books on FCE, CPE, IELTS, grammar, functional language, negotiations, etc, etc, etc. If you don’t need to teach meetings but would like to support TEFLtastic, my other e-books are, so far:

Teaching Social English: Interactive Classroom Activities 2nd Ed. (the one that is most likely to be useful to everyone)

Teaching Emailing: Interactive Classroom Activities (perhaps the one which is most different to other books on the same topic)

Teaching IELTS Writing: Interactive Classroom Activities (another candidate for most different from other books)

Teaching Presentation Skills: Interactive Classroom Activities (the one that ties together most as a book and so is really worth having as one volume even if you have some of my worksheets on the topic)

Teaching Telephoning: Interactive Classroom Activities (my first e-book for teachers)

Really Learn the Most Important Telephoning Phrases (for self-study and homework)

TEFLtastic games/ worksheets pages A to Z

A list of every index page on TEFLtastic. There are quite a few! There is also an A to Z of just the grammar pages here, and links by topics and sub-topics here. 

If you like anything you find here and would like more, please support TEFLtastic.

Updated 28 October 2021

All index pages A to Z

Abbreviations page

Academic applications games/ worksheets – See University applications worksheets

Academic bios page

Academic discussions games/ worksheets

Academic emails page

Academic English (EAP) games/ worksheets

Academic English first lessons page

Academic Word List (AWL) games/ worksheets page

Academic writing functional language page

Academic writing worksheets

Acronyms page

Action vocabulary page

The best end-of-term revision game

I already did a post on “The Best End-of-term Revision Games”, but here I am again many years later without the final -s, because I think there is a clear winner:

Rotating revision board game (TEFLtastic classics part 14)

a terrible name for what is actually really intensive but fun practice of whatever you’ve covered as students go round (and possibly round and round). New board games revising emailing, social English and Business Result Pre just added, and the old ones cover countless textbooks for kids and adults, arts and media, and architecture.

Xmas activities for Business and ESP classes

I don’t see any reason why ESP classes can’t also have a bit of seasonal cheer, as long as you manage to tie it in with something useful such as meetings roleplays, pronouncing numbers, talking about trends, or telephoning practice. Luckily, tying together random language points is my chosen specialist subject, so have done many Business Chrimbo worksheets over the years.

In approximate order of how often I’ve used them:

Xmas party negotiations  (the best ever game for the language of meetings and negotiations, as there is a clear winner, this version with some useful seasonal vocab)

Countable and uncountable nouns negotiation (similar to the one above, with Xmas and New Year vocab, and including grammar)

Xmas trivia number pairwork  (good for Business English, Technical English and other ESP classes who need to be able to recognise and pronounce small, large and other tricky numbers)

Seasonal trends meetings practice (language of trends tied in with festivals and celebrations, starting with Xmas)

Telephoning on festivals and celebrations (starting with ones about Xmas)

Business meetings on festivals and celebrations (starting with discussion of office rules around Xmas)

Xmas and New Year meetings

Xmas and New Year negotiations

Xmas and New Year trends

Describing Xmas foods bluff game – good for students who want to explain food from their own country to foreign guests, e.g. Business English students who often entertain clients

Direct, indirect and taboo Christmas questions (tying in with small talk and important grammar for polite enquiries)

Business English Christmas cards Do’s and Don’ts – imperatives and important cultural information

Xmas and the environment discussion questions

Xmas vocabulary passive voice guessing game (including important grammar for engineering and other STEM students)

Festivals and celebrations rules (discussing how a company should deal with seasonal events, starting with Xmas, with modal verbs)

All my other Xmas and New Year worksheets, including many others linking in with typical language points such as grammar, are here:

Xmas and New Year games, worksheets, flashcards, videos and songs for EFL classes

New TEFL PDFs and articles autumn 2021

Favourite and/ or newest stuff that I haven’t mentioned yet top of each section.

New TEFL articles autumn 2021

How to teach defining and non-defining relative clauses

How to teach a/ an and the

How to teach relative pronouns

How to teach much, many, a lot, etc

New TEFL photocopiables autumn 2021

Short answers quick folding game (a great new variation on the Simplest Responses game)

Starting and ending conversations disappearing text memory game

Telecommuting policies roleplay meeting 

Emails from other countries guess the place

Verbs of sensation mini-presentations

Talking about seasons for adverbs of frequency

Opinions on current affairs vocabulary

Basic adjectives make me say ‘Yes’

Prepositions of position things in common speaking

Festivals and celebrations vocabulary and speaking

Giving medical advice Present Perfect practice

Who in this class…? superlatives practice

Imperative practice ball games

Medical controversies vocabulary and discussion

Good and taboo Present Progressive questions

Talking about problems and solutions with quantifiers

Some and any things in common speaking

Emailing prepositions and determiners pairwork

Telephoning determiners and prepositions pairwork

Good and taboo Past Progressive questions

Too and enough in fixed phrases activities, collocations and proverbs

Enquiries about Zoom emailing lesson 

Zoom vocabulary checking/ clarifying practice and presentation

IELTS Writing Task Two on architecture and town planning

and over 300 pages more in my new e-book.

If that’s not enough, the same for summer is here.

New materials for teaching online

It’s taken me a while, but I’ve finally made a page of materials specifically for Zoom (and useable or easily adaptable for Teams, etc), most of which also teach useful language for explaining how to use the software/ app:

Zoom lesson games/ worksheets – NEW

Including brand new PDFs on emailing, meetings and checking/ clarifying.

Three much missed funny TEFL blogs

While searching my blog for broken links, I found that English Droid had disappeared yet again and that English Teacher X and Chase Me Ladies were locked behind walls with invitations needed for entry. Luckily, my selections of highlights from all three are still available here for all to read and enjoy:

The only remaining bits of the English Droid

The best TEFL bits of Chase Me Ladies, I’m in the Cavalry

The best of English Teacher X

The best of English Teacher X Part Two

Click on the TEFL humour tag below for more attempts at being amusing about teaching English.

Recommended free Elementary and Pre-Int business self-study materials

This is a list of the best A1 and A2 level materials I could find online. I made this for my students to use while they were waiting for their one-to-one tutorials, to discuss afterwards, and hopefully to use to improve on their weak points before the next tutorial. Hopefully of use to others too, and if you can add your own recommendations in comments below that would really help.

Note that for most of these you need to register and/ or pay to use all the resources. However, they all have enough free stuff to worth trying and to be able to work out if it’s worth carrying on with them or not.

1 and 2. Elementary and Pre-Intermediate Business English speaking self-study

Business English Pod A2 Pre-Intermediate level (functional language through podcasts)

https://www.businessenglishpod.com/category/a2/

3. Elementary and Pre-Intermediate Business English grammar

4. Elementary and Pre-Intermediate Business English vocabulary

Business Vocabulary in Use Elementary – Pre-Intermediate 2^nd Edition sample resources

www.cambridge.org/files/8613/8071/2285/business-vocabulary-in-use-elementary2-book-with-answers-sample-pages.pdf

English University Online Business English Essential A2

https://englishuniversity.eu/?L=-6&S=60

Business Result Elementary glossary https://elt.oup.com/elt/students/result/pdf/br_elem_gloss_unit.pdf

Business Result Pre-Intermediate glossary https://elt.oup.com/elt/students/result/pdf/br_pre_gloss_unit.pdf

A1 TOEIC words Quizlet flashcards

https://quizlet.com/537131900/a1-toeic-words-s1-flash-cards/

Market Leader Elementary glossary https://www.pearson.ch/download/media/9781405813358_Glossary_ML_Elem.pdf

Market Leader Pre-Intermediate glossary

www.pearson.ch/download/media/9781405881371_Glossary_ML_PreInt.pdf

In Company Elementary 2^nd Edition word lists http://www.businessenglishonline.net/resources/in-company-second-edition-resources/wordlists/in-company-word-lists-elementary/

In Company Pre-Intermediate 2^nd Edition word lists

http://www.businessenglishonline.net/resources/in-company-second-edition-resources/wordlists/in-company-word-lists-pre-intermediate/

5. Elementary and Pre-Intermediate Business English pronunciation practice

How to Say 20 Business English Verbs correctly pronunciation lesson https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8F75VR9pjI

Business English Listening Test 1 (similar sounding words pronounced one by one) https://www.businessenglishsite.com/business-listening-test1.html

6. Elementary and Pre-Intermediate Business writing resources

https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/skills/writing/beginner-a1

https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/skills/writing/pre-intermediate-a2

Life (from National Geographic) Business Writing worksheets https://www.ngllife.com/content/business-writing-worksheets

7. Elementary and Pre-Intermediate Business English reading texts

https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/skills/reading/beginner-a1

https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/skills/reading/pre-intermediate-a2

Lingua.com Business English texts and articles

https://lingua.com/businessenglish/reading/

English University Online Business English Essential A2 Reading

https://englishuniversity.eu/?L=-6&S=70

8. Elementary and Pre-Intermediate Business listening materials

https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/skills/listening/beginner-a1/

https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/skills/listening/pre-intermediate-a2

Elena Adamova Business English videos (40 quite simple but rather old videos)

www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFxEqZHwGHQIzv6pvKLxubgRkZXO2A9fp

elllo business – Google Search

ESL Business English listening (low level ones at the top)

https://www.esl-lounge.com/student/listening-business.php

Elementary and Pre-Intermediate materials practising a mix of different business skills and language

https://www.linguahouse.com/esl-lesson-plans/esl-course-plans/business-english-course-plans/english-for-business/pre-intermediate

PDF for easy saving and printing:

recommended-elementary-and-pre-intermediate-business-english-self-study-resourcesDownload

New TEFL photocopiables and articles summer 2021

While you were all enjoying spending your summer holidays sitting around at home doing nothing, I was enjoying mine sitting around at home doing nothing but writing about TEFL. And here are the results:

New TEFL articles summer 2021

Most recent top:

How to teach quantifiers

How to teach some and any

How to teach too and enough

Fun for all the family 3 – Quite a few games for articles and determiners (new version)

How to teach the zero article

How to teach indefinite articles

New TEFL PDFs summer 2021

Personal favourites which I haven’t mentioned before top:

Body vocabulary bluffing game

A and An mini-presentations

Presentations prepositions and determiners pairwork

Ordinal numbers trivia quiz

Appearance words storytelling task

Get Up Stand Up by Bob Marley quantifiers practice

Strong and weak opinions on the news and media

Good and taboo Present Perfect Simple and Continuous questions

Weather and advice practice

IELTS Writing Task 2 prepositions and determiners pairwork

IELTS Writing Task 1 prepositions and determiners pairwork

Learning and using English ranking language practice

Good and taboo Past Simple questions

Nouns which are both countable and uncountable pictionary

Good and taboo questions with Have Something Done

Present Continuous and prepositions of place mix and match

Good and taboo countable and uncountable questions

Good and taboo passive voice questions

Adverbs of frequency good and taboo questions coin game

Too and enough discuss and agree

Socialising prepositions and determiners pairwork

Used to, be used to and get used to sentence completion games

Used to, be used to and get used to discuss and agree

Past numbers trivia board game narrative tenses review

Zero article key word activities

Discussing manners with -ed and -ing adjectives

Seasons vocabulary stations game

Wh- spelling and pronunciation activities

Sc- spelling and pronunciation activities

IELTS Writing Task Two on technology

IELTS Writing Task Two on television, news and current affairs

IELTS Writing Task 2 on Nature

COVID-compliant invitations lesson

Classroom language for Zoom lessons New version

All of these are also listed in my relevant worksheets index pages.

A previous list with links to even older lists including the best of last year is here.