Activity Center
by: Douglas Adams

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This page contains links to activities that teachers can use with their students or if you're a student, scroll down to the student links for many activities you can do by yourself.

Editor's Idea Corner


*A Trip to Owl Creek Bridge

 This group bonding activity for intermediate or higher level students, practices descriptive as well as narrative skills.It is a fluency activity that enhances student's speaking, listening, and grammar skills in a highly communicative way. I suggest this activity be done around the fifth week of class after students have begun to form relationships with one another.


*Telling it Like it is with Tobermory

This activity for beginning and intermediate level students is connected to a story by Saki entitled Tobermory. Tobermory is a cat who learns to speak and makes the mistake of telling a room full of gossiping party guests exactly what he heard them say about one another. Along the same lines, this activity teaches students how to use figurative language to talk about their classmates.


*The Road Kill Cafe'

Road Kill Café
(A strange bit O' American culture)
Skills benefits: Writing road kill recipes is good practice for developing your instructional skills, using connecting words, and two-part verbs. Furthermore this activity is a really good vocabulary builder and has the added benefit of allowing you to use and develop your imagination.

*Dust in the Wind

'Dust in the Wind' is a listening assignment that can be used with a beginning to low intermediate level class. It is a cloze test style activity. You will need a copy of the song 'Dust in the Wind' by Kansas. This can be downloaded in MP3 format from: Dust
Click here: More Songs to download more song lyrics.




For more ideas & lesson plans click on the following links to download:
  • a one week sample beginner-level lesson plan corresponding to Interchange Intro Book A : Intro Book Chpt.1

  • a one week set of lesson plans for intermediate-level students entitled: Leading a Class Discussion in which students lead a 20-25 minute discussion. This set of plans includes lessons on choosing and narrowing a good topic, selecting and using interesting presentation material, and creating fact-based and opinion-based discussion questions.

  • a jigsaw reading/writing lesson and activity entitled: Alan's Terrible Day incorporating perfective verb aspect, narration, group work and peer correction.

Check out these other on-line activities:

Activities for Students:

  • ELI at the University of Florida: Looking for a really great site filled with excellent activities for your students?; then this is the place for you. I spent the first few years of my professional career at UF's ELI and built their web site.

  • The ESL Center is yet another good source of reading material and activities for esl students. I particularly like the section on urban legends and I think you will too. After entering the ESL Center just click on the 'reading and writting' link.

  • UF's ELI Activities Check out this site. It has good sample readings and questions for you to practice with. Be sure to see all the items available to current students.

  • ESL Quiz Zone Here's another good source of reading comprehension quizes.

  • ESL Blues Good for intermediate level students, this reading on 'urban legends' is filled with great new vocabulary.

  • English Exercises Online This site, which is good for all levels, offers another good source for interesting short story passages and questions.

  • Internet TESL Journal Not only does this site contain some good readings and practice exercises, but it's also a great source for links to other reading sites.

  • English on the Internet Try this site if you just can't get enough of reading and quiz taking.Within it you'll find numerous reading comprehension passages and lots of practice exercises.






































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