A selection of English ESL printables with intermediate (b1)

This worksheet explores the controversial topic of cancel culture through a devil’s advocate reading that argues in favor of canceling public figures who act irresponsibly. The reading presents cancel culture as a form of public accountability and social justice, while also acknowledging the risks of false accusations. A real-world sidebar about the Johnny Depp vs. Amber Heard case adds complexity and context. The lesson includes a short reading text (~400 words), a “True Story” box with comprehension questions, useful phrases for debate, and a set of 15 discussion questions. Designed for B1–B2 students, this activity builds critical thinking, speaking fluency, and confidence expressing opinions on complex social issues.

Cancel Culture Is Good for Society

The series guessing game is for adults or high-schoolers in order to stimulate oral practice. The students have to answer the questions, by guessing. There are no wrong answers.

Guessing game - Valentine's Day

In first conditional sentences, the focus is on real and possible situations in the future. The first task when writing the first part of a first conditional sentence is to describe a real and likely condition. This condition must be something that can realistically happen, and it should be introduced with “if.” For example: “If it rains tomorrow,” or “If you study hard.”

Next, ensure you use the present simple tense for this part, even though you are referring to a possible future situation. For instance: “If I have time,” or “If she calls me.”

Lastly, you are only setting the stage for a future outcome, so you should leave the result open for someone else to complete. This way, you focus on establishing the condition, allowing the next person to suggest what happens if the condition is met.

First Conditional

This worksheet is aimed at students at the A2-B1 level of the CEFR. It combines reading, grammar practice, and an interactive activity to help students improve their understanding of Past Simple and Past Continuous, while introducing them to the cultural concept of flyting in a relatable and engaging way. The balance of comprehension questions and creative tasks makes it suitable for intermediate learners developing their language skills in a fun and active environment.

Viking rap battles; Past simple or past continuous

15 activities that make language learning fun. Show your students that they can learn English by watching videos, listening to songs, talking to friends or writing a poem. You can use this worksheet to celebrate the European Day of Languages.

European Day of Languages Scavenger Hunt

This engaging worksheet is designed to help students understand the qualities important in finding a significant other, using a fun and relatable context of a reality dating show. The worksheet includes a variety of activities to enhance comprehension and encourage personal reflection.

Starting with comprehension questions, students will solidify their understanding of the text through multiple-choice, true or false, and short-answer questions. Group discussions foster collaborative thinking, allowing students to share what they value in an ideal partner and why.

The creative writing activity gives students the chance to describe their ideal partner, promoting personal reflection and storytelling skills. A research and report task encourages students to find and write about inspiring real-life stories of couples, enhancing their research and writing abilities.

A role-play activity allows students to practice their communication skills by acting out a blind date scenario, where they highlight different qualities that make a good match. This interactive element makes learning fun and engaging.

Overall, this worksheet helps students develop a deeper understanding of relationship qualities, improving their language skills while making the lesson enjoyable and relevant to their lives. Teachers will appreciate its versatility and the way it encourages active participation and creative thinking.

Finding the Perfect Match: Meet Jack

This engaging and comprehensive worksheet on "The Importance of Fathers" is designed for preteens aged 11-13, providing an insightful exploration of the vital role fathers play in our lives. The reading passage explains how fathers contribute to emotional support, academic success, and the teaching of important values like honesty, respect, and responsibility. The worksheet includes various activities to reinforce learning, such as warm-up questions, true or false questions, discussion prompts, and a word search puzzle. These activities not only enhance comprehension but also encourage critical thinking and personal reflection. Additionally, there is a writing task where students can express why they love spending time with their father or father figure. For added versatility, a role-play activity allows students to act out scenarios where a father teaches something new, fostering creativity and practical application of language skills. Teachers may also want to create their own translation activity tailored to students’ L1 (first language), making the content even more relatable and accessible. This worksheet is a valuable resource for fostering an understanding of the importance of father figures, providing both educational and emotional growth for students.

The Importance of Fathers

In these tasks,students will read about someone´s last holiday and complete some gaps with verbs in the past simple. After that,students will practice making questions about what they read in the first exercise.

Talking about your last holiday. Past simple.

This is a quiz i created for a student group after studying materials and their basic properties. Key vocabulary was:

materials: clay, metal, paper, plastic, rubber, wood, glass, wax, fabric, leather
properties of materials (how they feel when touched & what they look like)
shiny, flexible, inflexible, transparent, strong, weak, artificial
textures: smooth, rough, hard, soft, squishy
temperatures: hot, warm, cool, cold
colors: green, brown, red, black, white, orange, yellow, blue, purple, pink, silver, gray
size: big, long, small, short, thick, thin, tall
magnets, compass, north pole, south pole, attract, repel, magnetic field, same, opposite, molecules
cardinal directions: north, south, east, west
metal types: iron, nickel, cobalt, silver, aluminum
does it sink or float? (water displacement)
adjectives: big, small, heavy, light, dense, flat, wide, narrow,
full, empty, stable
verbs: sink, float, absorb, use, cut, tape, stick
supplies: tape, scissors, aluminum foil, plastic film, cardboard

Materials quiz - metals, wood, wax, plastic, etc. + magnets & compass

This lesson is about cultural diversity, accepting and tolerating differences, and being understanding toward oneself and others. I use a mental exercise to invite my students to think about their reactions. I used one idiom. Enjoy! 

Birds of a Feather Do Not Necessarily Flock Together

What are the benefits of living in Montreal? What can you do there? What is the life style and what are the costs?

Read an article on a given web site and answer the questions in the worksheet accordincly.

Answer key included.

11 Reasons Why Living in Montreal is Awesome

Oral interaction activity for the begining of the year. Choose your 2 students in the class, ask them personal questions to filll the table, then introduce one of those two classmates to everybody. You will not introduce yourself. 

Use of 3rd person singular with verbs

Getting to know your classmates

Intermediate (B1)

Culture, intercultural communication, cross-cultural communication

Adjectives to describe feelings, emotions

Adjectives to describe personality and character

Adjectives: Gradable / Non-gradable adjectives

Articles: Definite or indefinite article (a, an or the)

BE + infinitive structures (e.g. he was to become famous)

Clauses of contrast (e.g.  although, while)

Clauses of purpose (e.g. in order to, so that, so as to)

Clauses of reason (e.g. because, because of, due to, as, since)

Cleft sentences (e.g. It's Joey we're looking for)

Comparison: Comparative adjectives and structures

Comparison: Superlative adjectives and structures

Conditional 2 (second conditional) - would

Conditionals: Conditional phrases (e.g. unless, provided that, as long as)

Conjunctions (aka connectives, e.g. and, but, or, so, then)

Contractions (shortened forms, e.g. don't, aren't, etc.)

Determiners (words that can come before nouns)

Formal and informal English (politeness or colloquial language)

Future perfect continuous (progressive) tense

Future perfect simple and continuous (progressive) tense

Future phrases (e.g. be about to, bound to, likely to, due to, set to + INF)

Homonyms (two words with the same pronunciation - homophones and homographs)

It as preparatory subject (e.g. it's raining, it's nice of you to)

Linking verbs (aka copulas, e.g. I am a student)

For personal or classroom use only. Uploading on other internet sharing platforms or any commercial use NOT PERMITTED. Share Alike.

Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike License

Creative Commons Attribution No Derivatives License

Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License

Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike License

Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives License

how to accuse somebody of something in English

how to apologize, say sorry, forgive and express regret in English

how to ask for information and make inquiries in English

how to ask for something, make requests in English

how to blame somebody for something in English

how to defend yourself from criticism in English

how to deny or admit something in English

how to describe things or people in English

how to emphasize important things in English

how to encourage or discourage people in English

how to evaluate people or progress in English

how to express agreement /disagreement in English

how to express approval and disapproval  in English

how to express cause and effect in English

how to express interest in something in English

how to express likelihood, probability in English

how to express likes and dislikes in English

how to express sequence and chronology in English

how to express shock and disbelief in English

how to express sympathy and condolences in English

how to give permission, authorization in English

how to inform somebody about some news in English

how to interpret what was said in English

how to keep a conversation going in English

how to make guesses about something in English

how to make, accept and refuse offers in English

how to order or make a booking in English

how to persuade, convince people in English

how to praise people and express appreciation in English

how to reassure somebody of something in English

how to refuse and object to something in English

how to remind people of something in English

how to rephrase, paraphrase what was said in English

how to say thank you, express gratitude in English

Nouns: Collective nouns (team, class, family, committee)

Nouns: Proper nouns (names of people, cities, companies)

Oxymorons (phrases with words of contradictory meaning, e.g. living dead)

Participles: Past participle (e.g. HAVING DONE)

Participles: Present participle (e.g. DOING)

Parts of Speech (aka word classes, e.g. nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs)

Past perfect continuous (progressive) tense

Phonetics (pronunciation, IPA, phonetic symbols)

Plural nouns: regular plurals with S ending

Prefixes (e.g. A, UN, IM, DIS, MIS, EN, etc. )

Prepositions vs adverbs (e.g. before me, saw him before.)

Prepositions: Double prepositions (e.g. out of)

Prepositions: Participle prepositions (e.g. pending, concerning)

Prepositions: Phrase prepositions (e.g. by means of)

Present perfect continuous (progressive) tense

Present perfect simple or present continuous tense

Present simple tense: S for third person singular verbs

Present simple vs continuous (progressive) tense

Pronouns: EACH OTHER, ONE ANOTHER (reciprocal pronouns)

Pronouns: Possessive pronouns (e.g. my, mine)

Pronouns: Reflexive pronouns (e.g. myself, yourself))

Pronouns: SOMEBODY, ANYBODY, EVERYBODY, NO ONE, NOTHING, etc.

Pronouns: THIS, THAT, THESE, THOSE (demonstratives)

Pronouns: YOU and THEY to talk about people in general

Quantifiers (e.g. some, many, much, any, few, little)

Questions: WH questions (open-ended questions)

Reported speech: reported questions (indirect questions)

There is / there are / there was / there were / there will be, etc.

Verbs: Transitive or intransitive verbs (words that can or cannot stand with objects)

Working with Paragraphs: ordering, titling

Role play, miming, drama activity or improv game

Pictionary (picture dictionary) or picture matching

Writing an opinion essay (persuasive essay)

Learners who are Pre-A1 have just begun learning English and will first learn how to:<ul><li>Say the letters in the alphabet and numbers</li><li>Say hello, talk about names and age</li><li>Name the colors and dates, express likes and dislikes</li></ul>

Absolute beginners who have begun to learn the letters and numbers

Learners taking the A1 Elementary exam should be able to:<ul><li>Introduce themselves and ask and answer questions about personal details such as where he/she lives, things he/she has, people he/she knows.</li><li>Communicate using very basic phrases as long as the other person talks slowly and clearly and is prepared to help.</li><li>Main grammar points to know: common adjectives & adverbs of frequency, going to, how much/how many, imperatives, I'd like, 's – possessive, common prepositions of place and time, present simple & continuous, there is/are</li></ul>

A very basic tourist level, which is enough for buying food and a bus ticket

Learners taking the A2 Pre-intermediate exam should be able to:<ul><li>Understand sentences and frequently used expressions (e.g. very basic personal and family information, shopping, local geography, employment).</li><li>Complete tasks that are routine and exchange information about familiar matters.</li><li>Describe matters of immediate need in simple terms.</li><li>Main grammar points to know: countable/uncountable nouns, adverbs of frequency, future will/going to, much/many, present perfect, past simple, past continuous, common phrasal verbs, common modals: can/should</li></ul>

A tourist who can do basic conversations about the past, present and future

Learners taking the B1 Intermediate exam should be able to:<ul><li>Understand points regarding family, work, school or leisure-related topics.</li><li>Deal with most travel situations in areas where the language is spoken.</li><li>Create simple texts on topics of personal interest.</li><li>Describe experiences, events, dreams, and ambitions, as well as opinions or plans in brief.</li><li>Main grammar points to know: question tags, intensifiers: too/enough, future tenses, past tenses, modals, conditionals, wh-questions in the past</li></ul>

Learners who can deal with both familiar and routine situations, in friendly and work contexts

Learners taking the B2 Upper-intermediate exam should be able to:<ul><li>Understand the main ideas of complex text on both concrete and abstract topics, including technical discussions in his/her field of specialization.</li><li>Interact with fluency and spontaneity that makes regular interaction with native speakers quite possible without difficulty for either party.</li><li>Produce clear, detailed text on a wide range of subjects and explain an opinion on a topical issue giving the advantages and disadvantages of various options.</li><li>Main grammar points to know: perfect tenses, mixed conditionals, modals in the present, phrasal verbs, reported speech, wish, relative clauses</li></ul>

The level where you can be a tour guide for your foreign friends and talk about a lot of topics, even abstract ones, with ease and fluency

Learners taking the C1 Advanced exam should be able to: Express ideas fluently and spontaneously without much obvious searching for expressions. Use language flexibly and effectively for social, academic and professional purposes. Understand a wide range of demanding, longer texts. Produce clear, well-structured, detailed text on complex subjects, using linking phrases (=words that connect ideas between sentences). Main grammar points to know: inversion, mixed conditionals, modals in the past, all passive forms, phrasal verbs (all patterns), wish/if only for regrets

Learners who can smoothly communicate in every walk of life, read long texts and write well

Learners taking the C2 Proficient exam should be able to:<ul><li>Understand almost everything read or heard with ease.</li><li>Summarize information from a variety of sources into a coherent presentation.</li><li>Express themselves using precise meaning in complex scenarios.</li><li>Can express him/herself spontaneously, very fluently and precisely, differentiating finer shades of meaning even in the most complex situations</li></ul>

Get here and you are ready to study in English at university

31,519 Intermediate (B1) English ESL worksheets pdf & doc