A selection of English ESL printables with upper-intermediate (b2)

After making a list of words, students use this sheet to write two different paragraphs showing various connotations.

Connotation

discussion cards

They rea the explanations on the use of the modal verbs and practice using them in exercises devoted to each of the two modals and follow it with a mixed exercises where they must pick the best fit. Hope it can help your students. :)

WOULD RATHER/SOONER AND HAD BETTER

Three main methods of payment - cash, credit card, and mobile payment. Advantages and disdvanates presented. Students can try to come up with their own examples.

Payment methods - pros and cons

This worksheet is designed for B1-B2 learners, focusing on verbs often confused like argue/disagree, notice/realize, and teach/learn. Through an engaging article on why now is the best time to be alive, students will reflect on modern life versus past generations, while practicing these commonly confused verbs. The worksheet encourages discussion and speaking activities where students compare their lives to those of their parents or grandparents, prompting reflection and vocabulary building.


In addition to discussion, students will complete grammar exercises where they choose the correct verb for specific contexts, followed by a creative writing activity. For the writing task, students imagine they are living in the past, writing a letter to a friend about their day using the target verbs. This approach blends vocabulary, grammar, and speaking skills, providing practical language use in a creative context. The worksheet promotes student interaction, fostering real communication while focusing on grammar points relevant to their daily lives.

Why Now is the Best Time to Be Alive (speaking and commonly confused verbs)

In this asdvanced worksheet students get a nice opportunity to see various types of crimes in appropriate contexts, namely in headlines and brief pieces of news.  

Different types of crimes

I selected chunks from the short texts and rephrased them using three synonyms for each. During the class, I read out the rephrased phrases, and the students searched the text to find phrases with similar meanings. I used the original text for stronger students, while for weaker students, we can use a version of the text where the chunks are highlighted for easier identification.
A discussion session will be focused on using vocabulary derived from the text.


Reading - Vocabulary Work

Learners complete the worksheet by listening to the songs and filling in the gaps/checking their answers.



12 songs are featured in the worksheet with 1 idiom in each song. The list of songs can be found in the video description and the list of idioms at the start of the video (video linked below). The answer key is included after the worksheets.



The activity can be made more difficult for advanced learners by asking students to try to fill in the gaps BEFORE listening to the songs, thus testing their knowledge of idioms.



The music’s audio along with the answers can be found in this video: https://youtu.be/wYqdHf6n1UM



Learners self correct their worksheets by watching the video: https://youtu.be/wYqdHf6n1UM

Ordinal numbers - idioms and pronunciation - song worksheet

The series "Working with caricatures is meant for oral communication and discussion for advanced students ( adults or teens ). They should evaluate the pictures as indicated and then have a discussion with a partner or the whole class. 

If you like this worksheet, you can find more caricatures here:

https://en.islcollective.com/mypage/my-creations?search_key=Working+with+caricatures&type=printables&option=published&id=5163&grammar=&vocabulary=&materials=&levels=&studentTypes=&skills=&languageExams=&dialect=&functions=&page=1&sorting_type=most_newest&filter_type=filter_all&view_type=list&view_length=12





Working with caricatures - Water supplies

This simple worksheet will help you to learn and revise some words in a funny way. 

You need a dice and cards with the words which students need to practise. 

Hope it'll be useful!

Revision of words

Gap fill activity for Sting's song. Focus on phrasal verbs, maintly related to dating. As a warm up, dicuss freedom in relationships, what it is to set someone free, either it is good or not. After watching, discuss the feelings of the the composer, and wether the students have felt like that. Use the version on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSGl3d4KOMk. 

If you love somebody

There are several exercises!

Excellent activity to improve listening skills.

We hope you enjoy this worksheet!



Song: Say you love me

By: Jessie Ware

Fly High 2015

Jessie Ware - Say you love me

Upper-intermediate (B2)

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.

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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

15,842 Upper-intermediate (B2) English ESL worksheets pdf & doc