A selection of English ESL after and before printables

Two short vocabulary activities to do after watching the video. Before playing it I told the kids they had to pay attention to the four school things they would see in the video. Then, I handed out the activities and play the video as many times as the kids needed. 

School Things

Discuss the questions before watching the video. Students have to note down the answers while watching the video. After watching they will discuss their opinions about Paul.

Listening comprehension - Paul Alexander

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Let’s Talk School – Real Stories from Six Countries is a podcast-style roleplay speaking activity designed for B1+ learners preparing for Maturita or conversation exams. Based on a fictional panel discussion, the script introduces six unique speakers from different countries — Czech Republic, Canada, the UK, the USA, Australia, and New Zealand — who share their honest, sometimes humorous, and contrasting views on education. Over five rounds, students explore topics such as school systems, typical school days, exams, uniforms, and learning preferences. The teacher acts as the moderator, guiding the discussion and prompting participation.

Students read their roles aloud from their phones (no printing required), with stronger students taking full characters and lower-level students splitting them. The activity mimics the natural flow of a YouTube panel (inspired by VICE, Jubilee, etc.) and helps build fluency, confidence, and vocabulary in a relaxed, discussion-based format.

At the end, a curated list of lexical chunks (collocations and sentence frames) is provided. Teachers are encouraged to translate these into the students' L1 (mother tongue) to support understanding and usage in speaking. These chunks can also be reviewed before or after the activity for better retention and natural language production.

Let’s Talk School-Real Stories from Six Countries

For this activity, you should show the students the following two short videos;

The Christmas Truce (approx 3:30mins long) -  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWF2JBb1bvM

The Man on the Moon (approx 2mins long) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuz2ILq4UeA 

While they watch them, they should make notes on their worksheets about the story, their feelings, and what they think the message or moral of the story is. After watching the videos, the students can use their notes to have a discussion as a class.



I printed the worksheets two to an A4 page making them A5 size each.



The first video, The Christmas Truce, is a true story based in the trenches of World War 1. There are no violent scenes and it is both suitable for children and truly heartwarming. It has previously been shown on UK television in the daytime. I still suggest that you watch it before showing it to young children to make sure you are happy with the content.

Christmas Mini Movies and Questions

Active and Passive Voice. Confusion and misinformation abound when it comes to choosing active or passive voice. What is “voice” after all, and why should one type be preferred over the other?  Read on to clarify how active and passive voice serve specific purposes in sentences, depending on the emphasis, tone and audience for your message.

Before and Aftre passive voive

I created this worksheet for the girl I'm tutoring. I like to encourage her to watch movies in English, showing her my favourites and talking about them afterwards. 

The tasks focus on the comprehension of the movie with tasks before, while and after watching it including simple multiple choice tasks as well as creative writing.

It can be solved alone and compared in a group.

Movie worksheet - Music and Lyrics

this worksheet is best for kindergarten. The pupils will master the numbers from 11 to 20 by will writing in the missing numbers from before and after the given. 

missing number before and after

A fun Halloween activity for younger learners who are elementary to pre-intermediate. You could start with a 'monster brainstorming' activity before getting the students to match the monsters with the pictures. This is followed by a sentence completion activity where students write the correct form of a missing verb. After that they match the descriptions with the monsters and then they discuss who their favourite monster is.

Monster Match - Vocabulary and Verbs

My explanation for students how to use before and after in sentences. Examples are in English, however, explanation is in Polish. Hope you'll dwonload and use it! 

Before and after - polish explanation.

 -  nursery rhymes - listen to the song and then draw it. Let the kid's imagination pop up after they have listened to the song. Ask them also if they have ever seen Humpty Dumpty before.

Hupty Dumpty - sing and draw

students complete the sentences using the correct preposition. It's a good exercise to revise the use of prepositions after nouns, verbs and adjectives before the test. 

prepositions with nouns, verbs and adjectives

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)

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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

251 After and before English ESL worksheets pdf & doc