A selection of English ESL speed printables

An ESL/EFL listening exercise for the song "Dumb ways to die", which has gone viral on the internet - about 50 million people have watched it so far http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJNR2EpS0jw). Authored by John Mescall, this song was commissioned by the Australian Railway company to encourage passengers to be cautious at train stations. Its dark humor and cute characters made it an instant hit among both adults and children.











This song could be connected with the topic of public transportation, urban life or the Darwin Awards. In my class, I used it to connect to the previous class where students wrote and shared their bucket lists with eachother.











Lesson plan:











1. Warmer: Show 4 characters. Let students guess what happened to them. Introduce the song, and before listening, elicit some more dumb ways to die. Discuss the suggestions briefly with the class.











2. Listen to the song. Have students fill in as many gaps as possible. Listen again, then discuss each character' fate. To speed things up, you can also do the checking by projecting the lyrics onto the board, if you have that technology in class.











Here's the characters in isolated animations:http://dumbwaystodie.tumblr.com/

Dumb Ways to Die Lyrics Gap Fill

Doing some type of mental exercise, in the form of brain teasers or word and number games can:1. Boost overall brain activity.2. Increase your memory power.3. Reduce the risk, and slow the decline, of dementia.4.Improve memory and brain processing speed.5.Reduce boredom.6. Improve concentration.

Brainteasers + Key

People. One student describes himself and the other have to take notes about him. You can do it at high speed and students have to write down or remember as much as they can.

Describing

This is a reading comprehension about Arab/ muslim astronomers . It will help students improve their reading speed and comprehension through carefully designed exercises.

Arab/ muslim astronomers 

A kind of speed dating.  First, students have to make the questions (individual exercise to practise question structures).  Then they have to interview up to 4 different students (oral exercise to practise questions).  Finally, they have to feed back (writen or oral exercise to use the 3rd person sg).

The perfect flatmate

This is a combination worksheet to accompany the National Geographic videos 'Inside Sumo' and 'Could you be a sumo wrestler?' These videos can be viewed directly on youtube or downloaded and burned to a disc. The worksheet is designed for inter to upper-intermediate students. Students of all ages would enjoy these videos, although the worksheets are more appropriate for middle school students and older.

I accompanied this lesson with a reading from Reading Explorer 2 (also from National Geographic); the readings, themselves, tend to go very quickly, so the videos added a bit more context and challenge.

Sumo!

I watched a beautiful music video by the band Seafret called Wildfire and felt inspired to create a lesson based on it. Students read through the lyrics to identify similes and metaphors. Then read through a set of questions and find definitions to some of the vocabulary. Next, they work with a partner to ask and answer some of the questions. Lastly, they watch the music video.



You may wish to abbreviate the questions, or rephrase them, as some of the language might be too difficult for lower level students.



This lesson would work well with one on speed dating, and is intended for older students.

Figurative Language:  Similes & Metaphors

this is a grammar worksheet to explain rules for the plurals, with examples. I have also included some irregular plurals. This worksheet doe not include exercises but only the notes for students, to help the teacher to speed up with the notes.

Rules for the plural

This is yet another worksheet type from our lively new BINGOBONIC Phonics series, by BINGOBONGO Learning. Want to know more and get a FREE 80 page PDF of worksheets, follow the link to our site below!

https://www.bingobongokids.com/free-phonics-worksheets-esl-efl-kids-classes/ 



Students review words they have learned using the bright and colorful pictures. Students write out the words next to each picture and finally connect the word pairs together. The activity finishes with a fun and speedy sight-reading activity to build up reading speed and make sure kids are pronouncing properly.

Two and Three Letter Word Matching - BINGOBONIC Phonics from BINGOBONGO Learning

This is a partner conversation activity. 








The front of this ESL worksheet is preparation for the conversation, the back is the conversation script (two scripts: A and B). 








Preparation





First, students consider 8 descriptions together as a class. 


The teacher will read the first description, ensure that everyone understands, then give 10 seconds for students to write an answer.


Students can put the first answer they can think of; crazy answers are okay! (but they should try not to discuss with each other)


Then move on to the next description as a class. 





When they have 8 answers, students copy those answers into the respective spaces in the script (1 -> 1, 2 -> 2, etc.)








Partner Conversation





Make pairs, A and B


Read the script and have a conversation on the first day of school


Change partners 1-2 times for variety in conversation








The language is simple so students can work on speaking with the speed and inflection of a fluent English speaker. Teachers should also discuss colloquial language like "yeah" and "cool" and stress that this is appropriate in conversation but not in writing (unless it's texting/ social media)








The descriptions in the preparation are catered to a Japanese class and include Japanese translations. You should edit according to your country / culture.

First Day of School - Mad Libs

Can you not only repeat these silly tongue twisters but can you say them at top speed. This is a fun exercise for the class to improve speaking ability. Are there any similar tongue twisters in your language?

Fun With English Tongue Twisters

This is a fun discussion activity to do in an intermediate or advanced classroom of teenagers or adults. 

I use it in an inside-outside circle cooperative structure, but it could be used walking around and talking to different people, or in a "speed dating" style activity.

The students must choose between one or another type of activity and say why they prefer it. Both the person asking the question and the person hearing it should say their opinion.

Passions Inside-Outside Circle

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

93 Speed English ESL worksheets pdf & doc