Category Archives: grammar

A Direct TV commercial to teach narrative tenses

Posted on June 14, 2015 by Svetlana Urisman

Coming back to post about a commercial (or rather, a series of commercials) that can be used as a tool to train (or refresh) narrative tenses. The good thing about this commercial is that it describs and follows a chain … Continue reading →

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Used to and other patterns – rethought and put into practice

Posted on April 14, 2015 by Svetlana Urisman

In the morning today I had a chance to see how my substitution table from the previous post worked. I knew my student would still be struggling with all the 4 patters (get used to, be used to, used to, … Continue reading →

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a more personalised approach to ING and TO

Posted on November 24, 2014 by Svetlana Urisman

The gerund vs infinitive grammar has always seemed quite tricky for teaching to me: I have always felt there wasn’t enough really good materials, especially for the one-to-one situation.  Of course there are all kinds of gap-fills and contextualised gap-fills (like … Continue reading →

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preparing for a grammar lesson (refreshing passive voice in an applicable way)

Posted on March 11, 2014 by Svetlana Urisman

Last time I checked, there were not too many materials for teaching Passive. I mean, for teaching Passive adequately, and in a practical and possible-to-take-out-of-the-class manner. Somehow, speaking about animals, doing a geography quiz or discussing a process of coins … Continue reading →

Posted in Business English, grammar, intermediate, lesson plans, teaching higher levels, useful links | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

my favourite ways of revisiting vocabulary

Posted on February 21, 2014 by Svetlana Urisman

I’ve recently come back to work! yes, for 9 month I was off work – at least I wasn’t teaching English to real people, that is. I was a blogger and materials writer. But now 2 times a week I … Continue reading →

Posted in Business English, grammar, intermediate, lesson plans, lesson starters, lists, materials writing, Professional development, teaching higher levels, teaching lower levels, vocabulary | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

superlatives for elementary

Posted on October 7, 2013 by Svetlana Urisman

A nice short speaking activity on superlatives! To practice phrases like “the best book/ the most interesting film/ the most difficult in a conversational manner, at an elementary level. for me and my group it work as a good finalising … Continue reading →

Posted in grammar, grammar games, lesson plans, lesson starters, materials writing, teaching lower levels | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

tense revision jigsaw puzzle – what it looks like

Posted on October 3, 2013 by Svetlana Urisman

Here are some pictures to illustrate my favourite tense revision puzzle. very easy – you just give a “skeleton” and a pile of cards to your students to put together. And then you give a full copy to compare with … Continue reading →

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Mistakes? Good!

Posted on September 23, 2013 by Svetlana Urisman

This is a post about mistakes. Not about mistake/ error correction, not about mistakes being a sign of learning, but about benefitting from mistakes. Or rather, about how to use your learners’ mistake as learning (and teaching) material. What you … Continue reading →

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here is a nice small activity on Present Simple vs Present Continuous for an elementary class, a kind of activity that will help you to refresh the students’ knowledge and once again let them practise (might be good to finalise … Continue reading →

Posted on September 15, 2013 by Svetlana Urisman | 2 Comments

A tense revision jigsaw puzzle

Posted on August 20, 2013 by Svetlana Urisman

I’d like to share with you one of my favourites: a puzzle on English tenses system. Works great with men, or at least with people who have analytical mindset, and with people who appreciate clear structures. It’s very simple – … Continue reading →

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