ESL Brains

"Teaching is the greatest act of optimism." Happy Wednesday, teachers! We love this quote from Colleen Wilcox on teaching. Use it to inject your day with positivity and belief in what you do! ?? Let us know in the comments – do you have any favourite quotes about teaching or learning?

How often do you make use of ESL Brains Lesson Sets? ?? Those who use them, swear by them! These handy bunches of 2-3 lessons make class planning so much easier, and students love them, too! We’ll link the page to our Sets in the comments – check them out! ??

This week we're celebrating International Mother Language Day! It’s all about multilingualism and showing appreciation for indigenous languages. It’s a great opportunity to talk to your students about the richness and diversity of language. ??? Let us know in the comments if you speak (or are learning) any languages besides English!

Hi teachers! How important do you think an effective warm-up activity is for setting the tone of a lesson? We don’t always have time, or sometimes we run out of ideas, and sometimes students just don’t need one…but there are those who swear by those 5 initial minutes to get things up and running! Let us know your thoughts… ??

Hi all! We’ve got a cool lesson coming out today! Who’s heard of the Jevons paradox? ?? In simple (ish) terms, it refers to an economic principle which suggests that when efficiency increases, so does consumption, thereby rendering the gains made by increased efficiency irrelevant. Or something like that? ?? Anyway, if that sounds like something your students would happily dive into, check out our latest C2 lesson! It’s bound to be challenging, though-provoking, and extremely engaging. Check out the ?? in the comments.

Hi teachers! ?? We hope the first month of January has been a good one for you and your students. We found it to be pretty chilled at ESL Brains, but we published lots of fun new lessons and even a new A1 Flow! We’ll leave a link in the comments for you to check it out. ?? How did your January go? Was it jam-packed full of new students and exciting lessons, or did you have time to ease into the new year?

Teachers, what makes a great C2 worksheet? ?? As Material Writers, we strive to create lessons for advanced learners that are both effective and engaging, but we sometimes hear conflicting priorities from teachers of C2 learners. So, we're curious — what do you consider to be the most important element of a C2 lesson? ?? Or can you think of something else? Let us know in the comments! ??

Have you seen our cool new lesson on emotions for B1/B2 students? ?? If you're a fan of the Inside Out movies, you'll love working with this lesson! In the class, students will: - discuss tweets about the movie ?? - talk about emotions in different contexts ?? - learn vocabulary (e.g. thrilled, anxious, envious, etc) ??? - watch a trailer for Inside Out 2 ?? We've already gotten some nice feedback on the lesson, and we recommend you try it with your intermediate learners. We'll post the link to the lesson in the comments, so you can check it out.

How do you deal with unmotivated learners? ?? Teachers, we want your wisdom! ?? As material writers, we don't have to confront this challenge so directly, but we're all experienced language teachers, and we know the struggle! ?? We've shared tips and tricks on our blog and in our newsletter, but we're curious: what's your go-to strategy for keeping students inspired? ??? Let us know in the comments! ??

Happy Friday, teachers! We hope your week was chilled and enjoyable...?? A teacher of ours left us an insightful comment today about using our B1/B2 Speaking lesson, 'Should I feel bad about it?' as the perfect post-Christmas lesson, as the holiday season is full of indulgent guilty pleasures! ?? If you're still welcoming students back after the holidays, why not give it a go next week? We'll leave the ?? in the comments. Have a great weekend! ??