present simple: Goings-on at the flea market

Links for language teachers

I have noticed that I get a lot of hits from people searching "present simple" and "ESL," and assume that this is language teachers looking for ideas or lesson plans. The following links are good places to start.

ESL Lounge

Here you will find lesson plans organised by level. A fantastically useful site for busy teachers, and easy to navigate.

British Council

Here lesson plans are organized by topic. There are more teaching activities in the 'downloads' section.

The Internet TESL Journal

They have not updated this page for a while, but there is still a lot you might find useful.

Humanising Language Teaching

This is an online journal, good for ideas, inspiration, and especially good towards the end of semester when you're feeling not quite human.

Dave's ESL Cafe

Almost too much to wade through, but a very useful resource. Lots of links to other sources.

Karin's ESL PartyLand

This is a page specifically dealing with teaching simple present and present progressive. I have not tried any of these, but there are a lot of ideas here, and they look good. At the very least you will be inspired.

Good luck!

Sunday, January 23, 2005

Goings-on at the flea market

I think it must be a rule of flea markets in Japan that there must be a skull. Yesterday's skull had a rib cage as well, and was listening to music. Its expression was fiercely angry. I think it was listening to heavy metal, or possibly to rap with unpleasant lyrics.

And speaking of music, I spotted James Brown, and pushed his buttons. This caused him to sing, loudly and rather tinnily, I GOT YOU (I FEEL GOOD) while swaying from side to side and shaking his head.

The owls and tanuki listened carefully...

...except for two, which had gone for a walk, got lost, and ended up in the wrong stall.

It is not surprising they got lost. So did we, as usual. The map didn't really help because it wasn't portable. It only told us where we were when we entered and already knew where we were. When we were lost the map was back at the entrance, and we didn't know how to get there. And when we eventually did get there, we knew where we were again and didn't need the map.

Lacking legs, the floozie's alternative heads couldn't wander off and get lost. They waited, dreaming impatiently of what they would do when it was their turn with the body. "That bit of hair has been tickling my nose for weeks, and it's driving me up the wall," I heard one say as I went past. "I WANT HANDS! I WANT TO SCRATCH!"