On the 1st July 2007 smoking was banned in all public places in England. Hailed by many as the most important public health decision for decades, the decision to ban smoking has generally been welcomed in England and follows a global trend to control smoking in public places.

In this free lesson the students will read a newspaper article covering people's reactions after the first weekend of the ban. The article tells both sides of the story and forms the basis for a lesson where students will discuss their opinions towards banning smoking.

• Lead-in discussion with a range of questions for students to think about the pros and cons of the smoking ban.
• Comprehension questions and vocabulary activities to accompany the newspaper article.
• Role play worksheet for students to develop a dialogue using vocabulary from the class.

This lesson is based around a newspaper article that tells the remarkable story of Lesley Tompkins, a 103 year old man, and the colourful life he has led. Students will read the article and will go on to think about what they would like to achieve in their lives. The lesson includes a wide range of activities including a couple of excellent web tasks.

• Interesting article with detailed KS3 exam style reading comprehension questions.
• Fun speaking activity where students imagine they are 103 and talk about what they have done in their lives.
• Excellent web task where students will discover their life expectancy with suggestions on how they could increase their life span.
• Students will also think about five things they want to do in their lifetime and will visit a fascinating community website where users upload, share and support each other in achieving their goals.

In this lesson students will read 2 interesting articles about local elections in the UK. With turnout for local elections in the UK sometimes as low as 30% these articles focus on the reasons why it is important to vote.

• Full of activities and vocabulary to help develop students' reading comprehension skills.
• Interesting discussion questions for students to discuss the benefits of voting.
• Excellent web task for the students to learn about which political parties represent their point of view.
• Exam style reading comprehension activities to help students prepare for the Cambridge ESOL exams and the National Literacy Test.
• Final worksheet with statistics from the 2007 local elections in the UK with useful activity for students preparing for the IELTS exam.

A useful 2 stage lesson for students to learn about the UK legal system and how to qualify as a lawyer in the UK. These lesson resources are based around an interesting article with an assistant solicitor who describes the various ways to qualify as a solicitor in the UK.

• Lesson 1 includes a detailed but easy to understand fact sheet full of information about the different areas of the UK legal system.
• Students will learn a little about how laws are formed, the court structure and the legal process. They will then complete our legal quiz.
• Lesson 2 offers an extended article about how to qualify as a solicitor in the UK.
• Lesson includes various reading comprehension activities to help develop students' scan reading and intensive reading skills.
• Plus, useful extra web task to improve students' abilities to browse and find information on a legal website.

This interesting lesson follows an article about a proposed skate park. The skate park has been designed by local, young skaters and will offer a fantastic facility to the local community. After reading about the proposal the students get to watch a video on YouTube where the skaters who designed the park talk about the benefits the complex will bring. For the final activity the students put together a proposal of their own based on something they want for their community.

• Includes a useful grammar worksheet based on the newspaper article to help students improve their awareness and abilities at using the passive.
• National Literacy Test style comprehension activity to accompany the newspaper article.
• Extra worksheets to help students plan and write their proposal.

A topical and interesting new lesson to teach your students a little about the honours system in the UK, so they will know, among other things, why some people get to be called 'Sir' or 'Dame'. In this lesson the students will:

• Go to the Honours website and complete a worksheet to learn the difference between a knight and a CBE, OBE or MBE.
• Complete an FCE style reading comprehension based on an authentic text about the 2007 New Year Honours list.
• Practice their discussion language and have a debate about the value of the UK honours system.

This lesson focuses on a short article about a couple celebrating their 65th wedding anniversary and includes a practical activity for students to consider different wedding anniversaries.

• Short news-story is ideal for helping lower-level students feel comfortable with authentic texts.
• Interesting speaking activity to discuss what is the secret of a long marriage?
• Wedding anniversary activity - a fun activity for students to match the objects attributed to different wedding anniversaries eg paper, leather, gold, silver and diamond.

This lesson gives students the chance to find out about James Morrison a new up and coming artist from the UK. Students will get to read about his rise to success and watch his latest music video.

• In the first part of the class the students will read a newspaper article about James' rapid rise to success and complete a comprehension activity based on Part 2 of the FCE Reading exam.
• In the second part of the lesson students will watch 2 versions of his latest video - Wonderful World - on YouTube. The differences between these videos provides an excellent basis for students to practice their comparing and contrasting language for the Cambridge speaking exams.  

This innovative and fun lesson is one that you and your students will enjoy and learn a lot from.

• In the first part of the lesson the students read an authentic text about Steve Skinner and how he has developed his award winning brewery business.
• Skinner's beers are named after old Celtic legends which are colourfully illustrated on their beer labels. The students will get to learn about 4 of these legends and they have complete an activity to match the legends to the beer labels.
• To finish the students go to the Skinner's website to check their answers and also complete a final vocabulary-based activity on the site.

A highly amusing and interesting article looking at the craziness and inconsistency of English spelling and pronunciation.

• To start the class students are asked to group words with the same phonetic sounds but with different spellings.
• This leads into some further analysis of strange spellings and some homophones to help prepare students for the article.
• Students will finally read this amusing article offering a skit on our strange English language.

Smoking always provides an interesting and topical lesson for discussion. These materials provide you with an interesting news article about smoking education in UK schools.

• Students first get to discuss and share opinions on the hot topic of smoking and whether it should be banned.
• This is followed by an engaging reading comprehension using a recent news article about getting teenagers to stop smoking.
• Finally students get to use the vocabulary they have learnt in a fun role play activity.