In 2018-19, I taught English at a conversation school in Matsuyama, Japan. My students ranged from adult beginners to 5-year olds that could speak and read at a native level. To accommodate this wide variety of abilities, my school provided an equally large array of textbooks. However, some of these failed to target what my more advanced students really needed to work on, which is why I’d occasionally create my own simple worksheets in hopes of teaching them something new or at least sparking fresh conversation.
Many of these have a Japanese spin (as that was my audience), but feel free to use and alter the following for your own classes in any non-commercial way you like. Most of these worksheets can also be found on my ISL Collective profile in .doc format. Answer keys are included for most.
(Prettier) Misc. Handouts
Friends and Elf Listening Activities
My intermediate to higher level students (usually) found these scenes from Friends hilarious, and they also provide a good opportunity to teach vocabulary and some culture points. The link to their corresponding YouTube clip is included in the document. Usually, I would have them watch and listen to the scene once, ask how much they understood, then hand out the worksheet and play the scene again while they follow along with the script, pausing at the blanks and seeing if they could pick up on what was missing. For students who found these more challenging, I would provide a word bank on the board (included on the last page of each document). The scripts came from the Crazy for Friends fansite.
- Elf – Buddy Goes To The ‘Other’ North Pole
- Friends – Chandler, Rachel, and the Cheesecake
- Friends – Joey’s Lipstick
- Friends – Ross’ Tan
Music Listening Activities
- “Love Story” by Taylor Swift
- “Mean” by Taylor Swift
- “This Is Halloween” from The Nightmare Before Christmas
- “Thriller” by Michael Jackson
Demonym Worksheets
In Japanese, it’s rather easy to describe where a person or thing is from [Country name + 人 (jin)]. In English however, forming these demonyms is not so simple as there’s no real rule to follow other than just memorizing if you add -an, -ese, or any other number of suffixes to end of the country’s name (or change it altogether in the case of the Netherlands and a few others).
Because I noticed this is something my more advanced students have never deliberately been taught, I made these demonym worksheets to test their knowledge (answer keys included).