Lesson for advanced students
Are you in need of a challenge, tired of using the same words, want to test your skills then this lesson is for you. If you do not have a teacher, practise it with a friend. Current affairs are more interesting.
Find a news or magazine article
I usually try to challenge my advanced students by using news or magazine articles. The topics are usually interesting and up-to-date. Some teachers give students the article before the lesson so that they can learn the vocabulary. https://www.bbc.com/news or https://www.independent.co.uk http://discovermagazine.com are some examples.
But how much of that vocabulary does the student really know before checking the meaning of words. I usually give my students the article 5 minutes before the lesson so that it is spontaneous and I can check their reading skills and knowledge of vocabulary. I am then able to decide on the kind of material to prepare for the next lesson.
Paraphrasing the article and reading the text
This is a very useful exercise for advanced students. It allows you to change the sentence, but keeping the same meaning, and using your own words. This focuses on tenses. I usually then get the student to change some of the words in the text using synonyms. This exercise focuses on vocabulary building.
Ask questions about the text
Once I am sure the student knows all the words, I will ask questions about the text to check reading comprehension. If you do not have a teacher then ask a friend to ask you some questions always relating to the text.
This will lead to a discussion and can cover many topics. We can then use these topics to relate to our personal experience and express opinions. We can also compare and contrast situations which differ in different countries and cultures. We can talk about how things have changed over time from the past to the present day working on past tenses.
Speaking practise
This gives the student plenty of speaking practise which is always the main aim of the lesson.
Most advanced students have reached a high level of English grammar and vocabulary and need to be challenged with different tasks. Students tell me that they enjoy this kind of activity as it is less controlled and they can practise all their skills.
Find a video appropriate to the topic
At the end of the lesson, I then send the student a video from you tube or any other source as a follow-up to the lesson. Let’s say we have been discussing an article on climate change, I would then find a video appropriate to the topic and get them to listen to it for homework so that they can practise their listening skills and hear the new vocabulary.
Just before the next lesson, we spend some revision time discussing the previous video and article to recycle this newly-learnt vocabulary. In this lesson we have covered speaking, listening and reading.
Writing an essay
Another homework task could be writing an essay on the article you have just worked on. You can also practise your writing skills by writing your comments to some of the articles or join interesting forums. If you want to check that your grammar is correct, you can use this grammar tool for free.