Here you can find a range of short activities to use in your adult classroom with students at upper-intermediate level. All of our activities are designed around engaging themes engaging and relevant to adult learners of English. Written by experts from around the world, our activities are easy to use and aim to give your students the skills and confidence they need to enjoy learning English.

Find useful activities

Making it up - Phrasal verb stories

A persistent problem area for students is phrasal verbs. This story activity presents the verbs in a context helping the students to work out the meaning.

Newspaper reading activities

Newspapers are a useful tool in the ELT classroom for improving reading skills and enhancing students' knowledge of current affairs.

Text quickies

Here are two text quickies that I like to use with my learners to prepare them for reading or to follow up on a text they have read.

Role-play writing

Writing can be much more motivating if you give the writer a chance to play a role. In this activity the students will have the chance to write to an imaginary romantic partner.

Note writing

This is an activity which is really useful for helping learners to write more fluently and can also help you to diagnose problems with your students' written work and ability to formulate questions.

Research and insight

Browse fascinating case studies, research papers, publications and books by researchers and ELT experts from around the world.

See our publications, research and insight