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42 Engaging English Activities For High School

December 27, 2023 //  by  Jill Webb

Are you an English teacher looking for learning games and activities to help enliven your English language arts teaching? We know that sometimes teenage students can easily lose interest. So, don’t be a boring teacher—bring a few unique ideas into your lessons to keep them invested! Below is a list of fun and creative activities for high school students. It includes a variety of English language learning experiences—from poetry to writing and more! If you’re ready to engage your students while helping them increase their language skills, read on!

1. Paint Chip Poetry

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This is a fun activity that’s easy to understand and set up. This game will challenge your students to use paint names to create beautiful pieces of poetry. A mix of paint chips, poetry prompts, and “variation cards” to keep things interesting makes for a unique way for your kids to experiment with words and poetry. It’s also great to add to your classroom party game stash!

Learn More: Amazon

2. Figurative Language Challenge

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You already know that nothing beats repetition when it comes to helping your high schoolers grasp new concepts—but coming up with new ways to practice concepts can be time-consuming! This bundle includes simple challenges to get your students practicing different types of figurative language; it includes metaphors, similes, alliteration, and more. Editable worksheets and slides review the concepts for your learners—then, they task them with developing their own examples. These activities are great for inclusion classes because they work in stations.

Learn More: Teachers Pay Teachers

3. Six-Word Memoirs

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This writing activity sounds simple but is deceptively challenging: writing six-word memoirs. Explain to your students that briefer writing demands greater attention to each word. Then, reinforce this lesson by having them each write their own memoir—in only six words! This activity is an innovative writing challenge, a hands-on introduction to memoirs, and a surefire way to get to know your teens and help them connect with each other. Plus, you can display their final creations along with corresponding images of their choosing. 

Learn More: Six-Word Memoirs

4. The Break-Up Letter

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Need a clever and relatable creative writing exercise ? Try this letter-writing activity with a hilarious twist. Rather than write a typical letter, your students will be asked to write a break-up letter! These printable prompts are a perfect way to get your teens thinking about how well they explain themselves in their writing.

Learn More: Presto Plans

5. Pop Sonnets

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Here’s a fun way to fill some extra time with your teens—while also reinforcing their understanding of Shakespearean language. This clever book is full of familiar pop songs—rewritten the way Shakespeare might have penned them! “Translating” lyrics they already know will help your high schoolers practice and better grasp the language in Shakespeare’s plays.

6. Listening Skills

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We all know it’s important to teach young kids how to listen; it can be easy to forget that your high schoolers still need guidance and practice to be good listeners! Be sure to emphasize this essential school and life skill with your teens—this blog post gives some concrete, tangible ways to teach and encourage active listening skills. Challenge your students to honestly complete a self-assessment of their own listening skills. Then, use these exercises to work together to improve their scores!

Learn More: The Secondary English Coffee Shop

7. Reading Bingo

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A lot of the activities on this list are about class and group work—but there’s no getting around the value of good old-fashioned independent reading. Gamify your teens’ reading by distributing Bingo cards. Then, offer a prize for the first student to read all the books on the card or in a certain pattern! All you need to do is edit the cards to match your readers’ level and let the competition begin!

Learn More: Spark Creativity

8. Poetry Slam

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Poetry can get a bad rap in high school—help your students get more engaged by making sure they know it’s not all love poems and sonnets! A poetry slam is an ideal way to expose your teens to a new medium. Inviting your high schoolers to perform their works for the class helps build their confidence and gives them a voice. You’ll be surprised when you see the smooth-talking skills of your kids!

Learn More: Teacher of Vision

9. Truth or Dare Grammar

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If you need an easy lesson plan to review grammar, look no further. This fun game for your teenage learners will help get them invested in grammatical skills! You—and your kids—already know how to play truth or dare. This editable version is grammar-themed and school-appropriate. It’s a perfect activity to pull out at the end of the day when you still want to reinforce your kids’ learning.

10. Book Spine Poems

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Have you heard of book spine poetry? It’s exactly what it sounds like; your students can arrange the text they find on book spines to craft surprisingly insightful poems! All you really need is a collection of books, but these simple worksheets will help your kids organize their work without having to carry around a stack of books. If you don’t have enough books on hand for everyone, never fear—turn this into an online game and allow them to “hunt” for titles online!

11. Soccer Ball Questions

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You don’t need to be in the hot seat with questioning skills when teaching a lesson! Make one of these Socratic soccer balls—just add question prompts to a regular soccer ball. When it’s time to get your teens to practice their Socratic questioning skills, all you need to do is have them roll the ball and pose a question based on the first prompt they see.

Learn More: Building Bo o k Love

12. Black-Out Poetry

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Here’s another great activity for your lower-intermediate learners—this black-out activity will challenge your students to use a page of a book to create a poem by blacking out specific words. Surprisingly, the rigid constraints are a creative way to help your teens who may struggle to find inspiration or with writer’s block. If you have early finishers, ask them to find fun images to pair with their fresh poem.

Learn More: Arapahoe Libraries

13. Review Game

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A quiz challenge is a great way to review all the material for key lessons. In this fun game your learners will play a “Let’s Make a Deal” game—based on the popular game show. You’ll act as the game show host and make deals with the teams. This downloadable resource includes editable elements so you can customize the game and prizes for your own classroom.

Learn More: The Hungry Teacher Blog

14. Balderdash

english language projects for high school students

Balderdash is a class board game for a reason. This small-group game will get your high schoolers laughing as they try to trick each other with made-up definitions for uncommon words. It’s a fun, unexpected way to teach new vocabulary while getting your students thinking critically and creatively! You can use a regular version of the game or just create your own using online resources.

Learn More: Boardgame Geek

16. NYT Crossword

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A classic—and much beloved—game in the US is the New York Times daily crossword! Did you know there’s also a student version? Printing off one of the puzzles is a great, no-prep language exercise for your more advanced English classes.

Learn More: The New York Times

17. Inklewriter

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Inklewriter is an innovative tool that can be used to get your students working individually on their creative writing. The free app makes use of interactive writing—sort of like a classic Choose-Your-Own-Adventure story made high-tech. The prompts and questions will guide your teens while still challenging them to flex their creative muscles as they create their own unique stories. 

Learn More: Inkle Writer

18. Book Raffle

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A book raffle tradition will help to get your lower-level class invested in reading—especially if your students don’t have many of their own books. All you’ll be doing is inviting your kids to compete for the chance to read specific books; creating excitement around a fundamental language activity in the process—independent reading! To get started, simply select a few books—they can be new or ones already in your class—and introduce them all to your learners. Then, your readers can enter their names in draws to win reading rights to their favorites. Once you have a few book raffles under your belt, feel free to modify the process to make it work for you and your teens!

Learn More: Brown Bag Teacher

19. Writing Prompts

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Writing prompts are a classic classroom tool to jumpstart creative writing. Provide your students with this list of enticing prompts that are sure to help them produce literary genius. To get them started, you can let them pick their own from the list or assign them at random. Either way, you’ll have a low-prep way to get great results from your high school writers. 

Learn More: Small World

20. Vocab-Zee

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This language-themed twist on the classic game of Yahtzee is a great rainy-day activity or sub plan for your class. Put your students in groups and provide them with copies of the game instructions. Then, they’ll take turns rolling the dice and performing vocabulary-based actions based on their roll. 

Learn More:  Go Sadlier

21. Body Biographies

english language projects for high school students

Help your pupils become masters of character analysis by assigning these eye-catching body biographies. Prompt your young writers to examine the different characteristics of each character—both tangible and intangible—and use them to create a character analysis. The visual aspect of the posters makes this activity more engaging than a written description and encourages your kids to search for different elements of character roles in the text. Not only will your students love doing this, but you’ll also be able to display their body biographies for reference. 

Learn More: Study All Knight 

22. Podcast Pairings

english language projects for high school students

Consider pairing relevant literary podcasts with your classroom texts/discussions. Introducing a different medium into your teaching toolbox is an excellent way to change up your methods and better engage auditory learners. These podcasts are sure to give your students different perspectives on the topics and ideas that are introduced and discussed in your classroom texts. 

Learn More: Building Book Love

23. Keyhole Book Scene

english language projects for high school students

This is a clever visual way to emphasize the importance of different characters’ points of view. Having your students create a keyhole book scene gives you the opportunity to check your students’ understanding and comprehension of a story. Ask your learners to illustrate a scene from one of the texts they are reading—from the perspective of someone looking into the room through a keyhole. You can base the assignment on a specific character’s point of view or let your kids choose the perspective themselves. They should be encouraged to include different text elements and imagery to show what exactly the specific book scene “looked like” in their minds. 

Learn More: The Room Mom

24. Crime Stories

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Have you ever considered engaging your high school literacy students with creepy crime stories? Your teens can pick a real-life criminal and use their investigative skills to determine motives and other crime components. Then, have them choose a medium—blog, podcast, research paper, etc.—to present their perspective. The real-world aspect makes these narratives particularly compelling—and your learners will be so engaged in the crimes that they won’t realize how much hard work and learning they’re actually doing!   

Learn More: Besp o ke ELA

25. Song Lyrics to Teach Paraphrasing

english language projects for high school students

What teenager doesn’t love music? Here’s a great way to use this to your advantage! Print off lyrics to popular songs that your students will love. Then, challenge your kids to go through the lyrics and attempt to paraphrase what the song is saying, using their own words. This will help them get a better understanding of what their favorite songs are about as well as give them practice in their rewording skills.

Learn More: Mondays Made Easy

27. Selfie Fingerprint Poem

Great Ideas And Tips For Teaching Poetry. Poetry reveals many aspects of life that they may not get to experience or witness first hand. Poetry may speak some ‘truth’ about how others live and that helps build empathy with our students. Read on for 6 ways you can set your students interest ablaze for poetry! Grades 4-12 | Middle School ELA | High School English

Poetry can be a tricky topic to introduce—and a particularly hard one to get your high schoolers excited about. With this fun fingerprint poem, your students can use colors and stanzas to create a poem that represents themselves and is as unique as their fingerprints. This is a great way to get your students excited about introducing themselves and things that they consider to be important. 

29. Funny Short Story Study

english language projects for high school students

Looking for something to break up the heavier literary units you have planned this year? This diverse bundle of hilarious short stories is perfect for teaching your students short and sweet literary concepts such as sarcasm, irony, foreshadowing, etc. 

Learn More: Hopefully Home

30. Thought Bubble

english language projects for high school students

Do your students need help delving into the thoughts of the characters you’re reading about? This simple thought bubble exercise will get your high schoolers engaged in deeper-level thinking. All they have to do is imagine what a character in a book, a short story, or even an image is thinking. Then, they can write it in a thought bubble on a sticky note. Getting into the habit of considering characters’ inner thoughts will encourage your readers to pay more attention to the text and make stronger connections with the stories.

Learn More: The Thinker Builder

31. Escape Rooms

english language projects for high school students

Make learning fun for your high school English students by incorporating escape room activities in your classroom! You can download an escape room kit online that incorporates concepts from books your students are reading in class—or design your own! An escape room is an interactive way to encourage teamwork among your kids and enhance their understanding and application of the texts you’ve covered. 

Learn More: Teach Nouvelle

33. The What If Game

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The what if game is sure to get your students’ creative juices flowing! This group activity is fun and easy to set up. You’ll start by dividing your learners into groups of four to five, giving every group three cups—one for characters, one for settings, and one for actions. The groups will begin by brainstorming examples for each category and placing them in the cups. Then the real fun begins! Have your kids take turns drawing papers, one from each cup, and combining them in “What if?” questions. The last step is to use their what if question as a story prompt, being sure to fully explore the character, setting, and action they’ve drawn. Your high schoolers will enjoy the mix of group brainstorming and individual writing—and produce their own literary masterpieces in no time!

Learn More: Bespoke Classroom

34. Hexagonal Thinking 

english language projects for high school students

Hexagonal thinking is another dynamic group brainstorming activity—and a great way to help your students think critically about texts and make broader connections. After reading through a story with your class, separate your students into groups. Then, give each group a series of blank paper hexagons and have them fill in various themes, characters, quotes, and even simple drawings. Once they’re done, task your kids with working together to arrange the hexagons in a web—in a layout based on logical connections between the cards.

Learn More: Now Spark Creativity 

35. Mock Trials 

english language projects for high school students

Help your students examine a text through mock trials. After reading through a story, pick a student to be the prosecutor (or a group of students to be a team of prosecutors) and a student to be the defendant (or team of defendants). Give your kids time and tips for drafting their arguments, and then select a jury from their classmates. When everyone is ready, it’s time for the trial! You can be the judge, critiquing your students’ logic and powers of persuasion. Your teens will have so much fun playing their roles that they won’t even notice the preparation and research involved!

Learn More: Now Spark Creativity

36. Graphic Essay

english language projects for high school students

Looking to shake up your students’ essays? Graphic essays are a clever way to introduce visual elements into a traditional writing assignment. Your students will use pictures and symbols to convey certain portions of the story. It’s a helpful way to engage visual learners and encourage all your kids to think and express themselves in new ways. They’ll appreciate the chance to inject their work with their own creativity—and the break from normal essay writing! 

Learn More: Living in the Layers

37. Elements of Fiction Stations

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Get your class up and moving around the room with these informative stations that teach the basic elements of fiction. At each station, your learners will delve deeper into elements of fiction such as setting, conflict, characters, point of view, and plot structure. You can have your kids visit these stations during certain time periods or even different class periods. 

Learn More: Hey Natayle 

38. Figurative Language Tasting

Pinterest Pin for blog post: How to Host a Figurative Language Tasting

Who doesn’t love to eat tasty snacks while learning? Get your students actively involved in your delicious and savory lesson using a few snacks. Explain to your kids that the objective of this lesson is to practice using different figurative language elements to describe both the taste and feelings of snacks. Then, let the fun begin! Distribute the snacks to your young gourmets—along with prompts that challenge them to describe the tastes using various types of figurative language. It’s sure to help your high schoolers develop a taste for descriptive writing!

Learn More: It’s Lit Teaching

39. Explode the Moment 

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Are your kids having trouble expanding their thoughts and ideas during writing time? With this activity, your students will be challenged to expand or “explode” the moment they are writing about. For example, if your learner writes “The park was fun,” they’ll be prompted to explain the entire moment at the park, using sensory imagery. This is a relatable method to encourage your high schoolers to consider the “who, what, where, when” portions of their writing.

Learn More: Raise the Bar Reading

40. Figurative Language Sort

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Even though this activity was created with younger children in mind, that doesn’t mean your high school students won’t be engaged and excited to participate. You’ll need to prepare for this activity by collecting some interesting pictures and writing sentences about them using different types of figurative language that you’ve studied in class. To begin, give your high schoolers (individually or in a small group) one of the pictures, along with the related sentences. Then, task them with categorizing the sentences based on the type of figurative language. Lastly, encourage those who finish quickly to come up with their own examples for each category!

Learn More: Teaching with a Mountain View

41. Movement in the Classroom

english language projects for high school students

One way to make learning especially memorable for your students—and re-energize them if they need it—is to get them moving and actively participating in the engaging lesson. This doesn’t have to be complicated or require a lot of prep; you can find simple ways to add movement to work you’re already doing. For example, don’t just give your high schoolers a list of discussion questions; print out the questions and place them around your classroom. This will get your kids up and moving as they talk to each other! 

Learn More: Building Book Love 

42. Literary Puzzle Pieces 

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Sometimes a simple visual can give your students a new perspective on their work. Help them understand literary themes by comparing them to jigsaw puzzles—drive the point home by having them create their own paper puzzle pieces as they discuss the themes in your texts. First, put your high schoolers in small groups and give each group large paper puzzle pieces. Explain that each puzzle piece represents an element in your book; as they fill in the pieces they’ll be “solving the puzzle” of understanding your text. You can use this activity in different ways depending on the needs of your class, combining group discussion with independent work. It’s an ideal, hands-on discussion prompt to help your kids better grasp the subject material.

Learn More: Learning in Room 213

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If you’re looking for a fun group project for 4 or more kids, wacky abstract word art activity is just the ticket. Offering  writing practice  and grammar review, this isn’t your average art project.

Kids practice building sentences with different parts of speech, then create paintings of the silly mad-lib sentences they come up with. In an unexpected fun twist, at the end they get to rip up their paintings and arrange them into wild and unique abstract collages.

Autobiographies

In this fun project, you ask the students to detail their life history in an interesting tone. To avoid monotone, ask them to only include those events in life which they consider adventurous or unforgettable. 

Ask them to highlight emotions rather than timeline. 

You can add a twist to the exercise by asking them to write their ideal future life in an epilogue.

This project will focus on verbal communication skills. 

Ask the students to select a book or excerpt from a book to read. You can assign a genre to keep the communication streamlined. 

Students can take turns to give a short review of their reading together with their viewpoints about it. They can talk about the moral values of the characters or change endings or events to discuss if the plot becomes more entertaining with these changes. 

Check out these ideas on how to run a successful Book Club !

Class Magazine

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This is a perfect project for all classes in middle and high school. You can take it to the next level by asking the whole school to start a competition for the best class magazine. 

You can ask your class to select a theme of environmental, health, literary, or societal topic. 

Then ask them to gather all skills; idea-generation, writing, design, and presentation. You will get the most benefits if you make it mandatory for every student to produce content for one page of the magazine. (You can include the advertisement activity within the activity of class magazine.)

Comic Strip 

This is another extensive project that will not only win the hearts of your students but also allow you to assess their creative capabilities. 

Ask them to illustrate interesting events from their lives, or imagination, in the form of comic strips. 

ALSO READ: SPEAKING ACTIVITIES FOR ANY LANGUAGE CLASS

This activity is similar to the comic activity given above. The only difference is the increased detail that is required in drama writing. An absence of images adds the obligation on the students to describe scenes and expressions. 

Again, students can describe any life event from their reality or imagination. 

You can later ask the students to act on the best dramas to improve their verbal and non-verbal communication. 

Paper Mache Activity

english language projects for high school students

In this messy yet super fun project, students make paper mache futuristic Earths or other imaginary planets as described in science fiction.

This was my cross-curricular activity based off of our Literature reading of  Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?  and a unit topic in English about the environment and recycling. Of course, you can do paper mache for any lesson or unit that you have!

This article gives you the step-by-step instruction on how to do paper mache in the classroom!

Editorial/ Fan Letter

Editorial is one of English project ideas most suitable for high-schoolers while fan letters work for learners from all English expertise levels. 

Ask your high-schoolers to analyze a societal issue that is close to their heart. Next, they need to define the problem from the viewpoint of aggrieved parties. Ask them to write out the problem and get it published in a local or national newspaper. 

(Be ready to proofread and edit the piece before they send it to relevant personnel.)

Younger students can write fan letters to their best actors, authors, and singers. 

This is another English project which will combine societal, and practical, understanding with English learning. In this project, the students will learn problem-solving skills. 

Ask them to understand a societal or scientific problem. Once they have understood and defined this issue, they have to provide a solution to this problem. 

In the end, they have to present their solution together with the need which gave rise to it in front of the class. (You may want them to include a video presentation with visual effects .)

diorama project

This activity is one of my students’ favorite s not only because it’s fun but also because it facilitates their learning. I tried this project on two literature readings I had before (The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain and Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe) and both achieved the same fantastic end.

In this project, students are tasked to illustrate the setting or a specific part of the book in the form of a three-dimensional miniature scene. Students will pick a favorite scene from the story they are reading and decide how they want to represent it using the materials given (above) and a variety of design strategies.

This writing exercise contains the most fun among all the given projects. You will excite their creativity as well as their inner critic.

Start by inquiring about the literary work which fascinates or inspires them most. 

Ask them if they can add humor to that piece. Let them edit a single character or scene or if they want they can give a humorous outlook to the whole plot. 

Fables 

This open-ended English writing project will ask the students to select one event in their life. This event should be intriguing as well as contain a life lesson. 

Then, they have to retell this piece in third person pronoun. Ask them to keep the tone conversational as well as engaging. 

In the end, ask them to write a conclusive moral of the story. 

POPULAR: 5 Project-based Learning for High School English

Self-Portrait Project

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These self-portrait ideas were part of a short project that went really with my middle school ESL class so I thought I’d share them with you.

My students were able to come up with three products in one activity: a mind map, a self-portrait and an essay. The unit topic was about “Identity” or “Personality” but I guess this will work for general descriptive adjectives lesson as well. 

Charts 

If you want to include futuristic touch to your English lessons, include a thing or two from STEM subjects. One great way is to ask them to explain or detail a mathematical chart. (You can come up with variations in this original plan. For example, you can ask future businessmen to interpret graphics related to market studies.)

See, if they have enough vocabulary and concepts to comprehend and convey the message to their fellows. 

Fictional Pen-Pals

Just like fan letters, this activity asks the students to write letters to their favorite characters in fictional and non-fictional worlds. 

Ask them to pinpoint the era, region, settings they like most in a given novel or historical account. Next, they would show interest in one of its characters and the reason for this interest. 

In the end, they need to write a letter to this character praising or advising him/her regarding his/her role in the piece. (You can reply on behalf of that character if you think the point made by the student inspires further dialogue.) 

Book Trailer Project

book trailer project

Book Trailer Project  is a digital storytelling activity for middle school or high school students after they finish reading a book. Students need to take the key idea from the book to create a short video that persuades people to check out a book they have read.

Doing the book trailer project requires students to summarize, synthesize and analyze the book and put that analysis in their trailer. Furthermore, having students create book trailers is a great way to incorporate  technology in the classroom  and encourage reading. Thus, book trailer project is a great alternative to boring book report assignments, and can easily be done individually or in groups.

So these are some of creative English project ideas you can use in your English class to prompt your students to express their creativity and language skills. These are fun, practical, and learning-inducing. 

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Making English Fun

Making English Fun

50 ESL Conversation Topics for High School Students.

Today, we turn our attention to high school students, who are at a pivotal stage of their English language learning journey.

At this level, students are ready to explore more complex and nuanced topics, making conversations not just a learning tool, but a gateway to broader understanding and critical thinking.

This article presents a collection of ESL conversation topics and starters, specifically crafted for high school students.

These topics are designed to provoke thought, encourage debate, and provide a platform for students to express their opinions and ideas in English.

50 ESL Conversation Topics for High School Students.

We also offer a downloadable list of these ESL Conversation Topics for High School Students, an essential addition to your teaching toolkit.

You can find the download links in the sections below.

The Role of Conversation in Advanced Language Learning

For high school students, engaging in discussions in English is about more than just practicing language skills. It’s about connecting with global issues, understanding diverse perspectives, and developing critical thinking skills.

Conversations at this stage are an opportunity for students to articulate complex ideas, debate viewpoints, and enhance their understanding of the world around them.

Strategies for Using Conversation Topics with High School Students

  • Encourage In-Depth Discussion : Choose topics that resonate with their interests and current global trends. This encourages students to think deeply and express their views.
  • Facilitate Debates and Group Discussions : Use conversation starters as a basis for classroom debates or group discussions, allowing students to engage with different perspectives.
  • Incorporate Current Events : Linking discussions to current events makes conversations more relevant and engaging.
  • Support Critical Thinking : Encourage students to analyze, evaluate, and elaborate on their responses, fostering critical thinking skills.

50 ESL Conversation Topics for High School Students.

50 Conversation Starters for High School ESL Students

Ready to challenge and inspire your high school students?

We’ve assembled 50 stimulating conversation starters, covering a wide array of topics from global issues, personal aspirations, to societal changes.

These prompts are crafted to spark engaging and meaningful conversations among high school students.

You can access the complete list for download below, ready for implementation in your classroom or for home learning discussions.

High School ESL Conversation Starters

  • What are your thoughts on the importance of education?
  • How do you think technology is changing the way we live?
  • If you could start a charity, what would it focus on?
  • What career are you interested in pursuing after high school?
  • What’s a global issue you feel passionate about?
  • How do you define success?
  • What’s the most challenging thing about being a teenager today?
  • What role does social media play in your life?
  • Discuss a book that made a significant impact on you.
  • If you could travel back in time, what era would you visit and why?
  • What’s your opinion on the importance of environmental conservation?
  • How do you handle stress and pressure?
  • What’s your favorite memory from childhood?
  • If you could meet any historical figure, who would it be and why?
  • What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned in life so far?
  • Discuss a movie that you believe has a deep message.
  • What qualities do you think make a good leader?
  • What’s your favorite hobby or pastime?
  • How do you think society will change in the next 20 years?
  • What’s a skill you’d like to learn and why?
  • If you could change one thing about your school, what would it be?
  • What’s something you’ve done that took you out of your comfort zone?
  • How do you think we can solve [a specific social issue]?
  • What does a perfect day look like for you?
  • What’s a piece of advice you would give to your younger self?
  • What’s the most interesting place you’ve ever visited?
  • How do you think the internet has changed human communication?
  • What’s your favorite subject in school and why?
  • What are your thoughts on [a current event or trend]?
  • If you could learn one new language fluently, which would it be?
  • What’s something you’re passionate about and why?
  • Discuss a personal hero or role model of yours.
  • What’s your favorite tradition or holiday, and how do you celebrate it?
  • How do you think we can promote more tolerance and understanding in society?
  • What’s your favorite form of artistic expression?
  • Discuss a challenge you’ve faced and how you overcame it.
  • What’s something you believe is misunderstood about your generation?
  • What’s your opinion on the importance of space exploration?
  • What’s your favorite family memory?
  • If you could invent something, what would it be?
  • What’s your opinion on the balance between privacy and security?
  • How do you see the role of AI and robotics in the future?
  • What’s something you’d like to achieve in the next five years?
  • How do you approach making important decisions?
  • What’s a book or movie that you think everyone should read/watch? Why?
  • What’s an issue in your community that you would like to address?
  • Discuss a historical event that fascinates you.
  • What do you think is the key to a good friendship?
  • If you could have dinner with any three people (dead or alive), who would they be?
  • How do you think we can improve cross-cultural understanding and communication?

Promoting Engagement and Participation

Getting high school students to participate actively can be challenging. Here are some methods to encourage involvement:

  • Create a Respectful Environment : Ensure that all opinions are respected and valued.
  • Use Multimedia Resources : Incorporate videos, articles, or podcasts to make discussions more dynamic.
  • Encourage Personal Reflection : Allow students to connect topics with their own experiences and views.

50 ESL Conversation Topics for High School Students.

Preparing Students for the Future Through Conversation

Engaging high school students in sophisticated English conversations prepares them for future academic and career challenges.

These discussions are crucial for enhancing their language proficiency, critical thinking skills, and global awareness.

By integrating conversation into their educational routine, we’re equipping these young adults with essential skills for their future endeavors.

More ESL Conversation Topics

We have a selection of age / ability appropriate ESL Conversation Topics here on Making English Fun you can access below.

  • 50 ESL Conversation Topics for Kindergarten ESL Students
  • 50 ESL Conversation Topics for Grade School / Primary Students
  • 50 ESL Conversation Topics for High School ESL Students
  • 50 ESL Conversation Topics for Adult ESL Students
  • 200+ ESL Conversation Topics for ESL Learners

There you have it—a guide to facilitating enriching English conversations with high school students!

Using these conversation starters, you’re not just enhancing their language skills, but also encouraging them to think critically, express themselves confidently, and engage with the world in a meaningful way.

We hope these resources empower you to guide your students towards greater linguistic and intellectual growth.

Enjoy your journey in teaching and inspiring these young minds!

Access the full list ready for download below, ideal for enhancing English learning experiences in both classroom and home environments.

Additional Resources

For more advanced and diverse resources for teaching English to high school learners, make sure to explore our website.

We offer a range of materials from in-depth discussion guides to interactive learning tools, all aimed at making English education engaging and effective for high school students.

Expand your teaching repertoire with these useful links:

  • https://eflideas.com/2021/03/06/50-esl-conversation-questions-for-teenagers-and-adults/
  • https://aloyanaraksya.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/50-conversation-classes-sample.pdf
  • https://www.twinkl.co.uk/blog/50-conversation-starters-for-adult-esl-students
  • https://allesl.com/esl-conversation-topics/
  • https://www.learnenglisheveryday.com/conversation-questions-about-education/

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Making English Fun!

english language projects for high school students

I have been a teacher of English for over 15 years, in that time i made hundreds and thousands of resources and learnt so much i think its worth sharing. Hopefully to help teachers and parents around the world.

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12 Fun ESL Speaking Activities for Teens or Adults

Every language teacher knows that speaking is a core skill to teach and practice, but sometimes it can be challenging coming up with creative or engaging ESL speaking activities and games. You can use them to improve the community feeling inside the classroom , too.

Let’s dive into nine quick, easy, and fun ESL speaking activities for teenagers and adults you can integrate into your lessons or use in speaking clubs.

They are designed to be high-quality and enjoyable – and mostly suitable for online lessons, too.

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They don’t need much preparation, but will get your students talking and help them to hone their conversational skills without even thinking about it.

ESL Speaking Activities for teens and adults

1. Interview Pop

2. word racing, 3. guess who or what i am, 4. would you rather…, 5. how-to presentation, 6. living memory, 7. video talk, 8. talk about your weekend, 9. timed discussion, 10. debating club, 11. taboo words, 12. story chain.

Student level:  Pre-Intermediate to Advanced Type of Lesson:  Group or Individual

This is a great one for students to have fun and be creative. Put students in pairs, or you could also carry this one out in a one-one lesson.

Students choose one person they want to interview. It can be anybody of their choice, and the person doesn’t necessarily have to be alive still.

I tell students to choose someone they know a lot about or who they admire because then they’ll have more material to talk about when the speaking part of the activity comes around.

Give each student a list of ten to fifteen verbs. (Can be the same list or different) See the example:

Each student has to choose five verbs from their list.

They make a different question using one of their five verbs in each question; these questions are made for the person they want to interview.

Each question will have a different verb.

For example, let’s say a student chooses Barack Obama. They have to make five interview questions for Barack Obama, each question using a different verb from their list.

Here are some examples:

  • How did you decide you want to become president?
  • Did you want to continue being president after your term finished?
  • What did you love about being the president?
  • What would you change about the USA?
  • What do you consider to be your greatest accomplishment as president?

While I usually just come up with the verbs myself, you can also find  some verb lists  online, along with a list of people for your students to choose from.

While the students are making their questions, go through the class and help students fix the grammatical mistakes.

This is a great activity if you are practicing  question formation  as a grammar topic with your students.

The students then give their partner the questions that they wrote and then assume the role of the person they wanted to interview, while their partner asks them the questions they just made.

So this means that each student answers the questions from the perspective of the person they wanted to interview, as their partner asks them the questions.

Go around and listen for mistakes.

You could also then have students report to the class the person their partner chose and how they responded to the questions.

Student level:  Pre-Intermediate to Advanced Type of Lesson:  Group

A very interactive and high-energy ESL speaking activity. Many students get so into it and excited that they won’t even notice they are speaking in a foreign language and won’t even have time to think about making mistakes.

All you need to prepare for the game is to write down 15-20 vocabulary terms you want to practice with your students, each term is written on a different small slip of paper. Give a stack of these slips to each group.

You can also let the students write down the vocabulary (for example on the last topic they’ve learned) but then some words might be double and they also might not think of the words you want them to practice.

Divide your students into groups of three or four and explain the rules of the game.

One player from the first group starts. This student then has one minute to explain or define as many words written on their slips to their own group as they can, without saying the word they have on the card.

They want their group to guess as many words as possible in one minute.

Each time the members of the group guess a word, they put the card down, which gets them a point, and then they take a new card and repeat the same thing.

Once the minute is over, the next group takes their turn.

After the minute is up, each group counts their points and the group with the most points wins that round.

If you have time to play more rounds, after all, words are guessed, put them back in the basket and let them play again, although this time they can only use one word to explain the word on the card, for example, a synonym or a word they associate with the word on the card.

An example might be that if the word on the card is ‘handcuff’ then they say the word ‘police’ and the other students have to guess the word ‘handcuff’.

Students only get one guess. Once a student guesses, the student must move on to the next card, whether the word was guessed correctly or not.

In the last round, they act out or pantomime the words on their cards.

Here’s a list with even more fun ESL vocabulary games for adults and kids.

While there are many other good vocabulary-charades type games that can be done with both younger and older students, this one has been my favorite.

Student level:  Pre-Intermediate to Upper-Intermediate Type of Lesson:  Group

This is a very simple but effective activity with no preparation needed and can be played in two versions.

It’s usually more suitable for lower-level students but can also be used in intermediate or upper-intermediate students, especially for the other variation of the activity described below.

In version one, one student thinks of a person – it could be someone in the class or a famous person, someone that everyone is likely to know – and the rest of the class asks them yes or no questions about the person until they can guess who it is.

The student who guesses the person with the least amount of questions wins.

In version two, one student goes in front of the door, while the rest of the class decides on a person. Then the student comes back in and has to ask the class yes or no questions until they can guess who the person is.

Another variation of this game is to put students in groups and describe themselves from the perspective of an object, and the other students must guess what that object is in the quickest time possible.

Each student in the group writes down an object and then speaks from the perspective of that object as if they were actually that object.

For example, if one student chooses ‘handcuffs’ they would say something like:

  • “The police put me around somebody’s wrists when they break the law.”
  • “I have two round rings with chains connected them.”
  • “I am on a person on their way to prison.”

Students shouldn’t do any gesturing or acting on this one because that will give it away. The student who is able to guess the most objects correctly wins.

The reason I like this one more is that the students have to get a little bit more creative about expressing their ideas and they also tend to have more fun with this one.

Student level:  Intermediate to Advanced Type of Lesson:  Group or Individual

This is a great way to practice ‘would’ in the conditional form.

There’s a lot of different ways you can organize this one. One of the easiest ways is to just come up with some of your own ideas (5-10 should be enough), type them out, and cut them up into cards.

Go around the class and have a student draw a card, read it aloud, and then call on another student to answer it.

The goal is to make the “Would you rather”  questions funny, crazy, interesting, or controversial. Think about what kind of questions you think would be fun to discuss if you were learning a foreign language.

Bookmark our list of 110 “would you rather” questions, and you will never run out of great questions to discuss.

Here are a few examples:

  • Would you rather give up your mobile phone or your pet?
  • Would you rather have $50,000 that is legal or $150,000 that is illegal?
  • Would you rather be the funniest person in the room or the most intelligent?
  • Would you rather have your first child when you are 19 years old or when you are 45?

As stated before, you can make up your own. If you are doing a specific topic for your lesson, then you can try to make them as closely related to the topic as possible.

For example, if the topic for your lesson is  Meet the World’s Oldest Ice Hockey Player , then you might want to prepare some ‘would you rather’ questions about age or about hockey:

  • Would you rather stop aging at 17 or 35?
  • Would you rather date someone ten years older or ten younger?
  • Would you rather be a famous football player or a famous hockey player?

Give each group or pair of students the same card and have each of them state their opinion about the topic on the card.

You can give them a few minutes to take notes on their opinion and what they want to say before starting. Then students go around and say their opinion and support their argument.

This is one is sure to bring some good conversations and even laughs in your class.

You can also teach phrases on how to express opinions, such as:

  • “In my opinion…”
  • “I believe that…”
  • “In my eyes…”
  • “From my point of view…”

In addition to this, you could also assign students to make their own “Would you rather…” topics for the class or other groups. Make sure they keep them appropriate!

Help facilitate the conversations and ask follow-up questions while students are speaking.

This activity is great for a number of reasons: it’s simple to assign and explain, effective for students to develop speaking, and fun because it’s on a topic they’re interested in.

It’s also practical because they’re teaching the class how to do something or how something works.

Basically, all you need to do for ESL speaking activities like this one is have students choose some topic. It can be any appropriate topic according to their wishes.

Then they give a five-minute presentation on that How-to topic.

In order to get students cooperating together, you could also put them in pairs and have them decide on and organize the speech together.

Here are some of the ones my students have done before and they turned out to be great:

  • How to cook [a food]
  • How to play [a sport]
  • How to travel cheap
  • How to do a magic trick
  • How to live healthily

There are some  great tips  you can share with your students on giving a presentation in a foreign language.

Have students prepare the speech at home or during the lesson, and then have them present their topic during the next lesson.

You could take notes on their speaking or pronunciation mistakes while they present and go over them after the presentation.

Student level:  Pre-Intermediate Type of Lesson:  Group

This is a game based on the classic board game “memory” designed for lower-level students.

Two students go out of the room (Student A and Student B). The rest of the class gets together in pairs.

If you have an uneven number of students, one group can be in three.

Each pair chooses a word according to the learning objective.

For example, if your students are learning about food, then in pairs they will mutually agree on a meal or a food they both like. Then the two students come back into the classroom and these two students play against each other to gain points.

To gain points, Student A starts off and asks any student in the class “What do you like eating?” and that student answers “I like eating…”, and then Student A asks another student what they like to eat.

If the second student likes the same thing, then Student A gets one point. Then Student B goes and tries to match the pairs based on the food they mutually chose together.

This is a fun game to practice vocabulary and simple phrases.

You can make the game more interactive if students make gestures and movement demonstrating the type of food. For example, they gesture peeling a banana if the food they chose is ‘banana’.

Other good questions are:

  • What is your favorite subject?
  • What do you like doing in your free time?
  • What time is it?

Student level:  Pre-Intermediate to Advanced Type of Lesson:  Group or Individual

Find a YouTube video topic that you think would be interesting for your students. I would choose a relatively short video (two to five minutes), or something like a TedTalk.

Make some preview discussion questions about the topic presented in the video, go through them with students before watching, and then watch the video together.

You can then have some questions prepared based on the video content and some post-discussion activities while going through some of the important vocabulary terms from the video.

Students tend to love working with videos and there are so many good ones out there nowadays.

Using video is effective because it brings the outside world to your students, and they can generate some great discussions in class, inspiring students to speak their mind and share their opinions and ideas.

Browse our full archive of ESL resources and printables.

Student level:  Beginner to Intermediate Type of Lesson:  Group

This activity is a better choice if your students are happy talking but maybe are a bit nervous speaking in front of a class:

Split the class into pairs.

Students need to discuss their weekend with their partner.

Use only English!

You need to be observant with this type of activity. Keep an eye on each student’s talk time. 

If you are finding some students are much more talkative than their partners, maybe set a time limit for how long each student can talk for before switching. This ensures that everyone gets a fair chance to practise.

Information gap activities are great to practice conversation; get more ideas here.

This is another simple yet great activity for building confidence in speaking!

Give the student a topic card, for instance, “Talk about your favorite place.” or “What’s your favorite band or artist?”

The student has a certain amount of time to prepare some ideas for what they will say.

The student then has to talk about that topic for a chosen amount of time.

When starting out with this activity, make sure to give more time for preparation and less time for the presentation. 5 minutes of preparation time and 1 minute of the presentation should be plenty. 

With time, you can reduce the preparation time or increase the presentation time.

Prepare a list of controversial topics, and two opposing views about each topic.

Split your students into pairs or small groups (each with an even number of students). Split each groups into two parties. Assign a topic to each group: each party has to hold an opposite view.

Give them some time to prepare arguments for their standpoint. 5 to 10 Minutes should be enough.

Then let each group debate their topic in front of the class. One party starts voicing their first argument, then the other answers.

Each statement shouldn’t exceed 30 seconds – use a stopwatch with a countdown, so students know when they have to stop.

The debate is over after a set time – for example 5 minutes – or when the parties stated all their arguments.

After each debate, the whole class votes which party was more convincing and won the debate.

If it’s an individual lesson, you and the student play the opposite parties – no final vote then.

Make sure to prepare topics according to the fluency level of your students. The topics can be rather serious and controversial, or fun and weird.

Here are a couple of examples:

Current and serious topics:

  • Classroom instruction vs. Homeschooling
  • Self-driving cars: smart or dangerous
  • Buy local vs. buy online
  • Death sentence: yes or no
  • iOS vs. Android

Fun and weird topics:

  • Vanilla vs. chocolate ice-cream
  • Get up early vs. go to bed late
  • Have no kids vs. have 5 kids
  • Travel to Mars vs. to the earth’s core
  • Sommer vs. Winter

Student level:  Beginner to Intermediate Type of Lesson:  Group

Finally, and absolute classic activity. Split your students into groups, each with at least 3 three students.

Prepare a list of words. For each word, think about 3-5 words which can be used to describe the original word. These can be synonyms, adjectives or any kind of related terms.

  • Weather – rain, cloud, sun, forecast, outside
  • hungry – food, stomach, eat, restaurant, thirsty
  • to run – fast, quick, walk, race, legs

Write the words on cards.

Now, one student has to take one card and explain the word to the other in their group. Here’s the catch: He must not use one of the words on the card (also, no parts or variations of the words.). He must not use gestures, facial expressions or voices. He has to circumscribe the word using other verbal expressions.

The rest of the group have to guess the word. Set a time for each round, like one minute. One group has to guess as many words as possible within that time; each guess is one point.

When the explaining student uses one of the taboo words (or other taboo means), he has to skip the current word and continue with the next card.

Count the points after each round. Then, the next group has its turn. The game is over, when each student in each group had their turn to explain words. Sum up the points; the group with the most wins.

Other possible game modes: Let the groups guess one word alternating, and set a 30 seconds time limit for each guess. Or let a student explain a word to the whole class, and who guesses it first, gets a point.

Student level:  Intermediate to Advanced Type of Lesson:  Group

This activity does not only help students develop their speaking and listening skills, it also fosters critical thinking skills, creativity, and imagination.

Here’s how it works:

  • Divide the group into small teams of 3–4 people each.
  • Give each team a starting sentence, such as “Once upon a time, in a land far, far away.”
  • Set a time limit, such as 5 minutes.
  • Each team must take turns adding one sentence to the story, building from the previous sentence.
  • The team that completes the most coherent story within the time limit wins.
  • To make it more challenging, you can also include a specific vocabulary theme for the story, such as “animals” or “travel”, or you can include a twist, such as “the story must be a horror story”.
  • After the activity, teams present their story to the class.
  • Encourage the class to ask questions about the story to the teams.

6 thoughts on “12 Fun ESL Speaking Activities for Teens or Adults”

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Thank you so much! Some of the suggestions I have already used with my students, but I did get new tips too! will try them out.

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Great ideas to get my hgh school students speaking. Thanks so much

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Great… These activities are really interesting ones and are helping me a lot. Thank You So Much for Uploading….

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Great activities! Greeting from Mexico.

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Thank you! This is very clearly written with a lot of additional ideas. Useful! :)

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Thanks so much for sharing. Lots of new ideas for me.

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  • Grades 6-12
  • School Leaders

☘️ St. Patrick's Day Activities: Books, art ideas, experiments, and more!

25 High School English Activities You’ll Want To Try Right Away

Think outside the box.

Examples of high school English activities, including teen slang summary of the Crucible and grab bag of objects to personify.

Engaging middle and high schoolers can sometimes be tricky. How many times have you planned (what you think is) a cool and exciting lesson, only to walk away feeling pretty bummed and discouraged when your hip activity is a bust? Believe me, I get it. I’ve tried English activities for high school that I am positive (most) of my kids will love and appreciate. I’ve attempted to make English relevant and fresh. I’ve even tried to choose vehicles like social media that fit into their lives. As I plan, I often think, “Man, I would have loved having this kind of stuff when I was in school!”

Sometimes, my efforts fall flat. Other times, I hit a home run. After a lot of trial and error, I’ve finally figured out some techniques that consistently work. Here are my favorite English activities for high school.

1. Pretend you are an alien from another planet

As an alien, you don’t understand human emotions. Ask students to explain what happiness is to alien you. They will try to use other emotions to explain happiness, so you will need to kindly remind them that you don’t understand those. Someone will figure out that what you are looking for is figurative language (e.g., happiness is a Diet Coke at 11:30), and then, mission accomplished. This is one of my favorite mini-lessons to do because when I start class with “I am an alien from another planet …,” some give me weird looks, but most don’t even flinch because they’ve already witnessed enough of my shenanigans to think it may be true.

Try it: Alien From Another Planet Activity at TPT

2. Embrace the season and let it dictate your unit

Short stories with photos written by students

I change things up every year, but most recently I created a unit around “Spooky Season.” We read “spooky” stories and watched suspenseful short videos to evaluate how authors and storytellers employ devices that heighten the suspense for the audience. In these high school English activities, we analyzed theme and character development and compared different mediums all under the umbrella of Spooky October. As always, what works for my school and grade level may not work for everyone, but some of my students’ favorite spooky short stories were “Lamb to the Slaughter” and “The Landlady.”

3. Write your own spooky story

Bags labelled characters/suspects, location/scene of the crime, and props

After reading from our mentor texts and learning how to create suspense, we write fictional narratives that will haunt your nightmares … just kidding—I wanted to add a bit of drama. They pull from grab bags I create of different character names, setting ideas, and props they can use to create their own terrifying tale.

Try it: Spooky Story Starters at TPT

4. Turn everyone into a poet with blackout poetry

Two examples of blackout poetry on desk.

Thanks to Austin Kleon , poetry is cool and accessible. If you haven’t heard of blackout poetry already, it’s created by taking a newspaper or loose book pages that can no longer be repaired and creating a poem using certain words on the page. Then, you black out the rest. I’ve done this every year and have changed my approach each time. Sometimes I give students free rein and let the words speak to them, and sometimes I’ll give them a specific topic I’d like them to create a poem around. I love to see 25 different variations of “courage” through poetry.

Try it: Blackout Poetry at We Are Teachers

5. Use emojis in class

Emojis drawn on a whiteboard with labels

When teaching a complex concept like symbolism, use symbols that are already part of students’ daily life. Assign each small group a word or theme and then have them choose an emoji to symbolize that message. Have kids sketch them out on the board and explain why they chose that symbol, or turn it into a full-on art project and display them around the room.

Try it: More Fun Ideas for Teaching With Emojis at We Are Teachers

6. Go hunting for mechanics, usage, and grammar errors

Doing a quick search of these kinds of fails on the internet will provide you with a great deal of content. You can turn those fails into a slideshow while the class finds the errors and corrects them, or you can assign a few to each small group to tackle. 

7. What’s better than a one-pager?

Drawing of a mockingbird with words

The name speaks for itself here. There are so many variations of one-pager assignments that you could do, but the one that I like is to use one-page as a blank canvas for them to demonstrate their understanding of developing theme and symbolism. They sketch out symbols and images that are significant to the book they are reading and include text evidence to support their inferences and takeaways. 

Try it: One-Pager Template at TPT

8. Play reviewsical chairs

When I first started teaching and was looking for solidarity, understanding, and inspiration, I found love,teach . In one of her blog posts, she suggested playing reviewsical chairs to prepare for a test. It is like musical chairs, but you review. When the music stops, someone is without a chair and they have to challenge someone else for their chair by answering a review question correctly. This is a fan favorite in middle and high school.

9. Play the flyswatter game

I love a fun review game. This one requires you to put up answers around the room (e.g., character names, dates, themes, symbols, storytelling devices, etc.). Then, you divide the class up into two teams. Have them send two representatives up to the front and arm them with flyswatters. I normally tape off a box that they have to stand in while I read the question. Then, the first person to hit the correct answer with their flyswatter wins the point. This game is intense and so fun! Make sure you move any book bags or obstacles that may be tripping hazards (for me this is just air).

10. Listen to podcasts and discuss them together

Not all teenagers are familiar with podcasts, but it’s a great way to introduce lessons in an interesting way. And so far, my students have reported really enjoying them. In fact, I’ve even had students come back and tell me they’ve continued to listen to a podcast series on their own after we’ve concluded our lesson.

Podcasts encourage students to be actively engaged, because the information being shared must be processed and visualized by the students as it’s being said. I usually prepare questions for them to answer as they listen, and then facilitate a discussion afterward. In my classroom, this sometimes leads to mildly heated debates, which is a learning experience in and of itself.

Try it: List of Educational Podcasts at We Are Teachers

11.  Introduce “chapter chats”

Loose sheets of paper with writing on them

My students love being in charge of leading “chapter chats” in small groups. By encouraging them to be leaders in discussing specific book chapters, they take ownership in a whole new way. I’ve really enjoyed watching my kids come up with thoughtful questions, bring food to connect to something that happened in the text, and even create fun games that encourage their classmates to recall information from the chapter. Chapter chats are great high school English activities to assess those speaking and listening standards while also making them read critically because they are in charge of facilitating the discussion. 

Try it: Chapter Chats at TPT

12. Let your students be podcasters

Student drawings

Last year, I finally decided to let my students create their own podcasts. I’ve wanted to do this for years but logistically was not sure how to execute. It took a lot of planning on the front end of the assignment and organizing where to find places for them to record (makeshift sound booths), but we did it! They had to pitch their topics and get a red, green, or yellow light. Then, they had to research, cite evidence, write a script, and finally produce their own podcasts. We listened to the episodes and answered questions on the “listening guide” that they created. I loved this assignment and will definitely do it again. 

13. Throw parties with a purpose

We just finished reading The Great Gatsby , and since throwing lavish parties was Gatsby’s thing, we threw our own 1920s soiree. I divided my students into small groups to do research on their assigned topic (historically accurate fashions, refreshments, ambiance, guest list, etc.) and then deliver presentations. The students were responsible for assigning each other parts, complete with instructions on how to dress and what food or beverage to bring. They even provided each participant with a lexicon (specific vocabulary) to use at the party. This assignment was fun, and it also covered many standards, which is a win-win for me!

 14. Give speeches as characters

Envelope with words speeches for speech unit

After watching a number of TED Talks and studying what contributed to an effective performance, my students wrote and delivered speeches of their own. They drew prompts for characters with different occupations giving different types of speeches (e.g., Beyoncé giving a Grammy acceptance speech). I found that my students were much more confident and comfortable speaking when given permission to act like someone else. This activity was a hands-down favorite event for my eighth grade students. Those speaking and listening standards can be tough to master, and high school English activities like this helped us get there.

15. Read, solve, and create murder mysteries

Envelope with words murder mystery and papers

My students in both middle and high school love true crime. I’ve created murder mystery activities for high school English that fit really well with literature units and that focus on making inferences, writing, and using textual evidence. Once the premise of the mystery is determined, students create their own case files, evidence, and clues for their classmates to solve. I’ve had them pull from bags of evidence, locations, and possible suspects to add another element of fun and challenge. It’s simple, but they really like pulling things from mystery bags. This activity is also an excellent support for students who struggle with finding a starting point.

16. Read children’s books

I know many high school and middle school teachers who use children’s literature in their classrooms to introduce literary devices. Inspired by Ludacris , I once rapped Llama Llama Red Pajama in my creative writing class before I had students write children’s books of their own. I am sure there is footage of this out there living sneakily on someone’s camera roll, but thankfully, it hasn’t surfaced.

Try it: Famous Children’s Books at We Are Teachers

17. Use magazine clippings for found poetry

Magazine clippings pasted on paper to make a poem

Give students some scissors and a stack of magazines, newspapers, or books to look through. Have them cut out words and phrases they like and then arrange them into their own unique work of poetry.

18. Perform plays

Just this week, one of my sophomore students asked me what we were going to be reading next. We just finished 12 Angry Men . She said she wanted to do another play. Then, another student chimed in and agreed. Plays are appealing for many reasons. Plays allow us to study literature without having to tackle the entire length of a novel. Plays allow students to become characters and perform. Plays invite students to let out their inner thespian. My students take on roles and commit to them. 

19. Pique interest by doing First Chapter Friday

Row of popular books

It may seem uncomfortable reading aloud to your secondary students, but I am telling you, they still enjoy it! Read an exciting first chapter from books that you hope they pick up and read on their own. First Chapter Fridays are especially great activities for high school English if you have an expansive library of books for them to choose from.

Try it: First Chapter Fridays at We Are Teachers

20. Have them create SNL -style satirical sketches

Box of wigs and hats

When I teach my students satire and parody, I show them examples of school-appropriate satire. Then, we discuss why it is satire. After we get the hang of it, I have them write and perform them. I also happen to have a weird collection of wigs and costumes in my room that may help them get into character. Funny wigs are always an asset!

21. Write a summary of what they are reading incorporating teen slang

Crucible book next to sheet of paper with a teen slang version of the book printed on it.

My juniors are reading The Crucible and the language can be tricky for them. After a long weekend, I was worried they would forget what we read so I decided at 1 a.m. to write a Gen-Z summary of Acts 1 & 2. They may have called me cringey and told me to burn my paper but it made them laugh and they understood it so it was a W (as the kids say.) Afterwards, I thought it would be a fun assignment to have them write the same style of summary for Acts 3 & 4. It forces them to go through and truly understand the dynamic relationships in the play and how the events are unfolding. Then, they get to flex on everyone with a summary that slaps. 

Try it: Teen Slang Every Teacher Should Know at We Are Teachers

22. To build background knowledge, create fun stations

High school English classroom set up with station activities.

At the beginning of a short story or a novel, give your students the background knowledge they need by setting up stations for them to visit. When I had planned for my students to read Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe, we had some ground to cover before diving in. I set up stations that gave background information on who Poe was, what Carnival was, information about the Catacombs, vocabulary that they’d encounter and need to know, and finally questions that focused on heavy topics they’d see dealt with in the story.

Some of these stations were videos they watched that were posted as QR codes, some were articles they had to read, and some were discussion questions they chatted about and then wrote down their consensus. To make it vibey, I added dollar-store battery-operated candles, scattered plastic skulls around, and turned down the lights with a spooky playlist playing.

23. Get them talking and thinking by using anticipation guides

Anticipation Guide worksheet on desk with blue pen.

An easy way to get your students excited about the next story you’re going to read is to have them complete an anticipation guide. This is a great way to preview the topics that will point to themes in the story they’re about to read. It’s also a great way to start some good discussions before getting into the text. They’ll have a better idea of what they’re supposed to be taking away from the literature if you guide them in a way that’s engaging before reading. My favorite anticipation guide is from The Most Dangerous Game. I teach at a school where hunting is very popular so when we go over the questions, I’ll have them sit or stand if they agree and then each side will share their explanations as to why they chose what they did. 

24. To teach figurative language, create a weird grab bag

White paper bag filled with objects to describe with personifcation.

When my students struggle with figurative language, I put them into groups of three or four. Then I throw weird things in a bag, and one member of their group chooses an object from the bag. Once they pull out their fake mouse or rubber duck or whatever item they’ve selected, they have to write a few sentences using personification that is inspired by the object they grab. Then, they choose their favorite sentence and write it on the board for the class to see. We’ll then go through everyone’s sentences to check to make sure we’re using personification correctly and to inspire creativity! If they can write incredible sentences using personification about an Expo Marker, they can definitely challenge themselves in their own writing. 

25. For all the Swifties out there, analyze Taylor Swift

Print out of Taylor Swift song lyrics with notes analyzing them.

Will there be haters? Yes. Be prepared to shut them down swiftly. In my poetry unit, we analyzed “All Too Well.” Taylor Swift is an incredible songwriter. Her songs are an English teacher’s dream. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t speak for all English teachers but any and all Swifty English teachers will agree. You can choose other music too! We’ve also analyzed Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come.” 

If you liked these activities for high school English, check out these 10 Playful Tricks To Engage High School Students .

Plus, sign up for our free newsletters to get all the latest teaching tips and ideas, straight to your inbox.

Finding English activities for high school that engage and excite your students can be a challenge! Here are five that should do the trick.

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My Favorite High School English Activities of the Year

My Favorite High School English Activities of the Year

This past school year was a great one. With every school year that passes, I like to take a moment and reflect on activities that were successful in the classroom and really think about why they worked.

Here are nine of my top activities from this previous school year.

SWIFT Poetry Analysis Collaborative Poster Projects

As a way to have my students practice their poetry analysis skills while also building their self-efficacy, my students worked on these collaborative posters.

Using the acronym SWIFT (structure/symbolism, word choice, imagery, figurative language, and theme and tone), my students analyzed a variety of poems about a similar subject. Not only did the read and annotate the poems, but they also identified each of the SWIFT elements, provided a quote, and explained how each element impacted the poem. 

My Favorite High School English Activities of the Year

Once students complete the poetry analysis posters, we spent some time in class conducting informal presentations. Student groups presented the posters. I completed this project with my sophomore classes.

Why this worked: Students collaborated with one another to help each other as they worked on a new skill. 

For more information about this project, you can read this blog post.

Hero’s Journey Literary Project

Toward the end of my short story unit with my sophomores, I like to review the Hero’s Journey archetype. We watch a quick video, discuss the various stages of the Hero’s Journey, use some familiar animated movies as examples, and then my students work together to create this Hero’s Journey poster.

My Favorite High School English Activities of the Year

Usually, they work together in small groups of three, and I give them about two days in class to work on the assignment. Once my students are done with the poster and have demonstrated that they understand the archetype, we read a short story as a class and analyze the Hero’s Journey elements of that story.

Why this worked: Students were able to choose their own Hero’s Journey story for this project, so that generated a lot of student interest. Whenever kids get a say in what they do, there is more buy-in.

Rhetorical Appeals Learning Stations

Rhetoric is one of my favorite units to teach. I love reading significant and persuasive speeches with my students and teaching them how to analyze the language. I love seeing that moment when they get it -that moment when they realize just how powerful language is. 

My Favorite High School English Activities of the Year

This year, I added rhetorical appeals learning stations to my rhetorical analysis unit. For this activity, students spent one station analyzing ethos, one station analyzing pathos, and one station analyzing logos.

Why this worked: Adding movement and collaboration to the classroom is a great way to break up the monotony of traditional learning. Students learn best when they are active participants in the process.

You can see more about my rhetorical analysis unit here.

Intro to Transcendentalism Exploratory Posters

Before my juniors started learning about transcendentalism, I had them explore the five tenets of transcendentalism as an inquiry-based introductory activity. 

My Favorite High School English Activities of the Year

For this activity, I placed my students in small groups, and I assigned each group a different tenet. This type of poster project is a quick one, and I don’t even give my students an entire class period, roughly 55 minutes, to work on the poster. As I explain this activity to them, I make sure that I emphasize that I am looking for content. I want to see that they explored the tenet and that they are beginning to understand it.

For the posters, students wrote their own definition of the word, three synonyms, a quote about the tenet, and a visual representation.

Once students completed the posters, the groups presented their posters to the class as the class took notes on the five tenets of transcendentalism.

Why this worked: This introductory activity was student-focused. The students were in charge of their learning, and they essentially became the experts of their group’s tenet. Furthermore, they were also responsible for teaching their peers about the tenet they researched. I completed this activity with my juniors.

Listening Skills ELA Test Prep Escape Room

In my state, juniors take the standardized state test -the SBAC. This test contains a listening portion of the test that requires students to listen to nonfiction articles and answer comprehension and analysis questions.

My Favorite High School English Activities of the Year

To help my juniors prepare for this test, they completed a listening-skills escape room. This escape room is one of my favorites because it closely imitates the state test. My students listened to an audio file. In fact, I had them listen twice and also take notes to practice good test-taking skills. Then, my students worked together in groups of six to complete all of the tasks.

Escape room days are always a blast. They are high-energy, fast-paced days that engage even the most reluctant learners.

Why this worked: Escape rooms are one of the best ways to engage students. I’ve done a handful of escape rooms in my classroom, and I always have 100% participation. It is amazing.

You can see more about my ELA Listening Skills Escape Room here.

Short Story Collaborative Review Poster Projects

This short story poster project has quickly become a staple in my classroom. At the end of our short story unit, and before we take a comprehensive test on all of the stories we read, my students work together in small groups to complete short story collaborative review posters.

IMG 2445

Each group is assigned a different short story that we read in class. They then go back and review their designated short story and identify and analyze various literary elements. I also have my students include a summary of the short story as well. Since this serves as our review, students usually have about a class period and a half to work on their posters. I encourage them to divide and conquer; I also emphasize that I am looking for content over aesthetics.

When students complete their posters, each group presents the poster to the class. Since I do this as a review activity before our end of unit test, presentations are a bit more formal. I require student groups to come up to the front of the classroom to present. I also require every student to present an aspect of the poster. As students are presenting their posters, the rest of the class takes review notes to help them prepare for the unit test.

Why this worked: This is a fun and engaging student-centered review activity that generates discussion about the texts. Since we already read, studied, and analyzed the text in class during the prior weeks, students are able to dig a little deeper and discover more about the text.

Dialectical Journal Concepts

When I teach novels, I like to have my students complete notebooks as they read. The notebooks contain two main elements: dialectical journals and basic comprehension questions that we answer together in class as we read (one, to keep up engagement as we read, and two, to help prevent copying and cheating. If we answer the questions together in class as opposed to assigning them as homework, students are less likely to text each other pictures of the answers). 

My Favorite High School English Activities of the Year

For the dialectical journals, I provide my students with a handful of big-picture thematic concepts that all relate to the novel. For each dialectical journal entry, students write and cite the quote, explain its significance, and then connect it to one of the concepts. I do this because once we are done reading the novel, students will then have categorized quotes pre-selected that they can use for their essay at the end of the novel.

Why this worked: When I plan my units, I like to plan backward. I always have the end-goal in mind. With that said, I make sure that the concepts we use are ones that students can apply and discuss in their essays.

You can read more about how I assign dialectical journals and even download a free template in the classroom in this Secondary English Coffee Shop blog post.

Lord of the Flies Mid-Novel Review Escape Challenge

I love the day when my students compete against one another in this Lord of the Flies review activity. When I assign this activity, my students need to place all of the events in chronological order from chapters 1-6. I have them complete all six chapters together at once because it is more challenging.

My Favorite High School English Activities of the Year

This activity works well because it generates authentic conversation about the story. Students review the events of the story, which then helps them prepare to read the final half of the story.

Why this worked: It is a fun activity and the kids get super competitive. Since students complete this activity in their teams, they are already familiar with working with one another. Plus, it gets pretty intense. The kids debate and even argue about the events in the story.

You can see more about my Lord of the Flies Mid-Novel Review Escape Challenge here.

Lord of the Flies Team Competition

Teaching novels from the literary canon can be a bit cumbersome sometimes, especially if students cannot relate to the characters or the conflict. One way that helps overcome this is by teaching Lord of the Flies as a team challenge. 

My Favorite High School English Activities of the Year

I started doing this a couple of years ago, and I keep refining my challenge. It still isn’t quite where I’d like it to be, but it sure is fun.

Before we read the novel, I place my students into six groups of six students each. I carefully group my students to make sure that each group is pretty even in regards to ability level; this is especially helpful in my inclusion classes.

As we read the novel, my students compete in a variety of activities that assess and challenge their literary knowledge. Some of the challenges include a map-making challenge, mask-making challenge, quiz challenges, and the mid-novel review that I mentioned above.

Why this worked: This is a fun and engaging way to get through a pretty tough text. Because they are working together in teams, the students have more ownership in their learning.

To read more about how I game-ify Lord of the Flies, check out this blog post.

My Favorite High School English Activities of the Year

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10 ELA Lesson Plans that Engage Students Any Time of Year

Looking for meaningful ELA lesson plans that will engage students? Read on.

Any and Every Teacher:  What are you doing today?!? I don’t have anything planned!

It’s happened to every single one of us. We have the best intentions and try to prepare in advance, but sometimes things – life, testing, clothing malfunctions, sickness, you name it – foil our lesson plans. It’s a good idea to have a folder or binder of back up plans for this exact reason.

Today, I chatted with my friend Lauralee who teaches high school language arts, and we came up with a list of ten activities that will engage students any time of year. Whether it’s the last month of school or the first, these ELA lesson plans won’t take long, but students will learn. Best of all, they don’t take much prep.

10 Meaningful ELA lesson plans to engage students in critical thinking and active learning #highschoolela #lessonplans

Meaningful ELA Lesson Plans in a Pinch

1. play games.

Play an ELA game ! Games that ask students to interact with figurative language, grammatical terms, poetry forms, vocabulary words, and writing concepts are the perfect way to actively engage all learners. Most students have played Truth or Dare, but they’ve probably never had the honor of playing Truth or Dare Classroom style!

2. Media Literacy

Students love to eat, so bring in snacks for a meaningful activity. Before students dig in, ask them to analyze the colors, language, and fonts with this media literacy activity . Enlighten students with the marketing behind food products and packaging.

3. Creative Writing

Ask students to read a text of their choice. Any high-interest nonfiction article will work! Then, have them create an original response to the article. Everything you need to teach your students how to combine nonfiction and poetry can be found in this creative writing assignment . Give students voice and choice!

4. Public Speaking

This freebie gets students talking the entire class period. Students will analyze how tone changes the meaning of phrases. This public speaking activity is great for partner or group work.

5. Use Podcasts

Podcasts are perfect for one-day lessons. They help to build students’ listening comprehension, and they are also great practice for analysis. Try this chilling, high-interest podcast lesson on body farms .

6. Commercial Analysis

Watch commercials! What? Yes – show students that these highly curated and specialized advertisements target certain audiences. Teaching audience analysis with commercials is unexpected and fun.

7. Oxford Comma

Take time to teach students about the ever-so-controversial punctuation mark: The Oxford Comma . The examples in this free print and go lesson allow for plenty of discussion (and laughter).

8. Brainy Vocabulary

Get brainy with some brain-based vocabulary practice . Use your existing word list, or (if students do not have a current word list) use previous vocabulary lists to review. These activities will help students retain new word meanings. Here’s a digital friendly version .

9. Paired Text Analysis

Pair poetry with short films to make for an engaging paired-text analysis lesson. Check out this post for a handful of ideas regarding which poems and short films might pair well together. These graphic organizers help with scaffolding analysis of any fiction or nonfiction text.

10. Use Play-Doh

There are so many ways you can use Play-Doh! Have students create molds that represent important symbols in literature. Or, ask them to play “pictionary” with Play-Doh for vocabulary words. They could also practice punctuating practice sentences by making end marks and commas out of the dough. If your students could use an introduction to or review of the writing process, try this kinesthetic Play-Doh activity for teens . Don’t have Play-Doh? No worries! You can try all of these activities with aluminum foil, pipe cleaners, or cardstock. Teaching remotely? Here’s the digital writing process lesson I use to decrease frustration and maximize learning!

After Lauralee and I sat down to brainstorm this list, we realized we had way more than ten ideas to help teachers who are in a bind. If you want more, check out her post for ten more language arts lesson plans to keep students engaged – in May or any time of year!

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Activities & Lessons

Free High School English Language Arts Activities

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To help your learners discover their own writing styles and embrace reading, check out the fun high school language arts activities below. Support students' voices with hands-on English lessons on how to analyze poems, podcasts, and arguments, complete with videos, downloadable worksheets, and more.

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5 Social-Emotional Learning Activities for High School Students

These five social-emotional learning activities for high school students are based on CASEL's core SEL competencies. This lesson plan will help mold your students into independent and meaningful contributors to society.

January 29, 2021

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29 Back-to-School Writing Prompts for Middle and High School

School's back in session, which means it's time for a fresh batch of writing prompts for the new year. Have your high school or middle school students try these Back-to-School prompts this fall.

Ali Habashi

August 10, 2021

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Mayan Pyramids vs. Egyptian Pyramids Lesson Plan Idea

Looking to include ELA instruction in your social studies classroom? This Mayan pyramids vs. Egyptian pyramids lesson plan idea has students discuss the similarities and differences between the two types of structures through writing an essay.

Shaped Staff

August 5, 2021

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25 Valentine's Day Writing Prompts and Ideas

No matter what your middle school or high school class is reading, these writing prompts about love will get them ready for Valentine's Day.

January 21, 2021

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8 Black History Month Writing Prompts

Introduce students to Black innovators with these Black History Month writing prompts and guide them into a particular type of text, such as personal narrative, informative, or persuasive.

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December 22, 2020

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ELA Halloween Activities for Middle School and High School Students

Get your ELA class into the spirit with these fun Halloween activities for middle school and high school students, and learn from a few masters of horror how to really make those spines tingle and those bones shake.

Brenda Iasevoli

October 20, 2020

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How to Write for TV: Virtual Collaboration and the Blank Page

Writing for television is certainly one of the more collaborative forms of writing. But collaboration is only the first step of the process, since the goal of The Writers Room is for writers to come away with an episodic assignment to complete.

Duane Capizzi

August 17, 2020

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Literacy at Work: The Writers Room with Duane Capizzi

Have your students explore the exciting world of TV writing with a free lesson plan and insights from producer, writer, and Carmen Sandiego showrunner Duane Capizzi.

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Great Summer Reads with Carol Jago: Never Give Up, Grades 9–12

Though the characters in these stories face challenges and obstacles, they never stop trying to do the right thing.

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Great Summer Reads with Carol Jago: Stories You Won't Forget, Grades 9–12

These stories will probably stick with you the rest of your life—the characters and what they experience are just that unforgettable!

August 7, 2020

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Great Summer Reads with Carol Jago: Dystopian Tales, Grades 9–12

Dystopian novels—often set in the future—depict undesirable or frightening societies where the citizens suffer from restrictions and/or injustices.

August 4, 2020

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Literacy at Work: How to Write a Rap with Dr. Chris Emdin

Teach your students how to write a rap with Dr. Chris Emdin using this rap lesson plan, complete with a writing template, rubric, and teacher guide.

July 28, 2020

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Great Summer Reads with Carol Jago: Friends and Family Matter, Grades 9–12

Though we may sometimes have differences of opinion with our friends or family members, they are often the ones we rely on to see us through difficult times.

July 27, 2020

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Great Summer Reads with Carol Jago: Graphic Books for Grades 9–12

Graphic novels are hugely popular with readers of all ages. They capture our attention and keep us turning pages compulsively.

July 20, 2020

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Great Summer Reads with Carol Jago: Did You Know? for Grades 9-12

This week’s suggested titles all fall into the nonfiction category, but they are anything but dull! If you like learning about real people and the real world, these are for you.

July 13, 2020

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Great Summer Reads with Carol Jago: Fantasy Series for Grades 9-12

Escaping our own reality by diving into a fantastical world can be an exciting adventure and a therapeutic release.

July 7, 2020

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Great Summer Reads With Carol Jago: Take a Book to the Movies! for Grades 9-12

When books are so engaging, filmmakers inevitably want to try adapting them for the big screen. Notice the changes they have made or have had to make as you read and watch.

June 29, 2020

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Forgotten Stories of the Oregon Trail: Native American Oral History

Download a free Social Studies lesson plan and student activity about Native American Oral History on the Oregon Trail.

June 23, 2020

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Great Summer Reads with Carol Jago: Into Space! for Grades 9-12

Visit Mars, tour the galaxy, and befriend curious species in this week’s great summer reads.

June 22, 2020

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Grades 9–12 ELA Activity Set 10: Write Two-Sentence Stories and More

Have high schoolers find inspiration for stories in everyday objects or events and craft advice columns with these downloadable activities for at-home learning.

June 8, 2020

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What’s on Your Mind? A Flexible SEL Freewrite

Help students in Grades 3–12 tap into what they're feeling with an informal writing activity.

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June 5, 2020

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Forgotten Stories of the Oregon Trail: Writing History

Students will learn from reading diary entries written on the Oregon Trail how such writings preserve history and bring the past to life.

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June 4, 2020

Grades 9–12 ELA Activity Set 9: Write an Unnecessary Sequel and More

High schoolers can sharpen their writing skills with activities including a reflective essay on the past school year and a playlist for a book they read.

June 2, 2020

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Grades 9–12 ELA Activity Set 8: Synthesize Information and More

For this week's activities, students can create a how-to video, use research to defend their stance on an issue, and respond to summer writing prompts.

May 26, 2020

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Grades 9–12 ELA Activity Set 7: Memorize and Recite a Poem and More

With these downloadable activities, high schoolers will memorize and recite a poem, take notes as they read a novel, and memorialize a book in memes.

May 18, 2020

Grades 9–12 ELA Activity Set 6: Analyze a Podcast and More

Have your students explore haiku, analyze a podcast, and practice identifying literary terms with these downloadable activities for high schoolers.

May 11, 2020

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Grades 9–12 ELA Activity Set 5: Teaching Metaphor by Carol Jago and More

High schoolers can sharpen their writing, language, critical thinking, and reading skills with these instructional resources.

May 5, 2020

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Literacy at Work: Writing a Personality Feature with Esther Wojcicki

Esther Wojcicki shares her lesson on conducting an interview and writing a personality feature—​an intriguing, creative article about the interviewee.

April 30, 2020

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Fun At-Home Lesson for ELA: Write a Personality Feature and Other Activities

Teach students in Grades 3-12 how to conduct interviews and write compelling personality features with these insights from Esther Wojcicki.

Esther Wojcicki

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Grades 9–12 ELA Activity Set 4: Create a Sketchnote and More

Activities including creating a sketchnote, writing an ode to an everyday item, and analyzing the theme of a short story.

April 28, 2020

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Grades 9–12 ELA Activity Set 3: Evaluate a News Article and More

Have high schoolers continue learning from home by evaluating a news article for reliability, maintaining a dialectical journal, and responding to daily dinner prompts.

April 20, 2020

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Grades 9–12 ELA Activity Set 2: Analyze a Poem and More

Have high schoolers analyze a poem, summarize an informational text, and write effective arguments with this week's downloadables activities.

April 13, 2020

Grades 9–12 ELA Activity Set 1: Ripped from the Headlines and More

Have high school students analyze news stories, poems, and short stories with these instructional resources designed for remote learning.

April 9, 2020

View more language arts teaching ideas for high school . Or, c heck out our full list of free learning activities for all grades and all subjects.

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9 Fantastic Project Ideas for EFL/ESL: Tips for success

I love learning through projects. It’s one of the best ways to engage EFL/ESL students while challenging and improving their English skills. Projects may take a while, but they’re always worth it.

If you’re an EFL/ESL teacher who doesn’t have to follow a strict curriculum or set of lesson objectives, and can instead plan your own classes, projects are a great way to change the pace of your lessons.

english language projects for high school students

The nine project ideas in this list can be used with any age and English ability, although some might not be ideal for absolute beginners and very young children. In general, they take between 1 and 10 sessions to complete.

I’ve been running EFL/ESL projects for years with great success, and I’ve added tips to each of them, based on my experience.

Before we get stuck in, it’s worth taking a step back and thinking about the purpose of our projects.

Why do we do projects in EFL/ESL?

Projects are fun. That’s a pretty good reason to do them in your classes; when students are enjoying themselves, they’re motivated to learn.

However, it’s not enough. Playing video games is fun, but I wouldn’t recommend that for EFL/ESL.

When choosing a project, think about what your students are going to learn and how. What’s the purpose of the activity?

Learning new vocabulary through organic acquisition and gaining fluency in relevant conversation could be the purpose. Or, a focus on specific words and grammar. It could be to practice language used for communication in a team, or to learn about the customs and cultures of other countries.

english language projects for high school students

There’s no right answer here . As long as you can be sure the project will benefit the students by developing their knowledge and skills in English, you’re doing it right.

Some teachers like to identify the goals of the project before deciding on what they’ll actually do. That’s a good way of aligning with a long-term curriculum. However, it limits the range of projects you can choose from since many won’t achieve the goals you want.

The other approach is to choose a project first. The main benefit of this is that you can pick a project you know your students will engage best with and figure out the goals later. The drawback is that when you come to setting goals, you can only choose within the limits of the project.

Okay, that’s enough setup. Let’s get straight to the list!

  • Run a small business
  • Cultural discovery
  • Arts and crafts
  • Dramatization
  • Plan a vacation
  • Create a community
  • Table-top role-playing game

1. Short film

This list is in no particular order, but I had to put this entry at number one. It’s the type of project I’ve had most success with, and the one I’ve done more times than any other. By far.

You can create films about anything. I’ve had classes make spooky movies for Halloween, murder mysteries, documentaries, and fantastical adventures. I’m currently making a compilation of English jokes with one of my private classes.

english language projects for high school students

Be careful, though. Films can take a long time to create, and if you aren’t pushing students to progress, kids especially can end up wasting hours on trivial things.

Here is my general timetable for film projects:

  • Session 1: Ideation. Come up with the genre and concept of the film. Decide major characters and consider where filming will take place and if you need any props or equipment. Make a list (or storyboard) of all the scenes you’ll need to film.
  • Session 2: Plan the first scene. Collaboratively write the script for the first scene and do a practice run, figuring out where to film and what problems might arise.
  • Session 3: Record the first scene and plan the next. Make sure students bring appropriate costumes and props for the first scene. What you film here will be in the final product. If you have time remaining, start planning the next scene.
  • Remaining sessions: Alternate between planning and recording scenes until you’ve finished them all.

IMPORTANT : If you’re doing this project with children/teens, check parents are okay with it. And never share video footage (with other students, or posting online) without first asking permission.

  • Keep the film short. As a general rule, each minute of film takes about an hour of lesson time. Avoid planning long, elaborate stories – you won’t have enough time to finish.
  • Keep scenes short. Chop scenes up into mini-moments which you can capture quickly. Long scenes are harder to get right and require multiple takes as students struggle to remember their lines.
  • Write or print the script in large letters so students can see their lines from a distance. This way, they can quickly glance at the script behind the camera before you start the scene instead of holding the script in their hands.
  • Expect giggling. When students make mistakes or get nervous, they’ll start laughing. It happens with professional actors. Be patient and encourage students to refocus quickly.
  • Use a basic movie editor (iMovie is great) to put scenes together. If your students are older teens or adults, you could even get them to edit it themselves.

If you have access to a kitchen, cooking can be a great way to learn practical English.

Not only will students follow instructions on a recipe (reading practice), but they’ll learn vocabulary that rarely appears in a textbook. Ingredients like baking soda and lemon zest, or verbs like whisk and dice.

Logistics are the biggest challenge. Choosing something simple you can prepare and bake in one session is probably the best approach, then you don’t have half-cooked ingredients lying around for a week between classes. You can use sessions before and after to plan and practice related language.

english language projects for high school students

While simplicity is good, I recommend using authentic recipes. Perhaps something your grandmother used, which has real English and even old-fashioned measurements. That way, you expose them to some of your culture.

IMPORTANT: Make sure you know of any students with allergies in the class, so you can avoid certain ingredients if necessary.

  • Baked goods like cookies are best for kids. They’re quick, easy, and can be taken home at the end of class.
  • Plan for at least 10 minutes of cleaning up time.
  • If you need to pre-heat ovens, remember to do that at the start of the lesson.
  • If you don’t have cooking facilities like an oven, you can make a salad or other cold meal in the classroom.

3. Run a small business

The idea here is simple. Think of a product to either buy or make, then sell it for a profit. The prospect of earning a little money is motivating, and students will learn a ton of relevant English as well as some practical business skills.

However, it’s not for everyone. Young kids will struggle, and adults who already work in business may think it’s below them.

Here’s an example of a successful business project I ran with a small group of teenagers.

Christmas was approaching. The group had the idea of making baubles and other decorations and selling them in bundles. We did some calculations and figured out our expenses and the price we’d need to sell the products for in order to make a profit. Everyone contributed an equal share, and we bought clear plastic baubles, glitter, glue, and lots of other materials. We spent approximately 25 euros. In the weeks leading up to Christmas, we made some beautiful baubles, tags for presents, and boxes covered in wrapping paper. The students sold the decorations to family and friends. The overall revenue was about 60 euros, so we made a profit of 35.

english language projects for high school students

Okay, so we hardly set the world on fire with our profits. But that wasn’t the point. The purpose of the project was to learn some business skills in English, develop the ability to communicate in a team, while also learning language related to decorations, crafts, and Christmas.

  • Getting the product right is key. Make sure students choose something that they can sell, even if it is only to generous friends and family members.
  • Make sure production isn’t too difficult or time-consuming. You don’t want your classes to turn into factory work for weeks on end.
  • If your students are responsible enough, have them handle the money.
  • Divide the costs and profits equally. Having an equal share system is the best strategy, with everyone contributing a small amount to cover initial expenses and receiving an equal amount of the final pot.
  • This type of project is long, but near the end, there won’t be that much to do. Once the products are ready, students can sell them. At that point, you can return to normal classes with a brief business update in each session.
  • Set a deadline for the end of the project. At a certain point, you have to finish, even if all the products aren’t sold.

4. Cultural discovery

A cultural discovery is a flexible project you can do with all ages and abilities. In essence, it involves students researching a different culture and presenting it to the rest of the class in some form.

The way I like to do this is with a cultural festival day (or week, if you have a large class). Set the date in advance, and on that day/week, everyone will share what they’ve found.

english language projects for high school students

People can dress up, bring food, play music, give mini-presentations, and ideally, a mixture of these things. The more the better.

With a few different groups sharing the culture they’ve been learning about, you can create a powerful experience.

  • Give students time to research and prepare, but not too long. If the big day is months and months away, they’ll waste a lot of time. Make things urgent, so they work fast.
  • Consider sharing your own culture at the start as an example of things you’d like to see.
  • Groups of 2-3 work best in preparing this kind of thing, but if you have a larger class (20+) have bigger groups and fewer cultures. If you have too many cultures (more than 5), the “cultural festival” will take too long and things will get muddled.
  • Encourage students of different backgrounds to share their own cultures. Alternatively, people who have been on holiday somewhere can research that place and maybe bring some photos and souvenirs from their trip.

5. Arts and crafts

english language projects for high school students

There are hundreds of different arts and crafts projects you can do with your class to learn about almost anything. Some can be as short as a single lesson, while others can take a full term.

I prefer longer-term projects as you can create some impressive final products.

But things don’t have to be elaborate and challenging. A lot of the time, arts and crafts acts as a great vehicle for learning English, with the final creation as a secondary bonus.

If you’re looking for ideas for arts and crafts projects, I actually have a whole article for you: How to Use Arts and Crafts in EFL/ESL + 7 easy activities . There you can also learn my strategy for getting the best out of these projects.

  • Bring extra materials and equipment for students who forget to (or can’t) get their own, and those who mess up the first attempt.
  • Keep instructions slow and simple, and spend time helping students who are struggling.
  • Have extension activities for students who get things done at lightning speed.
  • Set aside time for tidying up, and assign everyone a job to ensure the room gets cleaned quickly.

6. Dramatization

This project idea is similar to the first entry in the list – making a short film. There’s acting, story creation, and lots of speaking English.

But they’re far from identical. The kind of dramatization I use in my EFL/ESL classes is a lot more free-form and takes much less time.

First of all, performance in front of parents/friends is not required – most of the time it’s just for the rest of the class to see. This is certainly not a whole-school production (although you can definitely try that if you’re feeling brave!)

Secondly, scripts are optional. With some classes, I’ll encourage them to avoid the use of scripts, and instead use their English skills to communicate ideas how they see fit. There’s an element of improvisation in what they say.

english language projects for high school students

Thirdly, scenes are longer and don’t need to be perfect. When making a film, you want to get the best footage, so shorter clips are better. But in a dramatization, there’s no recording. That means students can keep scenes going for a lot longer (especially when improvising lines).

Finally, dramatizations require much less in the way of costumes and props. A lot more can be left up to the imagination of the viewer and you don’t need to plan things before the class.

I like to give students a prompt and see what they come up with. For example, “your region is suffering the worst storm in a hundred years. Gather your friends and find safety in your house on the other side of town.”

The activity works best in a single session. Each performance should take 2-3 minutes. Plan for two thirds of the class to be planning and practicing, while the final third is performance.

  • Kids often get silly when left to plan out a story on their own. Make sure they’re on task.
  • Sometimes dramatizations can end up being mime-stories with less confident students. Reinforce the idea that this project is for practicing spoken English.

Dramatization is a sister-activity to role plays. Role plays, however, are fully improvised, with no time to prepare. I absolutely love them.

To learn why I think they’re so great, read: Why All EFL/ESL Teachers Should Use Role Play Activities and to learn the difference in terms, check out: Dramatization vs Simulation vs Role Play: Guide for EFL/ESL

7. Plan a vacation

Planning the details of a vacation gets students learning real, practical English, discovering new places, and developing the language needed to work in a team.

Depending on the age and ability of your students, you can go quite deep into this.

With younger, less proficient students, you can look at some destinations on a map and create a basic plan of what you want to do on each day. It’s a great way to teach time connectors like “after that”, “the next day,” and “later that day”.

english language projects for high school students

With more confident students, why not have them research the price of real flights, hotels, and tickets? Give them a budget to work with. Write a list of things you need to take in your luggage, and consider about what kind of transport you’ll need when you’re there.

Anyone who’s planned a vacation knows there’s a lot to think about. Learning how to do all of that in English covers so many aspects of useful, applicable language.

  • With children, letting their imaginations run wild is often more productive than sticking to the limitations of reality. Let them stay at a five star hotel if they want.
  • At the end of the planning, you can role play some special imaginary moments from it.
  • Keep the vacation short – students will probably get bored planning a year-long trip around the world. A week’s itinerary is plenty.

The only downside to this project is you don’t actually get to go on the vacation…

8. Create a community

Have you ever played the Sims? This project draws a lot of inspiration from that wonderful game, but in a non-virtual format.

Coming up with characters is fun. Thinking about what they look like, their personalities, their background, where they live and work, and their relationships with people around them… it’s a joy. I’ll admit, perhaps it’s not for everyone. But if you have a creative, social class, this could work a treat.

The best place to start is a small neighbourhood. You can draw up a map together if you like, or keep things all in the imagination.

Get each student to come up with a character. Give them some prompt questions depending on their ability and maturity, and have them flesh out the character as much as possible. If you have a large class, have small groups come up with households.

english language projects for high school students

You can go through plenty of vocabulary here. Physical appearance: tall, short, brown hair, green eyes, etc. for beginners. And with higher ability students, words like slender, auburn hair and freckles.

Personality and background come next. Think about strengths and weaknesses. Life ambitions and short term goals. Family history. Secrets. Younger students will struggle with this – they don’t have the maturity to put themselves so deeply in other people’s shoes, so don’t push too hard.

Then, you can join the dots. Are some of these people friends? Enemies? Colleagues or old school mates? A good exercise is to have everyone mingle around the classroom and think up connections with other characters they bump into.

Once you have a community set up, the next stage (optional) is to role play or dramatize interactions and events. Have students get in character and act out a party, accident, or confrontation at work. The opportunities are endless.

  • This activity won’t work with everyone. Some people won’t find it as exciting as others, and some might be uncomfortable acting things out. That’s fine. Don’t push it if you see things getting negative.
  • Come up with a character yourself. Make them clearly defined and colourful to set the tone for everyone else.
  • Look for character profile prompts online. Authors often use a series of questions to flesh out their characters, so there are plenty of resources available.

9. Table-top role-playing game

This is my favourite activity. It just about makes it onto this list as a “project” because it’s an extended activity that takes place over multiple classes. But really, it’s an ongoing game/story.

Dungeons & Dragons is the most famous table-top role-playing game (TTRPG), popularised by Stranger Things and various YouTube channels like Critical Role.

Essentially, players (students) create an adventuring character and take actions and decisions in an imaginary world narrated by the Game Master (in this case, you, the teacher). While there are rules, players can try whatever action they want. It’s full of role-play, improvisation and conversation.

Here’s a video of Vin Diesel playing to show you how fun it can be.

I have three Dungeons & Dragons games going on with classes at the moment. My students adore it. But it doesn’t have to be D&D. In fact, the rules are pretty complicated, and not everyone is into fighting orcs and dragons and that kind of thing.

Instead, you can choose one of the many other TTRPGs out there, with different themes and rules. With younger students, I’ve created a few games of my own that avoid complexity and favour interaction with the world using their English skills.

And that’s what this is about. Learning English. Having fun is great, but where TTRPGs really shine in EFL/ESL is for language acquisition.

english language projects for high school students

Learning new vocabulary in the story is relevant and valuable. Getting their sentences right in a tense conversation with the Queen is vital – they’re motivated to learn new things and improve what they know. You can use their exploration to introduce new words and phrases, without it feeling forced.

The improvement I’ve seen in students’ ability and confidence using TTRPGs is astonishing. That being said, with the wrong approach, things can go off the rails pretty quickly, and students get frustrated. Another drawback is you can only do it with small groups (6 or 7 at most, 3-4 is optimal).

english language projects for high school students

The Enchanted RPG

I’ve made a role-playing game specifically for ESL!

Find out how I designed it and how you can start playing in this video .

And subscribe to my YouTube channel for more updates!

  • Make sure students understand the idea of the game. They can imagine what their character would do, but can’t invent things about the world.
  • Ensure students work as a team, both in-game and out of the game. If their characters split up and do different things, the whole experience falls apart.
  • Avoid players fighting against each other. This almost always leads to unnecessary tension between students.
  • Prepare in advance. There’s quite a lot of planning and preparation to run a game like this, but if you get it all done early, you won’t have so much to do week to week.

Conclusion: Pick and choose

Not all of these project ideas will work for your specific class. People have different personalities and interests, meaning each group is unique. One class might love the excitement of role playing a fantasy adventure. Others might think that’s lame and prefer to learn about cultures in the real world.

As a teacher, you know your students better than anyone else. That means you’re in the best position to choose the project you think is best for them.

So pick the ones you think will work and adapt them. Apply your own slant and give your students agency, too. Together, you’ll make the project a worthwhile and memorable experience.

If you’re looking for more games and activities, check out my other lists: 9 EFL/ESL Speaking Games & Activities Perfect for Beginners 9 EFL/ESL Games & Activities for Intermediate Learners 9 EFL/ESL Games and Activities for Advanced Learners 9 High Energy EFL/ESL Games for Boosting Vocabulary 9 Engaging Homework Ideas for EFL/ESL: No worksheets! 9 Exciting EFL/ESL Activities for Writing & Spelling 9 Fun EFL/ESL Games & Ideas With Standard Playing Cards 9 EFL/ESL Games With No Materials or Preparation Needed 9 EFL/ESL 5 Minute Games Every Teacher Needs to Know 9 Superb EFL/ESL Games & Activities Using Just Pen & Paper 9 Classy EFL/ESL Games & Activities for Adults (+ tips) 9 Confidence-Boosting EFL/ESL Speaking Games for All Levels 9 Exciting Flashcard Games for EFL/ESL Classes

english language projects for high school students

I’m Will, a teacher, blogger, and fantasy author. I grew up in England, but now I live in Spain where I teach private English classes to dozens of wonderful students.

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Student Projects

Students learn English best when they are engaged and having fun.  Insights to English projects range from short-term to year-long and include topic-based projects, webquests, writing prompts, and more.  There’s a variety of individual, pair, small group, and class-wide projects available.

People/Characters are placed in positions they aren’t used to and have trouble adjusting. Students use ‘too’ and ‘not enough’ for this project.

Guided Recommendations

This project is for practicing CONDITIONALS . Students create a flowchart to establish a branching path for possible recommendations for their chosen topic. They’ll need to use Conditionals when they explain their chart.

Essay Prompts: Modern Technology

Technology is such an integral part of our society and our daily lives, and there are some who question the extent to which its used. Students get to express their own opinions by writing an essay from one of these 10 prompts.

“Mistakes Were Made.”

This project is for practicing PASSIVE VOICE. Students hold a press conference explaining what went wrong but avoiding blame.

Getting the Crew Back Together

Students create a fictional team, then assemble a crew, drafting each member according to their skillset, personality, and role.

Monster Rampage

This project is for practicing PRESENT PERFECT CONTINUOUS. Imagine a normally cute creature is now giant-sized and is accidentally terrorizing the city! Your students are reporters sharing breaking news on how the city is reacting.

Category Dictionary

In this project for beginners or young learners, students keep a notebook of many of the vocab words they’ve learned, designated by category, and paged alphabetically.

Its Own Opposite

Many words have multiple definitions, and a handful of words have two or more definitions that contrast with one another. These words are called contranyms (or Janus words). For this project, students will define, describe, and give examples of contranyms.

Batteries Not Included

Students are prompted with a few disclaimers, then work backward to create a product for which all of those disclaimers would apply.  Students get to be creative and silly as they learn to both understand and explain the meaning and need of various disclaimers and product features.

Myths Live On

English has many words with Greek roots, and some of those are based in Greek myths. In this WebQuest, students will learn about a character from Greek mythology, one of their key stories, and some of the vocabulary words that are named after that character.

Closed Captioning

Writing Subtitles or CCs for a short video can be a great way for students to pay more attention to sentence structure, including identifying phrases and clauses. It may also be good for vocab exposure.

Let Me Introduce Myself

Students formulate an introduction for a character that makes quite the first impression, whether that character comes from fiction, pop culture, history, or the students’ own imaginations.

Onomatowhat-just-happened?

Students receive three onomatopoeia sounds as prompts, then work backward to come up with a scenario that would explain how those sounds came about.

Merit Badges

Students create earnable badges for their classmates as the year goes on to reward one another for their accomplishments in the classroom.

Critical Hits & Epic Fails

In role-playing games, players often simulate chance – by rolling a dice in many cases – to determine the effect of an action, or an

Missing Verse

Students analyze song lyrics to understand the tone, message, themes, and style, then write a missing third or fourth verse.

Scene and Herd

‘Herd’ and ‘flock’ are words for groups of animals, but some animals have a group term specific to their species. These venery terms typically have addition (more common) meanings, so for this project students will combine the two definitions into one scene.

Unlikely Hero

Students create a character with two very different jobs, one in a mild-mannered profession, and another as an action hero. How do they use their skills, tools, and knowledge of the former to help them as the latter?

These articles contain ideas to get you started!  We encourage teachers to further customize these projects to best suit their learners’ level, interests, and needs.

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Project-Based Learning Ideas and Examples for the ELA Classroom

Project-Based Learning , Research Writing , Secondary Literacy , Writing

You might recognize “project-based learning” as a buzzword in education. There is a reason for all the hype surrounding project-based learning. This style of instruction incorporates curriculum with 21st-century skills in a way that is highly engaging for students. If you’re looking for project-based learning ideas for the English Language Arts classroom, this blog post will introduce you to six simple and fun project-based learning examples .

What is Project-Based Learning?

To put it simply, project-based learning delivers instruction through hands-on assessment. Students will meet the curriculum standards of the unit while they complete the project. The project will incorporate each learning goal by requiring students to reach the goal in order to solve the problem or finalize the project .

We tend to think about assessments as the final step of a learning path. Instead, project-based learning introduces the assessment near the beginning of a unit ; to complete the assessment, students will be required to approach prerequisite learning goals.

You can assign project-based learning individually or as group work. I like to offer my students the opportunity to work on both types of projects over the course of the semester. I usually start with group PBL assignments . Then, I’ll challenge my students with an individual project-based learning assessment towards the end of the year. I find PBL most successful when I offer student-choice for individual project-based learning assignments.

Project-based learning in English class

What are some examples of Project-Based Learning ideas?

Your colleagues may have implemented PBL in their classrooms, especially if they teach STEM subjects. Project-based learning ideas are often associated with technical or scientific design. When people think about PBL, they often think of projects like growing a garden, designing an app, or hatching a chicken egg.

The reality is that project-based learning ideas can apply to almost any activity that connects to the real world . If you’re an ELA teacher , you are probably already implementing real-world learning in some way. You can develop project-based learning ideas grounded in reading, writing, researching, speaking, and listening, like planning a vacation or conducting a mock trial !

Project-Based Learning Ideas for English

Here are some simple and fun project-based learning ideas for English . You can use these ideas in your ELA classroom even if you have no experience with PBL. You can also apply these ideas to middle school ELA and high school English classes :

Conduct a Mock Trial

Moc k trials are an engaging way to explore the legal system and teach argumentative writing . You can conduct a mock trial around any novel or short story that features a character that could be guilty of criminal negligence. Some examples can include Mary Maloney from Roald Dahl’s “ Lamb to the Slaughter ,” Mrs. Price from Sandra Cisneros’ “ Eleven ,” and Sanger Rainsford from “ The Most Dangerous Game .”

Students will be motivated to dive deep into the text to look for evidence to support their arguments; in doing so, they will come to a greater understanding of the story’s underlying message and overarching themes . To prepare for a mock trial, you will need a central accusation along with mock trial roles to assign your students. This mock trial outline includes a slideshow lesson, 30+ role descriptions, an objections cheat sheet, a judge script, a universal rubric, and everything else you need to lead your students through this exciting project-based learning opportunity!

Plan a Vacation

This project-based learning opportunity is perfect for those long winter months! Have students plan a vacation – and practice various forms of writing while they’re at it! This type of project will invite students to explore the world without leaving the classroom.

Students can begin this project by thinking about a place they’d like to visit. The next steps are to use research skills to write an article about the local customs and culture. Students can then plan their daily itinerary and use graphic texts to illustrate their trip timeline or vacation budget. You can even have students practice narrative writing by crafting daily journal entries during their trip! This vacation planning project has everything you need to assign and assess this activity.

“Humans of My Community”

Your students may require an approach to interviewing that is more trauma-informed. This is especially true for students’ families who have endured collective hardships or systemic oppression. I find “ Humans of my Community ” to be a perfect alternative. This project-based learning example uses the same interviewing skills listed above and incorporates news article writing – this is especially helpful if you are preparing for the OSSLT .

In addition to speaking and listening, students will need to learn the news article format in order to complete this project. In turn, they will better understand how to read and write news articles. Mondays Made Easy offers a Community Interview Project outline for high school students. This resource includes assignment instructions, graphic organizers for article writing, assessment guidelines, and tools to help students facilitate interviews.

Project-based learning in ELA

Letter Writing for Real-World Learning

Letter writing is a great way to incorporate real-world learning into almost any novel study or short-story unit . You can do this by using backward design and starting with the major conflict or theme within the novel. Then, consider an organization in your community or geographic area that handles issues related to this topic. When you introduce the novel or short story, you can mention to students that they will write an appeal to this organization.

For example, when my students read I Am Malala , I introduced Amnesty International’s Write for Rights . I selected a person who reflected Malala’s situation in the novel and told students we will be writing and sending letters on their behalf. Students conducted their own research to develop arguments in their letters. Additionally, they applied the lessons and conversations from our novel study to further support the cases in their letters.

Real-World Resource for Research Essays

One way to spice up a research unit is to introduce the concept of a “real-world resource.” A real-world resource can be any medium used to deliver information to the public . Examples include pamphlets, TED Talks, infographics, podcasts, and more. This project-based learning idea is a great opportunity for implementing student choice . Students can select a topic of interest to them to inform their audience.

Of course, in order to inform, students will need to research . You can incorporate teaching MLA format , practicing in-text citations , and other important research skills related to your English Language Arts curriculum. The best part about this PBL assignment is that it shows students the value of research in the real world . Your students will see the parallel between expository and argumentative writing and fields including marketing, broadcasting, media production, hospitality, medicine, health and wellness, and more!

Mondays Made Easy offers a Real-World Resource assignment outline that includes instructions, assessment tools, and student examples. You can use this resource to facilitate this project-based learning idea in your classroom.

Project-based learning in High school

Fundraising as a Project-Based Learning Idea

Here’s another way to connect PBL to any novel study or short-story unit. Similar to letter-writing, students can actively apply the story’s conflict and themes to real-world scenarios . You can select a community partnership that supports a cause related to the story you are studying in class.

Students can apply their knowledge of the text to their fundraising initiatives by selecting items of need for fundraising. Additionally, students will need to demonstrate that they are well-versed in their topic to appeal to donors.

I used the following example in my classroom: while we were reading Nancy Mair’s “On Being a Cripple” in my AP Language and Composition class , my students gained an understanding of what it meant to be able-bodied. Then, they invited a local organization supporting students with disabilities to join a fundraising event at our school.

This partnership required students to meet cross-curricular requirements involving letter-writing , event planning , and managing funds . In addition, students gained compassion and understanding for people who are disabled – an important real-world lesson for students attending school in the private sector.

Classroom Debates

You can bring your persuasive writing unit alive by assigning a classroom debate. This project-based learning idea is always a huge hit. Students can begin this assignment by brainstorming different topics of interest . Then, you can assign teams based on student choice .

In order to develop a strong argument , students will need to learn how to develop main points and supporting evidence . They will also learn the value of different types of evidence . Finally, they will practice public speaking and listening as they present their arguments and rebuttals.

Mondays Made Easy offers a Lincoln-Douglas Debate resource that outlines the structure of this classic form of debate. This resource also provides students with graphic organizers to develop their ideas. Additionally, you will receive a moderator script in order to easily facilitate a classroom debate.

Ideas for project-based learning

Tying it all Together

Project-based learning ideas are not exclusive to STEM subjects. If you’ve been avoiding PBL in your classroom or have not been sure where to start, I promise you’re going to love it! Your students will also enjoy the project-based learning examples featured in this blog post and remember them for years to come.

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english language projects for high school students

25 Creative Project Ideas for ELA

  • August 21, 2017

english language projects for high school students

For many students, creative projects drive the most learning. The project pulls together their interests and skills with the material, and engagement happens.

Projects make a huge difference in any curriculum.

When I look back on my experience as a student, creative projects are the highlight of every year going all the way back to 4th grade (my leaf collection!). As a teacher, I try to build them into almost every unit.

If you’ve been wanting to do more creative projects, but you’re stuck for ways to get started, this post is for you. I’m going to share five different categories of projects to help you find inspiration. If you need a quick fix of project-based inspiration, I’ve created a printable checklist of thirty-two project ideas within these five categories. Print it out and put it by your computer and it’ll be a LONG time before you run out of ideas! Subscribe below and I’ll send it right along.

english language projects for high school students

#1: Projects based on Modern Media  My school once got rid of sophomore honors English and history.  Students could pursue the honors distinction by completing a portfolio of interdisciplinary projects instead.

Our teaching team needed to invent these projects and roll them out every couple of months. Our first was to have the students do a radio show like This American Life. They chose themes related to our curriculum, each recording an introduction, interviews, stories, and a conclusion. Then they mixed all this with music to produce a podcast. The results were phenomenal.

There are many more ways you could use podcasts.

Students in groups could create a podcast in which they interview guests who are characters from a novel.

You could have students go out and interview people in the real world about topics they care about.

You could come up with an interdisciplinary task, like creating a podcast about the school robotics team or maker space, featuring information, background and interviews that allow students to dive into STEM topics through humanities skills.

Another great way to use modern media as the basis of a project is through video creation. You could start a class Youtube channel covering modern news from the student perspective, then let students create videos every couple of months on a major recent happening. The videos should include commentary, interviews, and related storytelling.

Ask students to create two minute versions of the novel you are reading, either through cartoon animation or short acted scenes.

Participate in a collaborative project with students in another country, producing a video as a class that explores your city and its people and sharing it with your partners, then responding to theirs.

Perhaps your students would enjoy drawing up storyboards for the Netflix version of your latest novel. Or writing a television series proposal they might present to PBS. You get the idea. Once you’re rolling, there are hundreds of ways students could explore material with real depth through the medium of modern media.

english language projects for high school students

#2 Festival Projects Who doesn’t love it when their hard work is truly celebrated? There are many ways to create a festival-based final project.

Have students present creative free choice reading projects at a reading festival. Invite younger students who could use inspiration in their reading choices. Play music. Have food. It doesn’t take much preparation to pull off an engaging festival for your students. Let them help; they’ll buy in more and it’ll be less work for you.

Or make the creation of the festival itself the project. Maybe you’d like to do a transcendentalism festival for a local elementary school. Have students in groups plan activities, make food, create posters, postcards, and booklets to share with the younger kids. Put a pair of students in charge of leading a nature hike and another pair in charge of contacting local news media with a press kit and follow-up materials from the festival itself. Revel in the joy success will bring your students.

Performances lend themselves well to festivals too. Perhaps your students are going to write and act mini one-act plays. Any way you could gather everyone together from all your sections on a Thursday night, inviting parents and administrators to join you? Maybe everyone in your class is going to memorize a poem, could they perform them in the school garden after watching slam poetry clips chosen by the class while your ambiance committee serves smoothies? (I love putting students in committees. They seem to love it too.)

When students have created something outstanding, a festival can simply be a way for them to showcase their work.

Say, for example, you’ve had your students create innovative apps designed to solve the problems of literary characters ( one of my own favorite projects ). Let them present the apps at a class innovation fair, similar to a science fair but with a bookish flavor. Either have students take it in turns to wander or answer questions in front of their displays, or give everyone two minutes with the smart board behind them to present their apps as videos, Prezis, Powerpoints, or powerful speeches.

Thinking about ways to give students an authentic audience and a memorable day amps up engagement so much. I find that festivals get everyone excited, every time.

english language projects for high school students

#3 Interdisciplinary Projects The world is getting more interdisciplinary all the time. If a student wants to be known for great cooking, it’s a good idea for him to be able to take good photos, make videos, write blog posts and run social media if he hopes to write a cookbook someday. Entrepreneurs must be good not only at whatever they hope to build a business around but also at all things media and marketing. Athletes must manage their personal brands and communicate with the news. Historians better be ready to broadcast live for their museum’s Facebook page.

Providing students with ways to mix and match what they are passionate about from multiple disciplines sets them up to be happier later on.

Let’s imagine a project or two you could do with colleagues in several departments at your school.

Art: Ask an art teacher if he or she would consider hosting a gallery show in your school’s display area with work from your students. Then bring the art teacher in as a guest speaker as you introduce a project to represent the nature of one character from a novel through an artistic medium. Imagine a gallery featuring short videos, paintings, drawings, photo essays, murals, and sculptures expressing the nature of Hester Prynne from The Scarlet Letter or Puck from A Midsummer Night’s Dream . Have students write up reflective analysis papers demonstrating how their work represents their careful character analysis, and display these to accompany the art.

History : Talk to a history teacher about some of the important themes of the history curriculum in the year you teach. Choose one major theme and share it with students. Have students begin hunting for news articles, headlines, and images from modern media that connect current events and trends with this powerful theme from their history study. Get permission to create a giant collage somewhere in your school space. Have every student write a paper connecting ten things they find on the wall to the theme, and choose the best to publish and display by the collage for the whole school to read.

Math : Ask students to interview math faculty about exciting math-based careers. Then have them create a newspaper called “Why Math is Cool” to publish and share with younger kids who find math a struggle. Send them out in pairs to research the topics and create elements of the newspaper – comic strips, columns, infographics, articles, advice columns, etc.

When you do an interdisciplinary project, you not only engage your students but you understand them better as students. More interdisciplinary connections may naturally arise, and your newly strengthened relationship with your colleague in another department can only help.

english language projects for high school students

#4 Inhabit a School Space Again, this project provides that all-important piece, the authentic audience. When students know they will be creating a project that many people will see, it makes a big difference to their motivation.

Perhaps your students could exhibit final projects in the school office. Perhaps the culmination of a free choice reading unit could be the creation of a huge book display with recommendation blurbs in the library.

Maybe poetry slam winners could perform as part of a school assembly or at a parent night. Or a photography class could shoot photos of your class performance of Death of a Salesman to display in the entryway of the school.

Is there a dark ugly wall somewhere in your building waiting to be filled with a collage of great literary quotations? Or a mural featuring three important themes from great American novels?

Inhabiting a school space connects your classroom to the community and the community to your classroom.

english language projects for high school students

Image Credit to cheapsurfgear.com

#5 Take part in a Contest or Challenge

If authentic audience is king, competition is queen. Both have great power for motivation, like it or not. Engaging students in the writing process by taking part in a challenge or participating in a competition is an easy win.

Why not try NANOWRIMO (National Novel Writing Month) with your students this year? Can you imagine the feeling of accomplishment that would come with writing a novel as a teenager?

Or build a unit around submitting to a national essay contest ( here’s a list of great ones ) or one in your community.

You could even start a youth writing contest in your city and make your students the judges. What a lesson in good writing it would be to create a rubric and discuss the finalists to determine what pieces are the best! Similarly, you could start a website to publish student writing and make your students the editors and the public relations managers. ___

I hope you’ve found some inspiration for your next project. To borrow a line from Pringles chips, “once you start, you can’t stop!”  

Wish your students could dive into podcasting but wary of the tech? Let me give you the tips, trick, and (easy) tools you need to help students succeed with this engaging, relevant medium. Join over 5,000 other creative teachers when you sign up for Camp Creative: The Easy Roadmap to Student Podcasting. It’s a free three day PD with every resource and tutorial linked straight to your inbox – no need to try to slot a live session into your (very) busy schedule. 

Click here to learn more and sign up.

english language projects for high school students

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english language projects for high school students

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Here you’ll find a wide range of EFL / ESL project ideas for all ages and abilities. Plus you can filter by student level, or a specific grammar or vocabulary topic you’re teaching.

  • All Grammar
  • Present Simple
  • Present Continuous
  • Present Perfect Simple
  • Present Perfect Continuous
  • Past Simple
  • Past Continuous
  • Past Perfect Simple
  • Past Perfect Continuous
  • Future Simple
  • Future Continuous
  • Future Perfect Simple
  • Future Perfect Continuous
  • All Vocabulary
  • Classroom Objects
  • Daily Routines
  • Sports and Hobbies
  • Emotions and Feelings
  • Describing People
  • Entertainment

Tags: advanced , beginner , business , entertainment , intermediate , kids , music , past simple , politics , present perfect simple , present simple , science

In the Biography ESL project, students research the life of a famous person, then write about them and/or present to the class.

Tags: beginner , body parts , kids

The Body Collage ESL project is formed by combining body parts cut-out from magazines.

Tags: beginner , future simple , intermediate , kids , technology

In the City Of The Future ESL project, students create an annotated picture to illustrate what they think the city of the future might look like.

Tags: beginner , comparatives , intermediate , kids , superlatives

In the Create A Comic ESL project students create a comic strip about superheroes, including dialogue and narration.

Tags: advanced , business , intermediate , jobs , kids

The Create A Company ESL project requires students to create their own new businesses, describing what they do and the employees they will need.

Tags: beginner , geography , intermediate , kids , modal verbs (advice) , modal verbs (obligation) , modal verbs (permission) , nature , passive , present simple , there is/are

Students do the Create A Country ESL project in pairs or small groups, then present their country to the class.

Tags: beginner , holidays , intermediate , kids , passive , present simple

In the Create A Festival ESL project, students invent their own celebration and present it to the class.

Tags: adjectives , beginner , food , intermediate , kids

In the Create A Menu ESL project, students invent (and describe) the dishes on offer at a restaurant.

Tags: beginner , body parts , have/have got , kids , numbers

In the Create A Monster ESL project, kids have to draw and describe the appearance of their own monster.

Tags: beginner , can/can't , describing people , kids

In the Create A Superhero ESL project students describe their own superheroes and their powers.

Tags: beginner , home , kids , there is/are

In the Dream House ESL project students design their perfect house and present it to the class.

Tags: beginner , family , kids

The Family Tree ESL project is a well-known activity in which students create their own family tree and present it to the class.

Tags: beginner , future simple , home , intermediate , kids , technology

In the Home Of The Future ESL project, students make predictions for the home of the future, and design one of their own.

Tags: intermediate , irregular verbs , kids , present perfect simple

In the Irregular Verbs Rap ESL project, students create and perform a rap that incorporates all forms of different irregular verbs.

Tags: advanced , intermediate , kids , past simple , present perfect simple , reported speech

In the News Program ESL project, students create a TV news program and present it to the class.

Tags: beginner , kids , past simple , pronunciation

In the Past Simple Rap ESL project, students create a rap using regular past tense verbs with different ‘-ed’ pronunciations.

Tags: intermediate , kids , phrasal verbs

Great for kids (and the young at heart) the Phrasal Verbs Rap ESL project is a fun way to review the meaning of different phrasal verbs.

Tags: future (going to) , intermediate , kids , places in the city , sequence adverbs , travel

In the Plan A Tour ESL project students create an itinerary for a visit to a city.

Tags: adjectives , beginner , comparatives , home , intermediate , kids , superlatives

In the Real Estate Listing ESL project, students create a poster to advertise an invented property.

Tags: advanced , business , intermediate , third conditional

In the Share Portfolio ESL project students make, track, and review the performance of hypothetical investments.

Warmer Of The Day

Tags: advanced , beginner , grammar , icebreaker , intermediate , kids , vocabulary , warmer

In the Hot Potato ESL game, the student holding the ball when the music stops has to complete a challenge.

Vocabulary Image Generator

Common tags, follow eslactive.

LoveToKnow

8 Reading Activities for High Schoolers That They'll Actually Enjoy

Reading and writing skills are important at any age, but we know it's not always easy to keep older kids engaged. Reading activities for high school have to be really compelling to compete with all the other things vying for teens' attention. These fun literacy activities will have them putting down their phones and picking up their pencils.

Need to Know Literacy is a broad term used to describe skills related to reading and writing. While much of the focus on literacy takes place in elementary school, there's definitely a need for continued development of skills at all grade levels.

Fun Reading Comprehension Activities for High School

There's no denying that a major component of literacy is reading comprehension, or the ability to make sense of the words on a page. The thing is, it's not always an easy thing to teach because it's such a broad topic. Students need to understand different kinds of texts across many aspects of life including work, home, and family.

These activities help you zero in on specific aspects of reading comprehension while keeping kids' attention.

Create a Quiz

Instead of having students take quizzes or tests after reading a novel, we love the idea of allowing the students to create the quiz. A test is meant to see what a student has learned after studying specific materials. This activates a student's ability to remember information, but it doesn't do the job of teaching reading comprehension.

Creating a quiz will make students think more specifically about what information was important and how to examine whether someone else has learned that information. This is a tricky way to teach reading comprehension because they have to work hard to know the material before they can write a quiz about it.

Preparation:

Create a list of short stories appropriate for your class

Instructions :

  • Ask each student to choose a short story from your approved list.
  • After reading the story, challenge students to create a comprehensive quiz about the story. Quizzes can be no less than 10 questions and no more than 20. Questions can cover a variety of topics such as characters, plot, and theme.
  • Once the quiz is complete, have students create an answer key.
  • Assign the selected stories as homework, or read and discuss them as a class. Use the student-created quizzes to gauge individual understanding of the story.

Online Profile of a Villain

We love this creative literacy activity that really lets kids get into the details of characters. The concept is simple; readers must select a book based only on a fake online profile created using its content. There are no cover images, author names, or plot summaries visible. This is fun way to get students focused on understanding characters and reading outside of their comfort zones.

An awesome bonus is that a student will need to consider all context clues if they hope to find a book in their preferred genre. If they end up with a genre they might not choose, they get to see how they feel about it (it might just be a new fave).

Preparation: 

  • Ask each student to think of a book they would recommend to a friend. Supply reading lists if necessary.
  • From the chosen book, each student should then write a character summary of the most villainous character.
  • You'll need to have card stock and markers on hand.

Instructions: 

  • Using the character summary, students should create an online profile of the villain. Remind students that a profile highlights positive qualities so they will need to put a positive spin on any negative traits.
  • Write the completed profile on the piece of card stock. Illustrations and creative text techniques are allowed to enhance this new cover for the selected book as long as they do not include an obvious clue as to the villain's identity.
  • All students should place their completed book covers at the front of the room.
  • Choose an order and have students select a character that they might want to learn more about. The book they select will be the next reading assignment.

World Mapping

Many children's stories and fantasy books have a map of the fictional world included. These maps can provide a fun backdrop for a unique listening and reading comprehension activity. Students will be challenged to hear their partner above all others and interpret their words into an image.

Need to Know Active listening skills are an integral aspect of adolescent literacy and a big component of reading comprehension. Listening not only involves hearing a word but also interpreting its meaning, and that's great practice for understanding and processing what you read.
  • Select two to five "other world" maps illustrated in popular fantasy books, like Winnie the Pooh or Lord of the Rings .
  • Prepare a step-by-step script of directions for drawing each map.
  • You'll need to have blank paper and colored pencils for each pair of students.

Instructions:

  • Separate the class into pairs. Give one person from each pair the script and the other person a blank paper and colored pencils. It's suggested that no two groups have the same world.
  • All pairs should start the activity at the same time. This will create a loud atmosphere full of distractions.
  • To start, the script reader should begin telling his partner the directions in the correct order. The person with the paper will need to listen to his partner, follow the directions, and create a world map.
  • Once all maps are complete, groups with the same script can show a comparison of their world map.
  • Open a discussion about what part of the activity was most difficult and why.

Activities to Connect Literacy and Modern Media

Viral videos, countless social media platforms, and entertainment flood the lives of teenagers today, but reading and writing don't have to compete for attention with them. We love the idea of incorporating all kinds of media into reading activities for high school to entice teens to participate and help them expand their knowledge to real life.

Make Your Own Photo Meme

Our phones are absolutely flooded with photos these days, and Instagram is a fixture at this point. Memes are all about combining words with photos, and coming up with the right words is a big part of literacy. The goal of this activity is to give students some light-hearted practice at writing. Students will be challenged to come up with text on the spot, but the humorous nature of the photos should help keep stress levels low.

  • Print funny images from the internet, leaving space on the paper to write under the image. On the back of the image write a genre such as romance, dystopian, science fiction, comedy, drama, or mystery.
  • Give each student one image and a few minutes to examine it.
  • Instruct students to write a funny sentence or two describing their image as it pertains to the given genre, basically creating their own meme. For example, an image of a kitten wrestling a rabbit with the word "mystery" on the back might prompt a caption like "I'm not kitten. Somebunny got hurt, and we need to find out whodunnit."
  • One by one, ask students to share their meme with the class.
  • After each speech, have the class guess what genre the meme would fit in.

Re-Tweet Poetry

Communicating effectively without a ton of words is a skill that can take some practice. On X (previously known as Twitter), the limited character count of posts challenges writers to get a point across in a concise manner.

Preparation :

Assign a poem to each student. Have the students read the poem before the activity.

  • Familiarize the class with the guidelines for X, namely the maximum character count of 280.
  • Students must first rewrite each stanza of the poem to fit into a single 280-character post while still conveying the tone, mood, and point of the stanza.
  • Once the entire poem has been rewritten as a series of tweets, students should create two hashtags to accompany the posts. The hashtags should relate to either the theme, title, or author of the poem.

Analyze Song Lyrics

Teenagers live by their soundtracks, maybe even more than they did in previous generations. Incorporating this love for music into a lesson about comprehension and writing can be pretty powerful. Students will need to interpret the meaning behind song lyrics, specifically if there is one controversial message that stands out.

Ask each student to choose a favorite song and submit it ahead of time. Check lyrics for availability and appropriateness before approving students' song choice.

  • Present each student with a copy of the lyrics for their chosen song.
  • Ask each student to write a literary analysis essay using the chosen song.
  • As an added learning experience, you could ask students to present their song and analysis to the class.

Activities to Focus on Words and Their Meanings

Vocabulary lessons can be incredibly dull and boring when they involve memorizing lists and reciting them back to the teacher. The thing is, being familiar with an extensive vocabulary can help students sound more professional in adult settings. These fun activities can help.

Beach Ball Vocab Lesson

Active lessons are awesome when you need to gain and keep the attention of teenagers. This age group is best suited for an active in-class game because they should be able to keep on task while having fun.

  • Use a permanent marker to create distinct sections on a beach ball, create as few or many as needed.
  • In each section, write a command dealing with the use of a vocabulary word. Some examples would be: change to an adverb, define the word, use it in a sentence, think of a rhyming word, and think of another word with the same root.

How to Play:

  • Instruct students to sit on their desks or have all the desks arranged in a circle before game play.
  • Write a vocabulary word on the white board, call out a student's name, and throw them the ball.
  • The student should then shout the answer to whichever prompt is closest to their left thumb as it pertains to the word on the board.
  • If the student answers correctly, the teacher should choose a new vocab word before the student calls out a classmate's name and throws the ball to that person. If the student answers incorrectly, the same vocab word is used and the ball is thrown to the next player.
  • Continue game play until all vocabulary words have been used or time is up.

Comic Strip Scene

Comic strips offer a place to showcase an entire story in very few words (plus their just really fun). This activity will require students to tap into their creativity and vocabulary skills in rewriting a scene from a play.

  • Scenes from a play
  • Blank paper
  • Colored pencils or markers
  • Assign a scene from a play to each student.
  • Instruct students to create a comic strip inspired by this scene. The purpose of the comic should mirror that of the scene, but the tone should be humorous as that is typically how comic strips are written. The basic idea is to capture the essence of the scene in images and only a few choice words. No text from the scene should be copied in the comic aside from character and location names.
  • Display and discuss the comic strips as a class. What were some of the most effective ways a particular scene was portrayed?

Connect the Dots and Have Fun

The best reading activities for high school involve covering a wide variety of skills related to the use of language. Help high school students prepare for successful adulthood by incorporating different activities that include each of these skills, but don't forget to have fun at the same time.

high school students reading

All ESL

17 ESL Activities for Engaging Classes

esl activities

17 Essential ESL Activities that are Fun, Relevant and Engaging

Fun, relevant, and engaging ESL activities are the nitrous of every successful lesson. Through hundreds of successful ESL classes, we know what does and does NOT work.

ESL exercises are a controlled way to practice a particular language aspect. Instead, ESL activities engage in discussion and communication focused on a goal.

For example, you can cut our ESL discussion topics into bite-size papers and have them communicate in pairs. And this is just 1 of 17 ideas waiting for you to build these ESL activities into your classes and to perfection,

Ready to get started? Let’s jump in.

1. 101 ESL Discussion Topics: Free-Talking

english language projects for high school students

If you’re struggling to energize your classroom with discussion and debate, these free-talking topics have been tested to keep them engaged.

Depending on the class, the free talking topics worksheet can keep things fresh. Print them off. Cut them up. Put it in a hat. Select a topic at random and let your students talk in pairs or together as a classroom.

If you’re looking for the whole package, here are 101 ESL conversation topics . Like an open microphone, there’s something in this list that will break the classroom silence.

2. Reverse Jeopardy: Formulating Questions

Reverse Quiz Show- Quiz Questions

Instead of answering questions like in a quiz show, students are making the questions. Each card has a word with a point value. Similar to Jeopardy, you create 5 categories. Each category has 5 questions with harder cards as a higher point value.

In groups of 4, students pick the category and point value. After flipping over the card, the fastest group to raise their hands make a question. Give a countdown for how fast they have to respond. Don’t be afraid to give negative points if they are too slow to respond or make an incorrect question.

Students get quite competitive when you tally points. Out of all the ESL activities, this one never fails me. Not. A. Single. Time.

3. Lost in Kansas: Asking for Directions

Asking for Directions Map in Wichita, Kansas

In this map of Wichita Kansas, students practice turning left and right. In addition, they learn to move backwards and forwards.

First, put students into pairs. Next, they ask each other how to get to the destinations on the map. They can practice both asking and giving directions in this worksheet.

For traveling, this is an incredibly useful skill to get familiar with. Beforehand, practice the essentials like “turn left”, “go straight” and “number of blocks or intersections”.

4. Let Me Introduce Myself: Self-Introductions

Student Business Card

How many times have you introduced yourself in your lifetime? For example, you introduce yourself to friends, in business meetings, and during round tables.

Using the business card template, ask your students to fill these out. In the next class, they can practice self-introductions by walking around the classroom and greeting fellow students.

Not only does this help students break the ice, but teachers get to put a name on each student’s face. And if they don’t have a photo, just have them draw a picture of themselves.

5. Timeless Timelines: History Exploration

Timeless Timeline Worksheet - History Timelines for Kids

From the start of human civilization, we remember some of the most famous people and inventions. Using this timeline worksheet , students arrange the timeline according to their birth date and the invention year.

From youngest to oldest, the teacher will go through the correct order in the history timelines for kids. For example, paper was invented more than 1300 years earlier than the printing press.

The teacher then helps everyone by giving the correct answers. Further to this, ask questions about inventors:

  • Who else belongs in the list?
  • What other inventions are important enough they should be added?
  • Or what are future inventions you want to see on this list in the future?

6. Einstein’s Riddle: Detective-Style Logic Activity

Einstein Riddle Worksheet

Einstein’s riddle is a challenging detective-style activity where students have to use logic to solve the nationality, pet, drink, color, and hobby of each homeowner.

It’s believed that at a young age, Albert Einstein created this riddle. Eventually, it made its way as a head-scratcher activity that even challenges your brightest students.

Because of its difficulty, we have provided answers to Einstein’s riddle below. But if you’re brave enough, you can give it a shot with just the clues.

7. Cultural Dictionary

Cultural Dictionary Worksheet

Have you ever wanted to live in another country just for a sense of culture shock? The purpose of this ESL activity is to transform your class into a cultural exchange.

One of the best parts of teaching English abroad is the cultural exchange between you and where you teach English abroad. And don’t forget that culture exchange is two ways. Not only do your students learn about your culture, but you can learn about theirs.

Ask students to write down one culturally significant item about their country. Ask for volunteers to share. Once you collect all the students’ answers, you can compile everyone’s ideas in a culture exchange dictionary that you can keep in class.

8. Group Charades: Action Verbs

Group Charades Ideas

Charades works for outgoing classes. But for introverted classes, it can be an epic failure. However, suddenly for group charades, introverts become extroverts and they’re much more likely to be more relaxed.

First, split the class into groups. For example, if you have 30 students, make 6 groups of five. Rather than one person acting out, the entire group acts it out, and one person guesses. In the group charades worksheet, there are tons of ideas to get started.

This is why reverse Charades can put a well-needed twist on the instant classic.

9. The Classroom Movie: Dialogue Practice

Green Screen Classroom Movie

It’s amazing what a green screen can do in an English class or club. I brought one into class. All of a sudden, students were making up their own English movie ideas. And the ideas were pretty awesome – one took place at the Eiffel Tower!

When students start taking control of their own fate, their own English improves 10 fold. The classroom movie activity has the potential to do that.

From your typical everyday students to Hollywood movie stars. And it’s all because you came prepared with a green screen.

10. Your Dream Job: Job Interview Practice

Job Interviews Practice - Dream Job Worksheet

If you want to get serious about students’ future, this dream job worksheet might be the answer.

In pairs, students ask each other the list of questions on the sheet. After answering all the questions, everyone can find out their perfect job by counting how many “YES” answers.

Now that students have learned about different job types, it’s time for students to prepare for a job interview. Using the job interview worksheet , students can imagine they have landed interviews for their dream job.

With the set of questions in the handout, students can write down answers to the interview questions. Finally, they can practice with each other for their dream job.

11. Multi-purpose Items: Informative/Explanatory Writing

Explanatory Writing - Multipurpose Items

First, the teacher gives the class an object, any object. Next, give the students a couple of minutes to think of all of the different uses for that item. After about five or six minutes, the teacher asks students to share what they have come up with.

For example, you can use forks to eat food, comb your hair, open cans, mix ingredients, and clean pans. Not so bad for a simple fork. The “Multi-purpose Items” encourages creativity and it’s fun to hear what they come up with.

The purpose of informative/explanatory writing is to explain why or how something works the way it does. In this informative/explanatory writing worksheet, we engage in giving informative answers for multi-purpose items.

12. Rhyme Time: Activity Sheet

Rhyme Time Brain Storming

First, put your students into groups. Next, hand out the Rhyme Time activity sheet. Now, bring out your stopwatch and get your students to think of as many rhymes as possible for each group. Finally, the group with the most rhymes wins.

Your students are poets and they don’t even know it. Review the rhymes and have a classroom discussion on rhymes. For example, when do you hear rhymes? How about in songs or poems?

12. Simon Says: Imperatives

Simon Says Ideas

Only when the teacher says “Simon Says”, students can complete the action. For example, if you only say “Touch your nose”, students should do nothing.

But if you say “Simon says touch your nose”, students should actually touch their nose. This is how to play Simon Says.

If you’re looking for Simon Says ideas, we have provided a worksheet below that you can use. For example, students can touch their noses, jump up and down and run in a circle.

13. Pushy Salesperson: Advertisement Ideas

Pushy Salesperson - Advertising Ideas for School Project

Have your students sell something that nobody wants to buy like a pushy salesperson. There are tons of advertisement ideas for a school project in this worksheet.

For example, you can use forks to eat food, comb your hair, open cans, mix ingredients, and clean pans. Not so bad for a simple fork. The “Multi-purpose Items” encourages creativity and it’s fun to hear what they come up with.

14. Pass the Ball: Vocabulary Brainstorming

Pass the Ball - Talking Timebomb Vocabulary Worksheet

One of the best parts about “Pass the Ball” is that you need practically no preparation time at all. Also, you can practice anything from rhyming to vocabulary to types of things.

First, the teacher comes up with a topic or idea. In the worksheet below, there are some ideas but they can be anything. Next, the teacher starts the music, and students have to think of as many words as they can for that topic.

Someone starts with a ball. When they come up with a word, they pass the ball to another student. This process continues but they can’t repeat something that has already been said.

When the music stops, whoever is holding the ball loses. And the punishment can be anything. For example, they must speak for one minute about a topic the teacher gives them.

This activity was previously called “Talking Timebomb” because you used a timer. Whoever was left with the ball at the end of the music lost the game.

15. Pronunciation Game: Minimal Pairs Pyramid

Pronunciation Game - Minimal Pairs Pyramid

Minimal Pairs are words that sound similar but one phonological element is different in the two words. For example, glamour and grammar sound extremely similar. But they are different with the /r/ and /l/ sounds.

In the pronunciation game, students have to keep a keen ear for what they hear. For example, we use minimal pairs which are similar sounding words with one different phonological element.

First, they start at the top of the pyramid. Next, the teacher says the word, and students have to circle it. Meanwhile, this process continues until everyone reaches the bottom. Finally, there’s only one spot where everyone should finish.

As the teacher, you have to keep track of where the final landing spot should be. Check your students’ understanding. Finally, review the minimal pairs by practicing each sound together as a classroom.

16. Tongue Twisters: Pronunciation Practice

Tongue Twisters Worksheet

Tongue twisters are an effortless way to challenge students at pronunciation. The nice thing is that they have so much fun doing it that they don’t even notice they are speaking English.

I like to start this class by doing a tongue twister in their native language. If I mess up, it gets students laughing. But nothing to worry about because mistakes are OK. Point proven!

First, practice the tongue twister with “repeat after me” style drills. Next, have students practice in pairs, but don’t give them too much time. Finally, open the classroom up for volunteers who can say the tongue twister the fastest.

You might be surprised to see the shyest student in class get in the action! They’re challenging themselves to speak faster. And they are having fun doing it. This is a good recipe for success.

17. Talktastic: The Free-Talking ESL Board Game

Talktastic - ESL Game Board

This free-talking ESL board game “Talktastic” requires a game board and dice to play. But with a bit of preparation, students will be asking each other questions and answering in no time.

First, the teacher makes groups of two. Next, students roll the dice and move their game pieces. When they land on a square, they’ll ask their partner the question in the box. Accordingly, their partner responds until they go around the entire game board.

Even if you have rules to only speak in English in class, this activity is one of those times you should enforce this. Overall, this ESL Board Game lasts for a good 15 minutes and is a lot of fun for students.

Engaging ESL activities are one of the most essential elements of teaching an effective lesson.

These ESL activities aim at boosting awareness and increasing English as a Second Language in an effortless, fun sort of way.

Are you ready to take action? These ESL activities are all free to download and print to teach within your class today.

Let me know what you think with a comment below.

Thank you very much for these lessons

Great collection of activities! Thanks!

Thank you very much. These are some very interesting ideas.

Great ideas for our ESL table for our upcoming Curriculum Night.

These ideas are amazing. I’m so excited to try them with my teen and adults students

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Twenty Ideas for Engaging Projects

Twenty ideas for getting engaging projects going in your classroom.

english language projects for high school students

The start of the school year offers an ideal time to introduce students to project-based learning. By starting with engaging projects, you'll grab their interest while establishing a solid foundation of important skills, such as knowing how to conduct research, engage experts, and collaborate with peers. In honor of Edutopia's 20th anniversary, here are 20 project ideas to get learning off to a good start.

1. Flat Stanley Refresh: Flat Stanley literacy projects are perennial favorites for inspiring students to communicate and connect, often across great distances. Now Flat Stanley has his own apps for iPhone and iPad, along with new online resources. Project founder Dale Hubert is recently retired from the classroom, but he's still generating fresh ideas to bring learning alive in the "flatlands."

2. PBL is No Accident: In West Virginia, project-based learning has been adopted as a statewide strategy for improving teaching and learning. Teachers don't have to look far to find good project ideas. In this CNN story about the state's educational approach, read about a project that grew out of a fender-bender in a school parking lot. When students were asked to come up with a better design for the lot, they applied their understanding of geometry, civics, law, engineering, and public speaking. Find more good ideas in West Virginia's Teach21 project library.

3. Defy Gravity: Give your students a chance to investigate what happens near zero gravity by challenging them to design an experiment for NASA to conduct at its 2.2 second drop tower in Brookpark, Ohio. Separate NASA programs are offered for middle school and high school. Or, propose a project that may land you a seat on the ultimate roller coaster (aka: the "vomit comet"), NASA aircraft that produces periods of micro and hyper gravity ranging from 0 to 2 g's. Proposal deadline is Sept. 21, and flight week takes place in February 2012.

4. Connect Across Disciplines: When students design and build kinetic sculptures, they expand their understanding of art, history, engineering, language arts, and technology. Get some interdisciplinary project insights from the Edutopia video, Kinetic Conundrum . Click on the accompanying links for more tips about how you can do it, too.

5. Honor Home Languages: English language learners can feel pressured to master English fast, with class time spent correcting errors instead of using language in meaningful ways. Digital IS, a site published by the National Writing Project, shares plans for three projects that take time to honor students' home languages and cultures, engaging them in critical thinking, collaboration, and use of digital tools. Anne Herrington and Charlie Moran curate the project collection, "English Language Learners, Digital Tools, and Authentic Audiences."

6. Rethink Lunch: Make lunch into a learning opportunity with a project that gets students thinking more critically about their mid-day meal. Center for Ecoliteracy offers materials to help you start,  including informative essays and downloadable planning guides . Get more ideas from this video about a middle-school nutrition project, "A Healthy School Lunch."

7. Take a Learning Expedition: Expeditionary Learning schools take students on authentic learning expeditions, often in neighborhoods close to home. Check out the gallery for project ideas.

8. Find a Pal: If PBL is new to you, consider joining an existing project. You'll benefit from a veteran colleague's insights, and your students will get a chance to collaborate with classmates from other communities or even other countries. Get connected at ePals , a global learning community for educators from more than 200 countries.

9. Get Minds Inquiring: What's under foot? What are things made of? Science projects that emphasize inquiry help students make sense of their world and build a solid foundation for future understanding. The Inquiry Project supports teachers in third to fifth grades as they guide students in hands-on investigations about matter. Students develop the habits of scientists as they make observations, offer predictions, and gather evidence. Companion videos show how scientists use the same methods to explore the world. Connect inquiry activities to longer-term projects, such as creating a classroom museum that showcases students' investigations.

10. Learn through Service: When cases of the West Nile virus were reported in their area, Minnesota students sprang into action with a project that focused on preventing the disease through public education. Their project  (PDF) demonstrates what can happen when service-learning principles are built into PBL. Find more ideas for service-learning projects from the National Youth Leadership Council .

11. Locate Experts: When students are learning through authentic projects, they often need to connect with experts from the world outside the classroom. Find the knowledgeable experts you need for STEM projects through the National Lab Network . It's an online network where K-12 educators can locate experts from the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

12. Build Empathy: Projects that help students see the world from another person's perspective build empathy along with academic outcomes. The Edutopia video, "Give Me Shelter" , shows what compassionate learning looks like in action. Click on the companion links for more suggestions about how you can do it, too.

13. Investigate Climate Science: Take students on an investigation of climate science by joining the newest collaborative project hosted by GLOBE , Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment. The Student Climate Research Campaign includes three components: introductory activities to build a foundation of understanding, intensive observing periods when students around the world gather and report data, and research investigations that students design and conduct. Climate project kicks off Sept. 12.

14. Problem-Solvers Unite: Math fairs take mathematics out of the classroom and into the community, where everyone gets a chance to try their hand at problem solving. Galileo Educational Network explains how to host a math fair . In a nutshell, students set up displays of their math problems but not the solutions. Then they entice their parents and invited guests to work on solutions. Make the event even more engaging by inviting mathematicians to respond to students' problems.

15. Harvest Pennies: Can small things really add up to big results? It seems so, based on results of the Penny Harvest . Since the project started in New York in 1991, young philanthropists nationwide have raised and donated more than $8 million to charitable causes, all through penny drives. The project website explains how to organize students in philanthropy roundtables to study community issues and decide which causes they want to support.

16. Gather Stories: Instead of teaching history from textbooks, put students in the role of historian and help them make sense of the past. Learn more about how to plan oral history projects in the Edutopia story, "Living Legends." Teach students about the value of listening by having them gather stories for StoryCorps .

17. Angry Bird Physics: Here's a driving question to kickstart a science project: "What are the laws of physics in Angry Birds world?" Read how physics teachers like Frank Noschese and John Burk are using the web version of the popular mobile game in their classrooms.

18. Place-Based Projects: Make local heritage, landscapes, and culture the jumping-off point for compelling projects. That's the idea behind place-based education, which encourages students to look closely at their communities. Often, they wind up making significant contributions to their communities, as seen in the City of Stories project .

19. News They Can Use: Students don't have to wait until they're grown-ups to start publishing. Student newspapers, radio stations, and other journalism projects give them real-life experiences now. Award-winning journalism teacher Esther Wojcicki outlines the benefits this post on the New York Times Learning Network . Get more ideas about digital-age citizen journalism projects at MediaShift Idea Lab .

20. The Heroes They Know: To get acquainted with students at the start of the year and also introduce students to PBL processes, High Tech High teacher Diana Sanchez asked students to create a visual and textual representation of a hero in their own life. Their black-and-white exhibits were a source of pride to students, as Sanchez explains in her project reflection . Get more ideas from the project gallery at High Tech High , a network of 11 schools in San Diego County that emphasize PBL. To learn more, watch this Edutopia video interview with High Tech High founding principal Larry Rosenstock.

Please tell us about the projects you are planning for this school year.

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8 Inspiring Foreign Language Project Ideas for Student-driven Success

In your class, it can be scary to give your students control over something as critically important as their own learning. But independence and relevance will always be the strongest motivators for learning anything.

That’s where project-based learning comes in, which puts students in the driver’s seat of their own learning.

But for a great project-based learning experience, you need excellent foreign language project ideas.

So get into this post, which explores eight excellent project-based learning activities that students will never forget. We also go over how these projects should be implemented and why they’re so effective.

Fun and Effective Foreign Language Project Ideas

1. food for thought, 3. a children’s book, 4. the artist within, 5. travel blog, 6. community service, 7. unveiling the past, 8. the business venture, checklist for a successful foreign language project, why assign projects anyway.

Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)

These project ideas can easily be tweaked to suit your students’ level and interests.

What’s the hallmark of any culture? Food, of course! And it’s safe to say that all your students, no matter their personalities or learning styles, probably love food.

So ask your class to come up with a menu for a culturally appropriate meal and prepare it together.

Students can begin by independently researching foods that are traditional in the target culture. Then bring them together to share their findings and choose the foods that they’re going to prepare as a class. The meal should be composed of key elements such as an appetizer, salad, main course and dessert. Next, break them into small groups and give each group a target-language recipe corresponding to their particular dish to follow.

It’s helpful to undertake this project in the context of a unit on food vocabulary so that they can build familiarity with words for common foods and ingredients. Before they begin cooking, teach them target language vocabulary for language commonly used in recipes like “stir,” “chop,” “simmer,” etc. You might even try demonstrating by articulating such actions as they watch you put together a simple recipe first.

We guarantee that they’ll never forget the day they sampled authentic German  Rouladen  or had their first taste of real Italian  lasagna .

After the meal, ask them to journal about the meal, describing the foods they liked and those they didn’t.

It’s certain to create a hunger for that language and culture which will last their whole lives.

Whether it’s the last episode of “Game of Thrones” or “The Walking Dead,” kids and adults alike love dishing about their favorite characters and stories on TV. Why not utilize that enthusiasm for their next project?

Fortunately, technology makes it easy to find engaging target-language television to pique their interest.  YouTube,   Netflix  and Amazon Prime  all make it easy to search for TV shows in the target language. You and your students can check out the popular French detective drama  “Braquo”  or the romantic Chinese mystery  “Love 020.”

Assign episodes of the show to watch, and then come up with a few questions that allow students to discuss the themes of the show. The questions should get them to think more deeply about the story and their connection to it. For example, ask students to share who their favorite character is and explain why. Or they could come up with an alternate ending for one of the episodes.

Post the questions on a shared blog or break your class into small discussion groups to talk about them. As a culminating task, students can write a script and act out an episode of their own, similar to this project using Spanish  telenovelas .

Few things are as satisfying to students as sharing their knowledge with younger, less advanced students.

What better way to do so than by creating and sharing a children’s book?

A simple picture book that teaches target language vocabulary for things like numbers, colors and days of the week can serve as a welcome refresher for your own students. They can create small books that tell a story and introduce vocabulary in a charming and engaging way. When they’ve finished, schedule a visit to a classroom of younger children where your students can read their books to a young “reading buddy” or to the whole class.

They’ll enjoy interacting with their younger peers and feel a priceless sense of pride in teaching them new skills.

If possible, keep the books on display in your school library for a while so everyone can enjoy and learn from them.

Art conveys a profound understanding of culture (and sometimes of language), but appreciation for a culture’s art is not something that can be easily taught. Students can connect with a culture’s art on a deeper level by recreating their own versions of it.

If possible, collaborate with an art teacher (in your school or otherwise) ahead of time to brainstorm a list of art-related vocabulary in the target language. These terms can include processes, materials, colors and descriptive words.

Then enlist the teacher’s help to coach students in the actual techniques unique to a particular time period in the target culture: the flowery blooms of American painter Georgia O’Keeffe, for example, or the “superflat” style of Japanese artist Takashi Murakami.

Ask students to present their work in the target language when they’re finished, describing both their process and the finished product.

This project gets students to choose a destination somewhere around the world where the target language is spoken, and then plan a trip to that country. They have plenty of options for what the project can create, but a travel blog is recommended because it can easily be created and shared via the many online blog sites. Here’s a great list of quality travel blogs by Nomadic Matt to inspire students.

Once the destination is chosen, students conduct in-depth research on various aspects, including:

  • Geography and climate
  • Historical and cultural landmarks
  • Local customs and traditions
  • Cuisine and local specialties
  • Transportation options
  • Accommodation choices

They can try developing engaging blog posts or travel diary entries in the target language, describing each day’s experiences and reflections, and they can include local slang or customs.

To enhance the travel blog, students can include multimedia elements:

  • Photos or illustrations: Visual representations of landmarks, local cuisine and cultural experiences.
  • Videos or podcasts: Oral presentations, interviews with locals or virtual tours.

Once finished, students can look at the blog and make comments, and you can look at it as a class, too, and ask questions afterward.

For this memorable project, students should start by identifying a local community need and plan a service project. This could involve working with local organizations, interviewing community members in the target language and creating materials to promote the project. 

For example, if your community has a Spanish soup kitchen, and your students are learning Spanish, this could be a perfect match. On Volunteer Match , you can select the target language under “Special Skills.” This makes this a great resource for students to find volunteer opportunities that would work for this project.

As they implement their service plan, or their volunteering experience, have them consider activities such as:

  • Tutoring sessions for language learners in the community.
  • Environmental clean-up initiatives with bilingual informational materials.
  • Collaboration with local businesses or community centers.

After completing the community service project, ask students to reflect on their experiences in the target language. This reflection could cover:

Conclude the project with a presentation where each group shares their community service experience with the class. This presentation could include:

  • Visual materials such as photos or videos documenting the project.
  • Oral reflections on language use, cultural understanding and the impact of their service.

This project requires some technical know-how, but you’d be surprised how many students know how to use editing software these days. Perhaps it’s one of the upsides of all that TikTok .

For this project, students will research and create a documentary or a short film in the target language about a specific historical event or figure. 

Students begin by selecting a historical event, period or influential figure related to a region where the target language is spoken. Topics can range from significant historical events to the lives of important historical figures.

In groups or individually, students conduct thorough research on their chosen historical topic. This involves:

  • Studying primary and secondary sources in the target language.
  • Summarizing key historical events, figures, and cultural context.
  • Script writing for the documentary, ensuring a coherent and engaging narrative.

The culmination of the project is students bringing their research and script to life by creating a multimedia historical documentary. This can include:

  • Recording voice-overs in the target language.
  • Incorporating visuals such as historical images, maps, and video clips.
  • Editing the documentary for a polished final product.

This project is designed for students who have a strong interest in business.

In it, students work in groups to create a business proposal in the target language. This involves market research, creating a business plan, designing promotional materials and presenting their proposal to the class. 

Students begin by selecting a business concept or idea that aligns with the target language and culture. This could be a new product, service or a cultural adaptation of an existing business.

Then, they’ll conduct thorough market research to understand the business landscape in the target language region.

Then they’ll create a detailed business plan in the target language. This involves:

  • Defining the business concept, mission, and vision.
  • Outlining the products or services offered.
  • Developing a marketing strategy, including promotional materials in the target language.
  • Formulating a financial plan, including budget projections.

The culmination of this project will be students presenting their business proposals to the class as if they were pitching to potential investors. 

Afterwards, students can ask them questions. If you’ve ever seen an episode of “ Shark Tank ,” that’s a good general model for this final activity.

Before you send your students off on their anticipated road trip, go through this checklist to confirm that you’ve given them a task that’s well worth their time (and yours).

A quality project is:

  • Relevant.  Does this project relate to real-world situations? Will students use their language skills to solve real problems? Think navigating conversations or producing cultural products that can be used or enjoyed.
  • Aligned to curriculum goals and learning outcomes.  We hate to burst your bubble… but remember that the whole point of everything you do is student learning. Will your students be working towards your learning goals? Or is this project simply “fluff”? Identify your standards and desired student outcomes that will be met through classroom time on this project.
  • Student-centered.  If it’s a quality project, then all you have to do is give them a bit of direction and guidance, and send them on their way. Allow students to choose their own topics (within reason) and give them plenty of leeway to exercise their creativity and problem-solving skills. What they come up with just might surprise you!
  • Rigorous.  It’s just human nature: when we don’t have to work for something, we don’t value it. It’s the same with learning. Students should struggle, wrestle and at times even become frustrated. Allow it to happen, but be available to provide scaffolding at that spot right between frustration and despair… so that they don’t give up. Remember that this is how you felt when you were learning your second language.
  • Fun.  As much as they need to struggle, there must also be an element of fun in a great project. Something about it must spark and hold student interest so that they go right to work on it every day with little to no prompting. Perhaps it incorporates a favorite activity (like sports, music, drawing or video games). Or perhaps it addresses an aspect of culture that intrigues them (like food, celebrities or holidays). You know your students better than anyone else, so find that unnameable something that translates into fun for them.

There’s no way around it: a quality project will occupy a significant portion of learning time in your classroom. When any activity takes up this much time, it’s important to be clear about the reasons you’re doing it. That way your students will understand its value and not see it as a frivolous “time-waster.”

Here are the top reasons that projects are worth doing in any classroom, but especially in yours:

  • Project-based learning is student-centered.  With “teacher-centered” methods like lecturing and note-taking, you are the sole dispenser of knowledge. Projects give students ownership and control of their own learning as they seek out learning that’s meaningful to them and accomplish it on their own terms.
  • Projects allow students to use  real-world skills .  It’s no secret that student motivation skyrockets when they see their learning as relevant to the real world. They can experience the value of language and culture first-hand, instead of just listening to you tell them about it.
  • Projects encourage the use of higher-order thinking skills. As teachers, our task is to empower students to utilize those higher-order skills: analyzing, evaluating and creating. When you’re teaching a language, there are days when you feel like you never get past remembering and understanding which, while necessary, represent the very bottom of the hallowed learning pyramid. A quality project is a unique opportunity for students to utilize knowledge at the highest level.

Do you have some inspiration now?

Run with it! And craft an unforgettable experience for your students by putting them in the driver’s seat with project-based learning.

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english language projects for high school students

english language projects for high school students

19 Interesting Research Projects For ESL Students

Project-based learning is an excellent means of acquiring and developing new language skills. Teachers of ESL students can use research projects to make lessons fun, interactive, and engaging. As such, interesting research projects can be used to practice the concepts that a teacher wishes to reinforce.

Research projects for ESL students should be based on relevant topics that interest them. Topics can range from creating comic strips, preparing a dish in class, dramatization, creating short podcasts, planning an itinerary, and debating significant issues.

The projects should be appropriate for the ESL student’s proficiency, whether beginner, intermediate or advanced and can be done individually or in a group.

The research project’s purpose should align with the curriculum and be clear to the students. Read on to discover some exciting research projects for the different proficiency levels of ESL students.

The Focus Of Interesting Research Projects For ESL Learners

Learning a new language can be meaningful and fun with the right teacher and lessons. However, ESL students might also be shy to speak in the presence of other students, so they must be made to feel welcome and accepted.

Additionally, if students know what the purpose of the project is, they can focus on that instead of becoming overwhelmed with other areas.

When assigning a research project to ESL students, the teacher should first assess what the students’ interests are. They will be more likely to benefit from the research project if it intrigues them or if there is an incentive.

Then, when assigning the project, the teacher should tell the students the point of the assessment, so they know what the focal point for preparation should be.

Examples of focus points or purposes of research projects can include the following:

  • Dialogue or speaking practice,
  • Situational terminology,
  • Team communication, or

Also try: 15 Engaging Speaking Activities For Online Classes

Interesting Research Projects For Beginner ESL Students

Beginner ESL students can differ in age, ability, and maturity, so the teacher must choose the research projects wisely and adapt them accordingly.

Below are some great ideas for exciting research projects for beginner ESL students.

1. Research Your Family Tree

Students can research their family tree as far back as possible and create a presentation with pictures. In addition to the family tree, the students can add a short biography of two or more family tree members to add extra weight to the project.

2. Plant A Vegetable Garden

A research project on planting can be modified according to the age and group size of an ESL class. Students can work individually or in groups and research what vegetables they want to grow and what is needed for each plant to thrive.

The project can be done practically, and students can document the growth of their plants. As an extension activity, the vegetables can be used to make a salad or a soup for other research projects, including following recipes.

Alternatively, the students can create a business plan and market their products for another project.

3. Create A Comic Strip

Creating a comic strip can be done individually, as a group, or as a nonsense game (for practice). First, each student can create their own superhero and write a synopsis of the superhero’s powers and weaknesses.

Then, they can make a short comic strip using simple illustrations where their superhero fights a crime or saves the day.

As a fun practice activity, students can do the first strip of a comic at the top of a page. Then they can swap pages with other class members who must continue the cartoon, a row at a time. The result should be pretty hilarious and give the students some good ideas for their research project.

4. Research A Culture Or Tradition

Students can be given the task of researching a culture or tribe. At a beginner level, ESL students can work in groups to research a culture and then present their findings. They can explore different aspects of their chosen culture, for example:

  • Traditions,
  • Traditional foods,
  • Languages spoken, and
  • Where the culture lives, e.g., country or types of dwellings.

When presenting their project, the students should be encouraged to show as many examples of their findings as possible. They can even dress up and play some of that culture’s music, for example.

Recommended for you: 15 Speaking Projects For ESL Students

5. Plan A Vacation

Another fun research project for beginner ESL students is to plan a vacation. The students can pick any destination they wish to visit and plan their trip accordingly.

They can research activities they’d like to do, their mode of travel, where to stay, and what they will eat. Then, depending on the difficulty level, the teacher can give them a ‘budget’ they should stick to.

6. Real Estate Listing

In this research project, students can pretend they are an estate agent selling a property. They can create an advert and use descriptive language to describe the characteristics and selling points of the property.

7. Dramatization

Students can work in small groups and act out a short story or scene from a favorite book or movie. The teacher can suggest a fun story the class can read or watch and discuss in a lesson.

Students can then be allowed time to prepare their skits, or they can do improvisations. This activity will encourage them to memorize their cues, but they can also use cue cards.

Interesting Research Projects For Intermediate ESL Students

As ESL students advance to an intermediate level, their research projects can increase in difficulty and expectations. Again, the teacher should always inform the students of the outcomes, so they know the project’s focus. Below are some ideas for interesting research projects for intermediate ESL learners.

8. Create A Short Podcast

Podcasts are a popular way of sharing information through speaking. Thus, they make a good assessment tool for various speaking activities in the classroom. For example, the teacher can assign a topic. The students can research and record a podcast as if they were reporting for the news or other channel.

An advantage of using podcasts as a form of assessment is that the students can re-record their podcast if they have made too many mistakes before submitting it to the teacher.

9. Create A Neighborhood

Students can create a neighborhood with various characters as a group research project, much like the game Sims. Then, the students can research the characters and their roles in the community. For example, there could be a handyman, a pet sitter, a grocer, families, a librarian, and a pharmacist.

Each character can have a name and description of features. In addition, the neighborhood, streets, shops, and other community elements can also have names and descriptions.

Also try: Fun Language Games For Middle School Students

10. Research Different Types Of Sustainable Energies

Sustainable and green energy are current topics that make good research projects, as there is a lot of information on the internet. This research project can be done in a group or as individuals, and the students can present their research to the class in a PowerPoint presentation.

11. Write A Biography Of A Famous Person

For this research project, students can choose a famous person and write a biography on them. The teacher can give pointers as to what should be covered, for example:

  • Why the person is famous,
  • Where they were born,
  • If they are still alive,
  • Significant events in their life,
  • Where they grew up, and
  • How they have influenced the world or their community.

12. Do A Cooking Demonstration

Recipes are instructive and introduce a different type of vocabulary. Students can demonstrate a recipe or cooking lesson in class as part of a fun research project. Ideas for cooking demonstrations include making soup, baking cookies, preparing pasta, or making a salad.

Afterward, the students can enjoy a meal together after a few presentations during class. However, the teacher should determine if anyone has allergies before sharing the meals.

13. Career Research Project

Intermediate ESL students can do a research project on potential careers they’d like to pursue. Whether they choose one or more professions, the students can research what the job entails, the potential income, and the pros and cons.

Additionally, the students can explore the qualification requirements to pursue their chosen careers.

Interesting Research Projects For Advanced ESL Students

Advanced ESL students are likely to be older and more mature, so the teacher must choose topics that are not embarrassing or ‘below’ them. The students’ cultures must also be kept in mind, as some Western traditions are frowned upon by Eastern cultures.

Next are some research project ideas for advanced ESL students.

14. Make A Short Film

Making a short film can be successful if planned and managed correctly. An example could be creating a documentary or enacting a story.

Whatever the topic, it is wise to plan each filming session ahead of time. It would be an ongoing project that requires the skills of a movie-making app or a willing student who is savvy in that department.

15. Argumentative Research Paper Or Debate

In an argumentative research paper, a teacher can list controversial topics from which the students can choose. The students would then need to write an argumentative essay with the pros and cons or choose for or against the topic.

As an extension of this activity, one topic can be selected, and the class is split into two groups. Then, students on the same teams can collaborate and debate the topic in class.

16. Describing Famous Artworks

In this project, students can choose a few famous artworks created by different artists using various media. The students can research and describe each artwork and its history. This project will undoubtedly introduce them to new vocabulary and help them practice using descriptive language.

17. Critical Book Review

A critical book review project requires a student to read a suitably challenging book and write a critique on it. The ESL teacher can use a setwork book or allow the students to choose their own books. The students can discuss the characters, the plot, the author’s writing style, and their opinion of the book.

18. Creating A Business Plan

Advanced ESL students who learn English for business purposes will benefit from this interesting research project. They can write a business plan for a company or entrepreneurial venture.

In their business plan, they can set goals, projected expenses, income, ideas for growing the business, and other related topics within their plan.

19. The Apprentice – You Are Fired

Students may well have seen the television show ‘The Apprentice’ and you can replicate this process over a number of weeks with real groups of students and fun challenges.

You can come up with a series of tasks for the students to complete in or outside of class and then groups are judged by the teacher or a student.

The losing group then has to argue/defend their performance and contribution to the task with the weakest student being fired.

There is potential for so much language to be used in this series of activities so it requires some preparation to ensure that they do have the vocabulary and structures to be able to successfully participate in this process.

Classroom-based activities that work well for this include:

  • Coming up with a new household product idea and diagram of it.
  • Branding, logo, and a short advert of the product previously invented in the last task.
  • Creation of a new family-friendly board game.
  • Create and present a virtual tour around a particular holiday destination/city.
  • Create an entertaining podcast for children.

There is an endless string of tasks that you could do all involving lots of language points. Ideal for advanced students.

Whether beginner, intermediate or advanced, ESL students will likely benefit from a more hands-on approach when learning a new language.

So, the teachers of ESL students can use interesting research projects to reinforce concepts taught in the class. The research projects chosen should be relevant and intriguing to the students for their benefit and enjoyment.

Recommended reading: 7 Ways To Use Newspapers To Teach Grammar

Image Credits

Broccoli Fir0002 , GFDL 1.2 , via Wikimedia Commons

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Inquisitive young minds jump at chances to imagine and discover with interactive lessons and hands-on activities.

Middle School: Encourage Exploration

In middle school, students can embrace new challenges, explore interests, and form positive relationships in a fun, safe, and structured environment.

High School: Get Ready for the Future

High schoolers receive support to get back on track or zip ahead — and can access top-notch career and college prep. 

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ADDITIONAL ONLINE OFFERINGS

A Path for Every Learner

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Every student deserves the opportunity to grow and explore new interests. K12’s flexible learning options are built to instill a love for learning, empower each student to succeed, and prepare them for the future.

  • Advanced Learner Programs
  • STEM Courses
  • Individual Courses
  • Clubs and Extracurriculars
  • Summer School Courses

Why choose K12?

Help your child reach their full potential with a K12-powered education.

Flexible Schedule and Pace

Students have diverse learning styles, strengths, and needs. Find the school schedule that works best for your child.

Fewer Distractions

Live virtual classes, structured assignments, and built-in time for brain breaks provide students with a focused environment that promotes learning.

Parent Involvement

Get a front-row seat to what and how your child is learning. As a Learning Coach, you’re a key part of their daily success.

Online Public vs. Online Private School

Not sure whether online public school or online private school is better for your student?

K12-POWERED PRIVATE SCHOOLS

Find the Right Fit

Choose a K12-powered school that aligns with your child’s learning needs and inspires them to take charge of their education, build confidence and community, and thrive.

K12 Private Academy

Specialized Learning

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Enrollment is open year-round at K12 Private Academy, where students across the world benefit from: • Lower student-teacher ratios • Personalized, one-on-one instruction • Direct intervention at the first sign of learning gaps

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Grades K–12

Faith Prep Academy

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With FaithPrep Academy, families seeking an education rooted in the Christian faith will also find:  • An interactive K12 curriculum with advanced course options • A strong team of teachers, counselors, and advisors • Online social activities, including Faith Groups

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Grades 8–12

The George Washington University Online High School

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Highly motivated students will find an extraordinary college prep experience at this school, which offers: • Small classes and personalized attention • Advanced K12 curriculum, capstone projects, and AP® courses • Individualized guidance from advisors and learning opportunities beyond the classroom

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Grand Canyon Private Academy

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Students across the U.S. and globe benefit from K12’s engaging curriculum and personalized learning that includes: • Career exploration courses and a dual enrollment program • Community service and engagement opportunities • An Early World Language Program that gives students the chance to become trilingual

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The Keystone School

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Learners around the world choose The Keystone School for its high-quality, well-rounded education, which features: • An interactive, personalized K12 curriculum • A robust support team of teachers, academic coaches, counselors, and advisors • Courses for learners with different needs, including credit recovery and Advanced Placement (AP®)

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Grades K–10

Marian University Preparatory School

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This hybrid learning environment blends a faith-focused education with K12’s mastery-based curriculum, offering: • Relevant academics delivered through innovative technology  • Comprehensive social and emotional learning programs • Project- and work-based learning opportunities

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GEO Focus Academy of Indiana

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At GEO Focus Academy, Indiana residents experience K12’s dynamic curriculum and can access special college prep like: • Early College Unlimited Program with dual enrollment • College courses on college campuses and the opportunity to earn college credits

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FaithPrep Academy of Indiana

FaithPrep pairs a Christian worldview with K12-powered academic excellence, giving Indiana students access to: • Instruction from state-licensed teachers who value Christian education • A Unique Servant Learner faith program for middle and high school students • Dual-credit options for high schoolers with Indiana Wesleyan University and other universities

Grades K–11

Coast to Mountains Preparatory Academy

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North Carolina students benefit from a flexible and personalized online education that offers: • An interactive, engaging K12 curriculum • Small group instruction and one-on-one support from certified teachers • Field trips, social events, and clubs, as well as optional in-person activities

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TUITION AND COSTS

School that works for your family

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While K12-powered online public schools are tuition-free, online private schools each have their own fee structure.

QUALITY EDUCATION FOR ALL

How to make private school free

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Every child deserves a quality education. Families can use vouchers, scholarships, and other tuition assistance programs to help find the best school for their student.

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A Day in the Life

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Stephen loves competitive swimming. His flexible schedule allows room for morning practices and Friday travel meets, while independence-building assignments prepare him for college.

How do I get started?

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I’m ready to find a school.

Students across the country and globe can access K12-powered online private schools.

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I need more information.

It’s easy to reach out, chat, schedule a tour, and find out how K12 can work for you.

Stride K12 is under a territorial non-compete obligation with another company that precludes us from enrolling students or shipping materials to students in the countries listed below while that company has territorial exclusivity. You can learn more about options in your area at icademymiddleeast.com. Bahrain, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates In addition, at this time, the United States has an embargo on the provision of certain products and services in the countries listed below that encompasses those provided by Stride K12. As such, K12 is prohibited from entering into transactions with residents or resident companies. Western Balkans, Belarus, Central Africa, Cuba, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, North Korea, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine, Venezuela, Yemen, Zimbabwe

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Students Worksheet Song 2

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This worksheet was made based on Indonesia Curriculum of English for Senior High School

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Students Worksheet Song 2

IMAGES

  1. 10 Most Popular High School English Project Ideas 2021

    english language projects for high school students

  2. 10 Most Popular High School English Project Ideas 2023

    english language projects for high school students

  3. My Favorite High School English Activities of the Year

    english language projects for high school students

  4. 18 English Project Ideas You Can Do Right Now!

    english language projects for high school students

  5. English Projects and Assignment Ideas for Mid School and Highschool Students

    english language projects for high school students

  6. 10 Most Popular High School English Project Ideas 2024

    english language projects for high school students

COMMENTS

  1. 42 Engaging English Activities For High School

    42 Engaging English Activities For High School December 27, 2023 // by Jill Webb Are you an English teacher looking for learning games and activities to help enliven your English language arts teaching? We know that sometimes teenage students can easily lose interest.

  2. 18 English Project Ideas You Can Do Right Now!

    Here are 18 practical projects that will help your students get creative while enhancing their written and communicative English skills. These are applicable to your middle school and high school students . Creative English Project Ideas Advertisement

  3. 50 ESL Conversation Topics for High School Students

    January 16, 2024 Today, we turn our attention to high school students, who are at a pivotal stage of their English language learning journey. At this level, students are ready to explore more complex and nuanced topics, making conversations not just a learning tool, but a gateway to broader understanding and critical thinking.

  4. 12 Fun ESL Speaking Activities for Teens or Adults

    12. Story Chain. 1. Interview Pop. Student level: Pre-Intermediate to Advanced. Type of Lesson: Group or Individual. This is a great one for students to have fun and be creative. Put students in pairs, or you could also carry this one out in a one-one lesson. Students choose one person they want to interview.

  5. 39 Fun ESL Games and Activities for an Exciting English Classroom

    1. Vocabulary Showcase Game Show 2. How's Yours? 3. Fly Swat 4. Shiritori Showdown 5. Hangman 6. Jeopardy 7. Backdraw 8. Sparkle 9. Squat ESL Listening Games 10. Flash Art 11. Find Someone Who… 12. Telephone 13. Song Puzzle ESL Games for Communication and Teamwork 14.

  6. 25 High School English Activities You'll Want To Try Right Now

    This activity was a hands-down favorite event for my eighth grade students. Those speaking and listening standards can be tough to master, and high school English activities like this helped us get there. 15. Read, solve, and create murder mysteries Brooke Naumoff Brooke Naumoff. My students in both middle and high school love true crime.

  7. 14 Creative English Activities for Teenagers Guaranteed to ...

    1. Best for Classroom Quizzes: Kahoot! 2. Best for Authentic Content: FluentU 3. Best for Digital Flashcards: Quizlet 4. Best for Vocabulary Definitions: Knoword Group Activities 5. Best Guessing Game: Interview with the Stars 6. Best for Physical Movement: Grab the Ball 7. Best Fun Musical Activity: Lyrics Jigsaw 8.

  8. My Favorite High School English Activities of the Year

    This test contains a listening portion of the test that requires students to listen to nonfiction articles and answer comprehension and analysis questions. To help my juniors prepare for this test, they completed a listening-skills escape room. This escape room is one of my favorites because it closely imitates the state test.

  9. Inspire your English students with projects

    Published 15 April 2021 Experiences Join us as we explore the amazing benefits of projects. It couldn't be easier to inspire your students and we have some great tips and a free project pack to get you started. The power of a project As teachers, we are always looking to enhance our students' learning experience.

  10. ESL Lesson Plans for High School: 4 Exciting Activities to ...

    1. ESL Vision Board Your ESL high school students will gather their favorite magazine clippings and words relating to their English future. This lesson plan allows students to set English goals in a fun and powerful way. The ESL Vision Board activity may extend to two days, depending on class time.

  11. 10 ELA Lesson Plans that Engage Students Any Time of Year

    2. Media Literacy. Students love to eat, so bring in snacks for a meaningful activity. Before students dig in, ask them to analyze the colors, language, and fonts with this media literacy activity. Enlighten students with the marketing behind food products and packaging. 3. Creative Writing.

  12. Free High School English Language Arts Activities

    December 21, 2020. 4 Min Read. To help your learners discover their own writing styles and embrace reading, check out the fun high school language arts activities below. Support students' voices with hands-on English lessons on how to analyze poems, podcasts, and arguments, complete with videos, downloadable worksheets, and more.

  13. 9 Fantastic Project Ideas for EFL/ESL: Tips for success

    9 Fantastic Project Ideas for EFL/ESL: Tips for success - Enchanted ESL 9 Fantastic Project Ideas for EFL/ESL: Tips for success Activities & Games I love learning through projects. It's one of the best ways to engage EFL/ESL students while challenging and improving their English skills. Projects may take a while, but they're always worth it.

  14. Student Projects

    Insights to English projects range from short-term to year-long and include topic-based projects, webquests, writing prompts, and more. There's a variety of individual, pair, small group, and class-wide projects available. Insiders can search for projects or filter according to grammar topic, duration, collaboration, or project type.

  15. Project-Based Learning Ideas and Examples for the ELA Classroom

    Here are some simple and fun project-based learning ideas for English. You can use these ideas in your ELA classroom even if you have no experience with PBL. You can also apply these ideas to middle school ELA and high school English classes: Conduct a Mock Trial

  16. 25 Creative Project Ideas for ELA

    #1: Projects based on Modern Media My school once got rid of sophomore honors English and history. Students could pursue the honors distinction by completing a portfolio of interdisciplinary projects instead. Our teaching team needed to invent these projects and roll them out every couple of months.

  17. ESL Projects for Kids and Adults

    ESL projects are a great way to inject some creativity into your English classroom. Allowing students to express themselves and develop their own ideas often has very positive (and sometimes surprising!) results. Read More >> Level: all beginner intermediate advanced Grammar: All Grammar Vocabulary: All Vocabulary Biography

  18. 15 Speaking Projects And Activities For ESL Students

    15 Speaking Projects And Activities For ESL Students Written by Tim James in Ideas and Resources I don't think I am sticking my neck out too much by saying that most ESL students enjoy speaking activities more than typical reading, writing and listening activities.

  19. 8 Reading Activities for High Schoolers That They'll Actually Enjoy

    The best reading activities for high school involve covering a wide variety of skills related to the use of language. Help high school students prepare for successful adulthood by incorporating ...

  20. 17 ESL Activities for Engaging Classes

    Timelines ESL Activity. 6. Einstein's Riddle: Detective-Style Logic Activity. Einstein's riddle is a challenging detective-style activity where students have to use logic to solve the nationality, pet, drink, color, and hobby of each homeowner. It's believed that at a young age, Albert Einstein created this riddle.

  21. Twenty Ideas for Engaging Projects

    Honor Home Languages: English language learners can feel pressured to master English fast, with class time spent correcting errors instead of using language in meaningful ways.

  22. English Language Arts

    Save & Organize Resources. See State Standards. Manage Classes & Assignments. Sync with Google Classroom. Create Lessons. Customized Dashboard. Get More Features Free. Explore teaching resources for English Language Arts. Inspire your students with videos, games, and activities aligned to state and national standards.

  23. 8 Inspiring Foreign Language Project Ideas for Student-driven ...

    1. Food for Thought 2. TV Talk 3. A Children's Book 4. The Artist Within 5. Travel Blog 6. Community Service 7. Unveiling the Past 8. The Business Venture Checklist for a Successful Foreign Language Project Why Assign Projects Anyway? Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere.

  24. 19 Interesting Research Projects For ESL Students

    When presenting their project, the students should be encouraged to show as many examples of their findings as possible. They can even dress up and play some of that culture's music, for example. Recommended for you: 15 Speaking Projects For ESL Students. 5. Plan A Vacation. Another fun research project for beginner ESL students is to plan a ...

  25. Program Details

    High quality university-based program with experienced and qualified instructors Highly engaging classes that build your fluency and confidence; Classes are designed to fit into your busy schedule; One-on-one interaction and real-time instruction with students from around the world Individualized assistance from our Student Services team

  26. Online Private Schools

    The George Washington University Online High School. Highly motivated students will find an extraordinary college prep experience at this school, which offers: • Small classes and personalized attention • Advanced K12 curriculum, capstone projects, and AP® courses

  27. Students Worksheet Song 2 worksheet

    Liveworksheets transforms your traditional printable worksheets into self-correcting interactive exercises that the students can do online and send to the teacher. ... School subject: English language (1061957) Main content: Song Intepretation (1961483) This worksheet was made based on Indonesia Curriculum of English for Senior High School ...