Every year, the same film plays on repeat. Black Friday hits, and people who swore they were “cutting back this year” are suddenly refreshing carts at midnight, chasing countdown timers and “only 3 left!” banners. This was the starting point for my minimalism lesson: if students are already swimming in Black Friday ads and Christmas wish lists, why not turn that chaos into something reflective and language‑rich?  The heart of the plan is a “Less Is More” advent calendar that runs parallel to the shopping season. While the outside world shouts “Buy! Hurry! More!”, students open a different kind of window each day: deleting unused apps, clearing one surface, designing an experience gift instead of buying another object. Each task comes with a guided question and a pair of chunky expressions to use in a short English reflection, so language development and behaviour change grow together. In  this handout  Black Friday and Christmas haven’t disappeared, but the spell is weake...

  There is a book, fb page, lots of articles, videos, interviews, lesson ideas on HONY- Humans of New York, and now there is also my extensive lesson plan-... Never heard of it? Humans of New York (HONY) is a popular photography project and storytelling  blog created in 2010 by Brandon Stanton. It started as a simple goal to photograph  10,000 people living in New York City, but evolved into a powerful collection of  portraits and personal stories. Each photo is paired with a short interview or quote  that reveals intimate, honest, and often surprising details about the subject's life. Over time, the project expanded beyond New York to include stories from many countries, covering diverse experiences and social issues. HONY offers a unique window into the lives of everyday people, encouraging empathy and understanding through storytelling. Interested? Check out  this handout    for reading, listening, writing and speaking ideas. Just a side note, ...

AI, prompting, iterating, cocreating…. All these are not easy skills to master, but done right can help you be more efficient and still think independently. The picture above shows a selection of ‘critical thinking prompts’ (I am afraid I don’t know the source, a colleague just resent it for me) that I took the liberty of expanding into prompts that promote  critical thinking and help us plan for lessons and teach them:)  Hope you like them!  First-Principles Thinking "Break down a target grammar or vocabulary topic to its core elements. Suggest activities that build from the absolute basics upward, reconstructing knowledge step by step for clarity." Assumption Audit "List assumptions I might have about students’ prior knowledge or skills regarding this curriculum point. For each, explain how to check if my assumption is true and suggest backup activities for weaker students." Socratic Deep Dive "Simulate a Socratic dialogue that explores the deeper reasons beh...

Hello everyone, and welcome back after the summer break! First, a quick apology for not sharing new content sooner- ah, September, the month when everything feels like a whirlwind of new beginnings, schedules, and plans. But here we are, ready to dive back into learning with something special to kick off the school year. This time, I’m excited to share a comprehensive   worksheet focused on strengthening critical thinking by exploring logical fallacies and cognitive biases . These are common traps in reasoning that can cloud judgment- and they’re everywhere! From media messages to everyday conversations and even our own thinking patterns. What’s Inside? A warm-up activity inviting reflection on everyday thinking habits Clear definitions and examples of 20 common fallacies and biases A reflective exercise connecting these concepts to real life An engaging identification task to practice spotting errors in reasoning A lively, interactive role-play debate activity designed for IB DP E...

If you’re looking for a lesson idea based on compelling conspiracy theories, you might want to try  the conspiracy cards  I created.  These cards are just a little sample of a bigger project I’m thinking of, please let me know if you’d like me to create more of these!  Just to give you an idea- this is the general idea behind the cards together with some extension activities (all of these included in the sample I linked above:)  CONSPIRACIES AND CONSPIRACY THEORIES cards: General info-  conspiracy theories, confirmed conspiracies Primary MO: Guesswork and discussion in pairs:  S tudents work in pairs, study and discuss the name of the conspiracy, the picture, the “turn of phrase” sentences and try to guess what the conspiracy is about, has it really happened, where, when etc News article (Extra)  Creating a news article on one of the titles- written or as part of a news bulletin Reading, retelling and discussion Student 1 reads the conspiracy desc...

If you are looking for extra IO practice, I can recommend an old short story by Kurt Vonnegut  EPICAC What is the story about?  In "EPICAC," a supercomputer learns about love and poetry to help its human operator win the affection of a woman named Pat. EPICAC falls in love with Pat itself, but realizing she can’t love a machine, it destroys itself, leaving behind hundreds of poems as a gift. How relatable it is these days? The story is very relevant now because it explores artificial intelligence developing emotions and creativity-issues we face as AI becomes more advanced. It also raises questions about authenticity in relationships and the ethical treatment of intelligent machines.  My students loved reading it and discussing questions about artificial intelligence, the authenticity of technologically mediated relationships, and the philosophical boundaries between human and machine. Its questions about emotion, creativity, and agency in artificial beings are more press...

I have been looking for a way to spice up a bit the class I give in DP1 as introduction to speeches- both oral and written (paper 1). Then it dawned on me- why not get the students move and learn about the structure, language, rhetorical appeals rotating the stations in pairs?  I tried and it worked very well- have a look at   the stations  and the sample answers:) . The class is designed for 5 stations, but there is also an optional one on extra linguistic features- I’ve put them in my google disc as pdfs, but you can also create QR codes for them so that you don’t need to print the activities.  As for the class itself, you can ask students to compete against each other in their pairs, and check their worksheets yourself, or allow them accces to the sample key to encourage self-assessment or peer-assessment.  What needs to be done at the end is a wrap-up session on the text type that speech is- one idea might be ask students to elaborate on the titles of each s...