English Teaching Tips | Yappi

AI Dungeon is a text-based, AI-powered storytelling platform with virtually endless possibilities. A great way to learn English, especially for students who dream of becoming writers or screenwriters, as well as D&D enthusiasts and gamers. With the help of AI, learners can create stories with their own unique plots, making it an engaging way to expand vocabulary, practise communication skills, and stay motivated throughout the lesson. 👩‍🏫✨ 🔎 How teachers can use it: ✔️Create custom scenarios. Design adventures that match your lesson topic and provide students with target vocabulary they can use throughout the activity. ✔️Speaking Warm-up: "What would you do?”. Start a simple adventure and project the story onto the screen. Pause before each decision and ask students to discuss their options: • "I would open the door." • "I might run away." • "If I were the hero, I'd..." ✔️Role-Play Lessons. Use the "Say" mode, where students interact with characters through dialogue. This encourages spontaneous speaking and helps students stay in character. ✔️Collaborative Storytelling. Put students in groups of 3–4. Assign each student a role: writer (types), vocabulary monitor, grammar checker, and story director. Students discuss and negotiate every action before submitting it. ✔️Writing Homework. Play through a story for 10 minutes during class. Then ask students to: write the next chapter; write a diary entry from the hero's or villain's perspective; create an alternative ending. This works particularly well with creative learners ✨ 🔗 Check it out here: https://play.aidungeon.com/

Which aspect of teaching would you like to explore further? 👇

Teachers are always looking for ways to improve — it's the backbone of our existence💪 To satisfy that crave, we'd like you to choose a topic you'd love to learn more about. 🔍 Let's do a quick teacher curiosity check: Which aspect of teaching would you like to explore further? 👇

The time for summer vacations has finally come, but that doesn’t mean a teacher’s work is done. Especially when a sudden burst of creativity strikes somewhere in the middle of Cape Sounion in Greece☀️ 💬 Teachers, what about you? Are you going to loaf around with a piña colada 🍹 during your vacation, or will you be working into the wee hours, creating new lesson plans📝? Share your answer in the comments 👇

Half the lesson has already passed, but your students are still deciding what hamster they are today 🐹 And you already know there will be no production stage 😕 Poor time management happens to the best of us, so let's look at a few ways to improve it 🕔 1️⃣ Write down time slots. During the lesson planning stage, make it visible how much time you'll dedicate to each stage. For example: Warm-up: 11:00–11:05 Revision: 11:05–11:15 Lead-in: 11:15–11:20 This helps you stay on track and spot potential issues before the lesson even begins. 2️⃣ Start from the end If you know the topic is challenging and will require a lot — and we mean a LOT — of practice during the production stage, make that your priority. For example: Production stage: 20 minutes (11:30–11:50) Then leave time for language feedback and a cool-down, and work backwards until you reach the warm-up stage. 3️⃣ Use Visual Timers. Project a countdown timer (such as the Zoom or Miro Timer) on the board. It holds you accountable and motivates students. 4️⃣ Combine stages. Most of the time, there's no need to separate the warm-up from revision. Ask students to talk about their day using language from the previous lesson. You can combine: • warm-up + revision • revision + lead-in • warm-up + lead-in This significantly reduces the time spent at the beginning of the lesson and leaves more room for cognitively demanding tasks later on. 5️⃣ Don’t be afraid to stop students. Sometimes lessons run over because we're too polite, awkward, or reluctant to interrupt. But if one student speaks for 5–10 minutes during open-class feedback, it means everyone else gets 5–10 fewer minutes to speak. Gently wrap up their contribution and move on to the next stage. 6️⃣ Control Your Teacher Talk Time (TTT). Use gestures, clear instructions, and ICQs (Instruction Checking Questions) like "Are you writing or speaking?" to prevent wasting time on over-explaining. 7️⃣ Be agile. Some days everything goes wrong and there's simply no time for the production stage. Move it to the next lesson and combine it with your warm-up as a form of revision. Sometimes the best lesson plan is the one you're willing to adapt ✨ 💬 Teachers, how do you manage your class time and make sure everything fits into the lesson?

Have you ever wanted to save time on lesson preparation and turned to ChatGPT for help, only to spend even more time correcting its output? Yeah, that’s a bummer 😤 Today, we want to show you how to write prompts more effectively so that AI can actually reduce your workload. Let's take a fill-in-the-gap activity as an example. 1️⃣ Always state that you are an ESL teacher. There is a huge difference between teaching English as a first language and as a second language. A simple phrase like "I'm an ESL teacher" is usually enough. 2️⃣ State your objective clearly. Don't just ask AI to create a fill-in-the-gap activity. If you do, the format may be difficult to copy or adapt later (especially if you're using Wordwall). Instead, write something like: "Create 10 sentences using the words I provide. The meaning of each word should be clear from the context of the sentence." 💡 NB! If you're creating activities for Wordwall, remember that the Complete the Sentence activity has a 200-word limit. To stay on the safe side, specify: "Word limit: 190 words." 3️⃣ Specify the topic. This helps ensure the language is relevant to your lesson. “Topic: ecology/long-distance friendship/unrealistic beauty standarts”. 4️⃣ Provide the target language. Simple “Words to use: reset my routine, to be deprived of sunlight, get my steps, to be in its prime, etc” is enough. 5️⃣ Mention the level of English. Tell AI who the material is for. “Adapt sentences for C1+ level learners”. 6️⃣ Specify the register if needed. If you need formal or informal language, say so. “Register: formal communication during negotiations.” 7️⃣ Encourage personalisation. If you'd like students to discuss the sentences afterwards, add: “Sentences should include words like "I, myself, me" to encourage personalisation of sentences and discussion.” Example prompt: "I'm an ESL teacher. I want to create 12 sentences using target language so that the meaning of the words is clear from the context. Word limit: 190 words. Topic: ecology. Words: to erode, to eliminate, corroded, etc. Adapt the sentences for B2-level learners." Examples that Chat GPT provided: - After years of deforestation, the riverbanks began to erode, and several farmers eventually lost parts of their land during the rainy season. - The chemicals released by the factory slowly corroded the metal pipes, causing toxic water to leak into the surrounding soil. 💡 NB! You will probably still need to tweak the output to match your preferences. But half the work is already done for you! 💬 If you find this post useful, drop a ❤️ and we'll share more prompt examples for different classroom activities.

The sun is out, the holidays are approaching, and summer is calling! ☀️ To help you get your students in the summer mood, we’ve prepared two low-prep activities for your classes. 1. This or That 🌴 • Prepare 3–4 sets of options for students to choose from. Examples: Beach vacation or mountain getaway? Ice cream every day or cold lemonade every day? A day by the pool or a day exploring a new city? • Use structures like: “I’d rather…”, “I prefer…”, “I opt for…”, “I’d go for”. • Students choose an option and justify their choice. ✅ Great for sharing preferences and getting students into a summer mood. 2. Never Have I Ever 🌞 🧩 How to do it (Pair Activity) • Prepare 5–7 summer-themed statements. Examples: Never have I ever fallen asleep on the beach and gotten sunburnt. Never have I ever gone swimming in the sea, a lake, or a river at midnight. Never have I ever canceled my plans because it was too hot outside. • Share the statements with students. • Students take turns reading them aloud. • If they've done it, they put a finger down and share a short story. • Their partner asks 1–2 follow-up questions before switching roles. 🧩 How to do it (Whole Class) • Teacher shares statements. • Show a sentence — everyone who’s done it quickly shares their short story. • Classmates can ask quick follow-up questions. ✅ Perfect for a walk down the memory lane and reviewing the Present Perfect and Past Simple!

CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) is a teaching approach in which students learn a subject and a foreign language at the same time. Instead of learning English only through grammar exercises, students might learn science, history, geography, art, or even maths in English. 🧐 How teachers can use CLIL You don't need to teach an entire subject in English to use CLIL. Many ESL teachers use light CLIL by incorporating content-based lessons into their courses. 1. Build lessons around a topic. Choose a subject area that is interesting, relevant, and age-appropriate. 2. Collaborate with subject teachers. If you work in a school, don't hesitate to ask your colleagues for help. No one knows their subject better than they do. 3. Teach the language that supports the content. If this part is neglected, the lesson is doomed to fail. Students need the vocabulary and structures required to discuss and understand the topic. 4. Use authentic materials (infographics, short articles, videos, etc.). They expose students to real-world language and make learning more meaningful. 5. Use project-based learning. Projects are one of the most common CLIL activities. Examples: create a travel brochure for a country, design a sustainable city, or develop a campaign to reduce plastic waste. If you'd like to see an example of a CLIL-based lesson, drop a ❤️!

Dizwa Simulator is the perfect tool for creating fake social media posts and chats. From Instagram DMs to Snapchat post generators — the possibilities are endless. 🔍 How teachers can use it: ✔️ Warm-up: helps activate students’ speaking ✔️ Pre-teach stage: introduces students to new vocabulary or grammar ✔️ Revision activity: hide words you want students to revise and let them guess them from context Creating these kinds of posts takes a bit of effort: you need to find eye-catching pictures and come up with engaging content (thankfully, ChatGPT is always there to help😉) 🔗 Check it out here: https://dizwa.com/simulators/ 💬 Which post generator would you try first: Instagram, Twitter (now X), or Snapchat?

Line Stand is a quick, energising activity that gets students moving and boosts creativity as they try to guess the other team’s prompt. A Line stand involves getting students to stand in a line according to information about them given in a prompt (e.g. age, who uses AI more, who’s a bigger foodie, who loves travelling more, etc.). 🏃 How to run it: ✅ Divide students into two groups on opposite sides of the room. Explain the task and model with age if needed. For online class: prepare a Miro/Canva/Zoom board with students’ names/photos and split them into Breakout Rooms. ✅ Give each team a prompt card and two minutes to organise themselves into a line. They must keep the prompt secret, so encourage whispering. Monitor and support. For online class: ask students to move their name/photos according to the order. ✅ Teams face each other and try to guess the other group’s prompt by observing and asking questions (e.g. Is it about places? Is it to do with your appearance? etc.) or make guesses. For online class: students take turns guessing in open class. ✅ The first team to guess the other team’s prompt card wins. ✅ If teams find it difficult, instead of taking a guess, they can ask for a “clue”: The other team must tell them one of the important words in their answer. 📌 It makes a useful lead-in at the start of a class. Let students know that the prompt is connected to the lesson topic to make guessing easier. 💬 Teachers, would you use this activity for offline or online class?

Trial class jitters are not an unknown character in a teacher’s career. The teacher smiles on the outside while mentally planning 17 backup activities. Meanwhile, the student thinks: “I hope it goes well and they like me.” Dear teachers, how do you feel? Are you cool as a cucumber, or do you get nervous too? 😬 Share in the comments 👇🏻

Hi dear Teachers🙂 Компанія YAPPI активно зростає - і вже зараз виходить на міжнародний ринок. Готуємо багато цікавих проєктів✨ і тому шукаємо класних викладачів англійської для співпраці (вечірні години). 👉 Ми будемо раді працювати разом, якщо ви: • Вільно володієте англійською мовою; • Маєте досвід викладання англійської мови групам дорослих від 2-х років; • Маєте вищу освіту у сфері філології, лінгвістики або іншу релевантну освіту; • Впевнено використовуєте онлайн-інструменти для навчання (наприклад, Miro, Quizlet, Wordwall); • Знайомі з комунікативною методикою викладання та принципами планування занять (наприклад, PPP framework); (При онлайн проєктах важлива можливість працювати під час відключень електроенергії). 💙 Що ми пропонуємо: ✔️Можливість обирати проєкти. ✔️Стабільне навантаження. ✔️Інтерактивний підручник, онлайн-платформу для проведення занять. ✔️Особистий кабінет на навчальній платформі школи. ✔️Співпрацю з ФОП (допомога у відкритті та звітності) / за договором. Дізнатись детальніше та та відгнукнутись можна тут: 🔗 Вакансія YAPPI Teacher

We teachers love surrounding ourselves with new knowledge: webinars, workshops, courses — and, most importantly, books 📚 So we’ve prepared a list of must-read books every teacher should get their hands on. 📘 Implementing Lexical Approach (Michael Lewis). The holy grail of the lexical approach — full of theory and reflection on lexis, the lexicon, collocations, fixed expressions, and even the role of the native language. It also includes examples of practical exercises. 📗 Lexical Grammar (Leo Selivan). A large number of exercises not only for working with grammar topics (from a chunks perspective), but also with texts, listening, writing, revision, and more. 📙 Spoken Grammar (John Hird). Another holy grail in its field. This book explores spoken grammar in depth and combines theory with a wide range of practical activities and exercises. 📕 Off the Page. (Craig Thaine). This book offers plenty of ideas on how to diversify the routine of working with a coursebook. You can find ideas on how to work with listening, reading, speaking, writing, grammar, and much more. A true source of inspiration for sure 🤗 📒 Activities for Cooperative Learning. (Jason Anderson). Perfect for those who work with groups. The book is filled with tons of exercises and activities focused on cooperation and collaboration. 📓 Working with Emergent Language. (Richard Chinn and Danny Norrington-Davies). Emergent Language is all the rage right now, and this book brings together everything you need to know: what EL is, why it matters, and how to work with it effectively. (But if you don’t feel like reading the whole book, you can always check out our post about EL 😉) Teachers, your turn, share your must-have books for teaching 💪🏻

Fraze•it is a resource designed to improve your writing skills. The platform is available not only in English, but also in French, Spanish, German, Italian, and Portuguese. 💬 As Fraze•it says: “Improve your writing skills, learn from professional writers. With more than 100 millions sentences, this is the most advanced platform for sentences on the net. Useful to the writing community, from professional writers to college and ESL students & teachers.” 🔍 How teachers can use it: 1. Show words in a variaty of contexts — from art to military. Thanks to advanced filters, you can even choose tense or sentence type (interrogative, negative, exclamative) in which you want the example to appear. 2. Check definitions from various dictionaries. 3. Translate words into students’ L1 (including Ukrainian ✨) 4. Let students hear native pronunciation through the embedded YouGlish website. 5. Provide a visial representation of words with the help of pictures. This platforms feels like ten separate Google searches made into one place, and we love it for that 🧡 📎 Save this tool for your future lesson! https://fraze.it/

“How was your day?” — “Good” “What is your favourite movie?” — “Dunno” You’ve tried every trick in the book, but your shy students still seem reluctant to talk? Shy learners are not necessarily unmotivated — they often just need a safer, less stressful way into communication. Here are a few things that can genuinely help 👇 1️⃣ Use pair work before open-class discussion. Speaking in front of one person feels very different from speaking in front of twelve. Give students 30–60 seconds to think individually before putting them into pairs or groups. By the time shy students speak publicly, they’ve already rehearsed their ideas once or twice. 2️⃣ Ask about their interests more. Maybe they love video games, or Breaking Bad is their favourite show. Start your warm-up with small personal questions related to their hobbies and interests. Nothing feels more encouraging than being genuinely heard. 3️⃣ Give them roles that feel manageable. Not every speaking task has to be a debate or presentation. Start with smaller communicative roles: • asking one follow-up question • reading instructions • summarizing a partner’s idea • choosing between options • being the “timekeeper” during discussions 4️⃣ Let students prepare language in advance. Sometimes students are silent simply because they don’t know how to start. Provide them with sentence starters, useful chunks, or conversation frames. 5️⃣ Normalize mistakes. Some students stay silent because they are terrified of sounding “stupid.” Reacting calmly to mistakes and focusing on communication first, accuracy second may help them feel safer. Not all students become loud, highly expressive speakers — and that’s okay. The goal is not to change their personality but to help feel comfortable enough to communicate 🫂 Teachers, share in the comments how you help your shy students speak 👇

Overwhelming, aggravating, serendipity. There’s always that one word that feels impossible to translate — either because it has too many meanings or because it’s become so deeply rooted in your brain that it feels like part of you. The more English you learn, the easier it becomes to explain a word rather than translate it. Don’t you agree? 👀 Teachers, what about you? 💬 What’s a word you can’t really translate, but simply ✨ vibe ✨ with? Share it in the comments.

‘Call my Bluff’ is a popular game based on a television game show. Here it is adapted for vocabulary learning in the cooperative classroom. ✏️ Preparation Prepare a set of words for your students from the upcoming unit or class. Check that all the words will be unfamiliar to your learners. Either take a set of dictionaries to class (one per pair), or arrange for Internet access to online learners’ dictionaries. 🧩 How to run it? • If students have never played ‘Call my Bluff’ before, start with a demonstration. Write your example word on the board, pronounce it, and tell them that it is a personality adjective/animal/any other topic. Tell them that you will give three definitions, and they must choose the correct one. Give them your three definitions and then give pairs/groups a moment to discuss and decide which one they think is the true definition. Confirm the correct answer and explain that they will now play this game. • Put students into pairs and give each pair 1–3 words and a dictionary or Internet access. In large classes you may need to repeat some of the cards twice. Tell them to find and make a note of the true definition of each word and also to write an example sentence with it, if possible. • Now tell them to also create two false definitions for each word. The false definitions should also be in the same category (i.e., personality adjectives, animals, etc). Monitor and provide help. 💡Tip: remind them to make sure that all three definitions are similar, so they will benefit by using similar language to the true definition. • When all pairs are finished, put them into larger groups so that three or four pairs are sitting together (if you have a small class, you can do this as a whole-class activity). • Pairs take turns to say their word and read out their three definitions for it. The other pairs listen and then decide which one they think is the true definition. Pairs who guess correctly score a point. If no one guesses correctly, the pair that read out the definitions score a point. Continue in this manner until all the words have been guessed. • At the end, elicit all the words and what each one means. 🧠 Extension ideas 1. The same vocabulary can be recycled in a few days’ time using a gap-fill, crossword or similar activity. 2. High-level students may enjoy watching the ‘Call my Bluff’ TV show, which is readily available on YouTube.

Learnhip is a platform for interactive learning activities, games, and teaching tools. 🔍 How teachers can use it: ✅ Create your own activities. You can build custom activities that you can share with your students for free. The platform offers 15 different tools, such as Tic-Tac-Toe, Gap-Fill exercise, Picture Reveal Quiz, Spin-the-Wheel and more. ✅ Ready-to-use activities. Sound quizzes, random conversation topics, story cards, themed conversation cards, and more are already prepared for you. Save your time by choosing one of the activities and jumping straight into your lesson. One feature that’s absolutely worth mentioning — News Article Finder. Simply enter a keyword and and set your preferred maximum word count to find suitable articles for your class. 📌NB! The keyword is searched throughout the entire article, not just the headline — so the results may not always be perfectly targeted. 📎 Chech it out here: https://learnhip.com/

The nagging though of not being enough seems to go hand in hand with being a teacher. Your instagram feed is full of “perfect” classes, a polished designs on Miro or Canva boards, teachers who seem to have a C3 level of English. And there it comes: insecurity, doubts about whether you even fit for this job, and, cherry on top, imposter sydrome. So how can we tone it down? 🧐 1️⃣ Stop chasing “native-like perfection” A lot of ESL teachers feel they must sound like a native speaker to be “legit.” That’s simply not true. Your value is clarity, structure, and empathy—not accent. Many students actually benefit more from non-native teachers because you understand their struggles. 2️⃣ You are not an encyclopedia Being a good teacher doesn’t mean knowing everything. If a student asks something tricky, it is a great opportunity to build their autonomy. Ask them to spend a few minutes looking for an asnwer, or say: “That’s a great question! Let’s check it together.” 3️⃣ Normalize mistakes (yours too) If you make a mistake in class, correct yourself calmly and move on. Students don’t lose respect, they actually trust you more. It’s not the end of the world if you say “I’ve seen an interesting movie yesterday”, even if it feels so. 4️⃣ Frequent feedback. If you still have doubts, make it a habit to collect feedback during the cool-down stage. Ask students to finish sentences like: • “Three words I associate with today’s class…” • “After this class, I feel…” • “I’m thankful to my teacher for…” You can also create a Google Form and ask for feedback once a month or every two months. It will highlight your strengths and show areas for improvement. The results will pleasently surprise you. 5️⃣ Track your progress. Teaching is about constant improvement. If you are not sure whether you are making one, recall your very first class or teview your lessons from a few months ago. Compare yourself only to your past self. No matter how cheesy it sounds. 6️⃣ Focus on student outcomes, not your performance. After a lesson, don’t ask “Was I good?”. focus on whether you achieved the lesson objectives and on your students’ results: “Did students speak more?”, “Did they understand and use the target language?” 7️⃣ You are enough! 🧡 Stop comparing yourself to what you see on the internet, you never know what actually happens behind the scenes. And let’s be honest: there’s a great reason your students chose you out of all teachers. Just remember, there is no perfection in teaching. There is no perfect class. There is no perfect student. There is no perfect teacher. 💬 Do you struggle with imposter syndrome? if yes, what’s your rule of thumb for dealing with it? 👇

The first class with a new group is always a nerve-wracking experience, for both students and the teacher. There’s always a chance that something might go wrong, or that students will feel shy around new people. That’s why it’s important to dedicate some time in the lesson to help students get to know each other. And there’s no better way to do it than with a speed meeting activity. 🧩 How to run it? 1. Create cards with age- and level-appropriate questions. 2. Put students into pairs. You can use the same card for all students or a different card for each pair/group. Give them 5 minutes to talk. 3. After some time, shuffle students and create new pairs. Students repeat the task with new partners. Mingle until all students has interacted with each other. 4. Monitor students as they perform activity, make notes on their language. 5. In open class, ask 1-2 students what they’ve learn about their partners or what common interests they found. 💬 Example of a card: Step one: introduce yourself. • Say your name. • Say your nickname or what you like to be called. Step two: answer each question below, and find out your partners answers. • If you could have any animal as a pet, what would it be and why? • What is your favourite holiday and how do you celebrate it? • If you could only eat one fast food chain for the rest of your life, what would it be? Drop a ❤️ if you find this activity useful.