TEFL Logue Review: Oxford University Press Teachers’ Club

I’ll admit it: sometimes I make fun of Headway. But I also sometimes teach from Headway – sometimes by choice – and it’s not a bad book. Following Sue’s comment on my post about tapescripts a few weeks ago, I decided to have a look around the Oxford University Press website – and there’s quite a lot of useful stuff there!

The site is massive, with pages, links and activities accompanying many of the Oxford books as well as categories of other information. I checked out the Headway links, mainly the Pre-Intermediate level, and found, in addition to tapescripts in Word which you can print, a crossword puzzle maker, extra readings and listening activities, and a student site where students can play online games, test themselves in self-selected areas, and listen to the Everyday English dialogs. The games are … well, games, and I don’t know that they’d go over well with adults in class – say, in a computer lab, but some students might find them useful at home. I took a test myself and apparently need to work on second conditionals.

One more feature is the section of warmers and fillers: there are a number of low-prep yet still engaging activities divided by level here. I frequently find I have to bring some amount of skepticism with me when reading activities online, but found most of these reasonable. Perhaps not rocket science as warmers go, but nice when you need something and nothing comes to mind.

You do need to register to use the site and give your email and a street address, but they don’t seem to mind that I live on Tefl Logue Ave. #4, so you’re welcome to be my neighbor.