Language …as it’s Lived

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🌌 Immersive Worlds — Stepping Inside the Art (Pre-Intermediate, Listening & Speaking and Reading & Writing)

A two-hour queue for 45 seconds inside a mirror room: is that art, or just a selfie? From teamLab and Van Gogh projection shows to lantern-lit forest walks, millions of people no longer want to look at art. They want to stand inside it. Two versions share the vocabulary immersive, installation, exhibition, overwhelming, surround, participate, escape, reflection, projection, and queue, plus critical thinking on Kusama’s World, Immersive Art Shows and Immersive Experiences. The Listening & Speaking version has an Outside the Mirror Room dialogue, an At the Ticket Desk role play on the present perfect and past simple, and a bubble-chart reading. It ends with The Immersive Wars, a project where students design their own experience. The Reading & Writing version is built around an article on Yayoi Kusama, The Woman Who Invented the Immersive Experience, with paragraph writing and a Scenario Zone • Pre-Intermediate • 2026

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🕵️ It Must Have Been a Deepfake — Fact or Fake and Modals of Deduction (Pre-Intermediate, Four Skills)

A shark swimming down a flooded motorway. The Pope in a designer puffer jacket. Millions believed them, so what really happened? This four-skills lesson teaches modals of deduction for guessing about the past (may, might, could, must have + past participle, and couldn’t have). Listening, speaking, reading and writing are all included, with grammar and pronunciation built in. Key vocabulary includes deepfake, hoax, scam, rumour, clickbait, conspiracy theory, fact-check, and verified. Students work through short exchanges and pair work, pronunciation of the reduced “musta” and “coulda”, and a Real or Fake? podcast where an expert explains three callers’ stories. They then read Hoaxbusters: Fact or Fake?, which checks three viral stories, and finish with a Fact or Fake? Talk Zone • Pre-Intermediate (A2–B1) • 2026

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✂️ Where Did You Get That Done? — Getting Things Done and the Causative (Pre-Intermediate, Four Skills)

When did you last cut your own hair? Most of us pay someone else to fix, dye, pierce or alter things, and that is exactly where have / get something done is used. This four-skills lesson covers listening, speaking, reading and writing, with grammar and pronunciation built in, and turns the causative into everyday talk. Key vocabulary includes have a phone screen repaired, get your ears pierced, have a jacket altered, get your teeth whitened, and have your hair dyed. Activities include a Have You Ever Had …? class survey, a conversation and pair work, pronunciation of the weak schwa sound, and a New Look, Big Mistake podcast about a regrettable tattoo, hair that turned orange and a cheap phone repair. Students also read about the worldwide Repair Café movement in Don’t Throw It Away — Get It Fixed, and finish with a Getting Things Done Talk Zone • Pre-Intermediate (A2–B1) • 2026

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📺 I Wonder What It’s About — Shows, Streaming and Indirect Questions (Pre-Intermediate, Four Skills)

“Do you know if it’s any good?” “I wonder who’s in it.” Deciding what to watch is where indirect questions live, and this four-skills lesson — listening, speaking, reading and writing, with grammar and pronunciation built in — puts them to work on the shows students already stream. Key vocabulary includes K-drama, reality show, documentary, livestream, true-crime podcast, game show, and short drama, plus word partners like binge-watch a whole series, skip the ads, and follow a creator. Activities include short exchanges and pair work, an indirect questions grammar page, pronunciation of reduced do and can, a three-scene listening drama, Secrets at the Café, a reading about internet celebrities, From a Bedroom to Billions of Views, and a What’s On? Talk Zone • Pre-Intermediate (A2–B1) • 2026

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🏨 Hotel English — From the Front Desk to the Rooftop Pool (Pre-Intermediate)

“Could I get some extra towels, please?” Every hotel stay runs on polite requests. Part of a seven-lesson hospitality overhaul, this collection teaches front desk, keycard, concierge, bellhop, wake-up call, room upgrade, and function room. Students listen to a Checking In dialogue about a booking mix-up at the front desk, practise polite requests in an Asking the Concierge role play, read a hotel review scores graph, and choose between capsule rooms at The Pod Hotel and a chandelier in every room at The Grand Splendide in the Choose a Hotel Talk Zone. It ends with The Hotel Wars, where students design their own hotel • Pre-Intermediate • 2026

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👩‍🍳 Food Preparation and Kitchen Service — A Busy Night in the Kitchen (Pre-Intermediate and above)

A pinch of salt — or a whole spoonful? Step behind the kitchen doors of a busy bistro that also runs a catering service, where cooking, portions and spills all need careful handling. Key vocabulary includes pouring, sprinkling, a pinch, portion, spill, keeping track, catering, and dissatisfied. The lesson features an imperatives role play between a head chef and a new kitchen assistant, critical thinking on A Great Restaurant Kitchen, Excellent Front-of-House Service and Running a Catering Event, a catering portions graph, and a Catering Jobs Board Talk Zone (Wedding Buffet, Office Lunch). It finishes with The Pop-Up Wars project • Pre-Intermediate and above • 2026

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☠️ Toxicology — The Dose Makes the Poison (Pre-Intermediate & Intermediate, Reading & Writing)

Caffeine, paracetamol, even plain water — every substance is safe in a small amount and deadly in a large one. Built around the Tylenol Murders, the case that put safety seals on every medicine bottle, these reading, critical thinking and writing lessons come at two levels. The Pre-Intermediate version builds core words like toxin, dose, lethal, overdose, antidote, detect, trace, contaminate, and tamper; the Intermediate version moves to the phrases toxicologists and pharmacists really use — lethal dose, tox screen, cause of death, trace amounts, drug interaction, product recall, rule out, and wear off. Both include a How Much Is Too Much? short reading, three critical thinking sets, poison-centre and dosage graphs, four Scenario Zone dilemmas (wild mushrooms from a night market, six boxes of paracetamol, the unclear result, the contaminated batch), and a Paragraph Planner leading to a guided paragraph • Pre-Intermediate and Intermediate • 2026

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🦠 Epidemiology — Unpaid and Under Attack (Pre-Intermediate & Intermediate, Reading & Writing)

How do you stop a virus when the nurses fighting it are unpaid and under attack — and the official case count is a floor, not a ceiling? Built around a real Ebola epidemic in Central Africa, these two reading-and-writing lessons follow the health workers on the front line and the communities who don’t always trust them. The Pre-Intermediate version teaches outbreak, epidemic, spread, infect, quarantine, contact tracing, isolation unit, protective equipment, and mistrust; the Intermediate version raises the bar to declare an epidemic, confirmed cases, death toll, infection rate, official figures, safe burial, clinical trial, efficacy, and antiviral treatment. Each includes a short reading, an article adapted from the Financial Times with comprehension tasks, an outbreak graph, three critical thinking sets, four Scenario Zone dilemmas (a positive test, a funeral, 50,000 vaccine doses, a frightening number), and a Paragraph Planner leading to a guided paragraph on stopping an epidemic • Pre-Intermediate and Intermediate • 2026

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🏢 The Modern Office — Test Prep & Language Workout (T1–T6)

A lost briefcase, a broken water cooler and a front desk with nobody at it — welcome to the office. This six-part unit is test prep that doubles as an intensive language workout: visual vocabulary with audio (ventilation, briefcase, front desk, laminator, apprentice, mentor, compile, duplicate, verify, and interpersonal skills), a vocabulary quiz, a grammar focus on infinitives (regret to inform, stopped to buy, not to ignore), a listening page on catching the topic, reason and time of a conversation, a reading page on phrasal verbs like take over, put off, and run out of, and a four-part mini-test with audio • Pre-Intermediate–Intermediate • 2026

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🪪 Who Does What at Work — Test Prep & Language Workout (T1–T6)

Personnel manager, payroll clerk, bellhop, mailroom clerk — who actually does what? This unit maps the roles and responsibilities that keep a workplace running, with two visual vocabulary pages (procedure, queries, accessible, probationary period, accountable, entrepreneur, facilitate, and indispensable), a vocabulary quiz, a grammar focus that untangles like, as, as … as and as if — a favourite test trap — a listening page where students read a bar chart while following two conversations, a reading page on the five meanings of for, and a four-part mini-test with audio • Pre-Intermediate–Intermediate • 2026

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🧬 Forensic Science — Naming the Missing (Pre-Intermediate & Intermediate)

Forensic science used to mean crime shows. Today it runs through medical science, toxicology, public health and digital investigation, and students will meet it whatever they are studying. These reading, critical thinking and writing lessons take vocabulary like evidence, crime scene, autopsy, cold case, dental records, rule out a suspect, wrongful conviction, and track an outbreak into real scenarios: the crime scene and the first ever DNA case, disease detectives tracing an outbreak, the question of who can see your DNA, and the tsunami victim identification operation in Phuket, where 300 investigators from 30 countries worked to name 3,750 victims in one of the biggest forensic operations in history • Pre-Intermediate and Intermediate • 2026

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