Language …as it’s Lived
Contemporary topics for a changing world.
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Choose from our comprehensive collection of ESL teaching resources
Business & Workplace English
AI in business, hybrid work, entrepreneurship, and money psychology
40+ exercises
Environmental Issues
Climate, water crisis, renewable energy, natural disasters
25+ lessons
AI & Technology
AI lessons, cybersecurity, computing, spatial computing
30+ activities
International Trade
Global commerce, supply chains, tariffs, trade negotiations
15+ exercises
Tourism & Hospitality
Hotels, travel, guest services, restaurants, cultural tourism
20+ exercises
Data Literacy
Charts, graphs, statistics, data interpretation skills
12+ exercises
Customer & Consumer
Professional service skills, complaints, self-service
18+ scenarios
Health, Wellness & Medical English
Modern healthcare, personal wellbeing, medical technology
20+ lessons
Role Play Activities
Realistic scenarios for speaking practice and fluency
50+ activities
Soft Skills
Emotional intelligence, communication, teamwork, workplace relationships
25+ exercises
Psychology & Behaviour
Fears and phobias, motivation, decision-making, human behaviour
15+ lessons
Socializing & Small Talk
Networking conversations, small talk strategies, social English
15+ activities
Latest Materials
Recently added lessons and exercise collections
🧬 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
Contents (Pre-Int) →
Contents (Int) →
Sample (Pre-Int) →
Sample (Int) →
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🎧 Audio Worlds — Life Inside the Bubble (Pre-Intermediate)
Earbuds in, world out. We commute, study and work out inside private bubbles of sound — and barely notice we’re doing it. Students build everyday listening vocabulary like earbuds, wireless, block out, background noise, noise-cancelling, playlist, battery life, personal space, and sound quality, then use it in a Three Pairs of Headphones dialogue, a Priya-and-Jack used to role play comparing CD players with today, three critical thinking sets (Everyday Uses, Headphone Manners, Safe Listening), a Which Device for Which Moment? Talk Zone with pictures, a Where People Use Headphones graph worksheet, and a Design Your Own Audio Device finale • Pre-Intermediate • 2026
🎧 Audio Worlds — The Future of Hearables (Intermediate)
Your earbuds can erase a city, translate a stranger, and track every minute you listen. Should they? This intermediate version pushes into tier-2 collocations like active noise cancellation, auditory bubble, bone conduction, spatial audio, real-time translation, sound leakage, volume limiter, and situational awareness, through a researcher’s Living in Audio Worlds lecture, a second-conditional Imagining Audio Futures role play, three critical thinking sets (Auditory Bubbles and Public Space, The Future of Hearables, Hearing Health in a Loud World), a Headphone Shop Talk Zone, a Listening Hours & Ownership by Age graph worksheet, and a Create Your Own Audio World capstone • Intermediate • 2026
🍟 Living Ultra — When Everything Goes Beyond (Pre-Intermediate, Reading & Writing)
Ultra soap. Ultra beer. Ultra phones. How did a little Latin prefix end up on half the supermarket? This reading-and-writing lesson is built around It’s Not Just Food. Our Whole World Is ‘Ultra’, an article adapted from the New York Times Magazine, teaching vocabulary like ultra-processed, ingredients, additives, nutrition label, artificial, homemade, whole grain, screen time, and beyond. Activities include three critical thinking sets (Reading the Label, Ultra-Processed Time, “Ultra” Products), Scenario Zone dilemma cards like The Snack Drawer and Simply Natural, a scaffolded Paragraph Planner, and a Main Idea and Paragraph Writing finale • Pre-Intermediate • 2026
🍟 Living Ultra — The Power of a Prefix (Intermediate, Reading & Writing)
Is an evening of fifteen-second videos the mental equivalent of a bag of cheese puffs? One doctor calls it “ultra-processed time.” Built around the same New York Times Magazine–adapted article, this version works with phrases like heavily processed, minimally processed, empty calories, artificial flavouring, a marketing buzzword, mindless scrolling, a cheap thrill, and cut back on, adds True/False/Not-Given comprehension with a passive-voice grammar thread, and sharpens the critical thinking with What Counts as Processed?, Engineered Experiences, and The Power of a Prefix — plus Scenario Zone dilemmas and a Paragraph Planner • Intermediate • 2026
📦 Behind the Scenes of Modern Life — Passive Voice
Tap “buy” on a Sunday night and a box is on your step by Tuesday. What happens in between is a story nobody sees — and it is told almost entirely in the passive. Students build the core tense with verbs like made, grown, assembled, packaged, shipped, tracked, scanned, stored, collected, recycled, and repaired, then put it to work in The Sneaker Journey dialogue, a Life of a T-Shirt factory tour lecture, The Delivery Problem role play, three critical thinking sets (Online Deliveries, How Food Gets to Us, What Happens to Recycling), a Where Were Our Things Made? graph worksheet, and a Product Wars finale where teams design and pitch their own product • Pre-Intermediate • 2026
📱 The Hidden Life of Products — Passive Voice
A recall notice lands, and suddenly nobody can say who made the battery. This lesson follows a product backwards through the supply chain and stretches the passive across its full range — perfect, modal, future and continuous — with vocabulary like mass-produced, sourced, distributed, monitored, recalled, refurbished, discontinued, automated, outsourced, and counterfeited. Activities include The Recall dialogue between Lena and Marco, a How Your Smartphone Is Made lecture, The Replacement grammar role play, three critical thinking sets (Automation and Jobs, Who Is Responsible When Products Fail?, Supply-Chain Transparency), a Life of a T-Shirt flow diagram, and a six-card Talk Zone interview on the product journey • Intermediate • 2026
🌍 A Changing World — Present Continuous
Late-night bars are winding down. Secondhand shops are booming. Everyone is cutting back on something. Describing a world mid-change is what the present continuous does best, and this collection lifts the tense into real trend language: catching on, taking off, cutting back on, phasing out, keeping up with, branching out, moving away from, adapting to, downsizing, and picking up speed. Students work through The Citywalk dialogue between Yuki and Marc, a How Life Is Changing lecture, a Café Update role play contrasting stative and continuous verbs, three critical thinking sets (Economic Pressures, The Attention Economy, Cities in Transition), a graph on how people are paying by age group, and a What’s Happening Right Now? Talk Zone • Intermediate • 2026
🥤 The Beverage Wars
A 70-year partnership. A surprise new rival. McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, and Red Bull are suddenly fighting over what goes in your cup — and this lesson tells the story at two levels. The Pre-Intermediate version builds core business vocabulary like rival, supplier, launch a product, boost sales, loyal, exotic, and innovate, while the Intermediate version levels up to market share, brand loyalty, saturated, diversify, flagship product, and joint venture. Each version includes a dialogue, a listening quiz on brand loyalty, a grammar role play, three critical thinking sets, a graph worksheet, and a Talk Zone meeting — and the Pre-Intermediate pack ends with a Launch Your Own Drink! capstone where teams pitch a new drink Shark Tank style • Pre-Intermediate & Intermediate • 2026
Contents (Pre-Int) →
Contents (Int) →
Preview Sample →
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🤝 Projects & Teamwork — Workplace Idioms Lesson
Every team has an elephant in the room nobody wants to name, and a colleague whose head is in the clouds. This rich set of activities teaches the idioms people really use to talk about projects and teamwork — put all your eggs in one basket, hit the nail on the head, digging yourself into a hole, a can of worms, a hot potato, couch potato, and every cloud has a silver lining. Highlights include a dialogue between Saskia and Milo weighing up a risky new product, a Tough Team Meeting grammar role play between a manager and team leader, a chart reading Where Project Time Is Lost, and a Run Your Own Business Talk Zone • Pre-Intermediate and above • 2026
🎯 Strategizing — Workplace Idioms Lesson
How do you turn a vague idea into a real game plan? Before a team can act, it has to strategize — and English has a whole toolkit of idioms for it. Learners practise expressions like map out, test the waters, get the ball rolling, in the pipeline, play it by ear, a long shot, take stock, weigh the pros and cons, plan B, and down the road. The lesson runs on a dialogue between Viktor and Dalia debating an AI rollout, a Strategizing: Advanced Modals role play between a strategy consultant and a startup founder, chart tasks (Our App Launch Game Plan; StudyBot AI’s First-Year Road Map), and a Strategy Planning Meeting Talk Zone • Pre-Intermediate and above • 2026
👟 The True Cost of Your Sneakers
A $100 pair of sneakers costs about $25 to make — so where does the rest of your money go? Students follow the shoe from an Asian factory floor to the U.S. store shelf, weighing cheap overseas labor and low wages against the push to reshore production and bring jobs back. They debate whether automation and robotics can ever close the price gap, why a real Nike plant in Mexico shut down within three years, and the unethical conditions that can hide behind a cheap price tag, finishing with a Sneaker Industry Jobs Talk Zone (Robotics Engineer, Footwear Designer, Quality Control Inspector) • Intermediate and above • 2026
🍽️ Restaurants and Food Service
“A table for two at eight? I’m sorry, we’re fully booked.” This lively collection takes students through the whole restaurant experience with vocabulary like book a table, starter, try the special, too salty, leave a tip, and ask for the bill. Activities include a listening quiz on what makes a great restaurant, a Saturday-night booking dialogue, a quantifiers role play between waiter and customer, three critical thinking sets (the customer’s view, running a successful restaurant, the future of dining), a customer spending chart, and the Customer Complaints Desk Talk Zone, where students handle Cold Food, Slow Service, Wrong Order, and Loud Music • High Elementary and above • 2026
⌚ Health and Wellbeing Tracking
Your watch knows you slept badly before you do. Millions of us now track our steps, sleep, and moods — but does the data actually help? Students learn vocabulary like blood flow, stress levels, heart rate, express yourself, concentrate, and escape through a fitness tracker dialogue, a modals role play on sleep and mood tracking, three critical thinking sets (daily tracking, preferred tools, motivation), a bar chart on activity benefits, and the Wellness Coach Consultation Talk Zone, where students advise clients on a Sleep Reset, a Stress Escape, a Mood Booster, or a Concentration Coach plan • Pre-Intermediate and above • 2026
💰 Psychology of Money
Why does money make us feel anxious, guilty, or proud? Our wallets are tied to our emotions in ways we rarely notice. This lesson explores the feelings and habits behind how we spend and save, with vocabulary like acquire, inherit, persuasive, destructive behavior, wears off, and worth. Activities include a Money Personality Quiz, three critical thinking worksheets, a gerunds-and-infinitives role play between a financial therapist and a young professional, graph reading, and a Talk Zone conversation menu for giving money advice • Pre-Intermediate and above • 2026
🏆 Success and Failure
Why do some people achieve their dreams while others give up? These carefully sequenced activities help students talk about ambition, setbacks, and what success really means, building vocabulary like measure success, determination, give up, my own business, and achieve your dreams. Along the way there’s a modal verbs role play between an interviewer and a success expert, a semantic gradation exercise, two critical thinking worksheets, graph reading, and Talk Zone scene cards for extended speaking • High Elementary – Pre-Intermediate • 2026
👜 Fake Fashion
That $40 “designer” bag at the night market — bargain or scam? Key vocabulary includes authentic, counterfeit, luxury, logo, inspect stitching, and verify a product, practised through a conditionals role play between a market seller and a suspicious customer, three critical thinking worksheets, graph reading, Talk Zone scenario cards, and a Detective Board activity where students gather the evidence and decide: real or fake? • Pre-Intermediate and above • 2026
💊 Fake Health and Wellness Products
Miracle pills. Two-day detoxes. “Doctor-approved” supplements sold through an ad at midnight. This collection examines the booming world of dubious health products, with vocabulary like supplement, misleading claims, side effects, contaminated, counterfeit medicines, and peptides. Students work through a word formation role play between a pharmacist and a customer, three critical thinking worksheets, graph reading, Talk Zone scenario cards, and a Detective Board activity for spotting the red flags before someone gets hurt • Pre-Intermediate and above • 2026