Level 1

TeachingEnglish has lots of different activities for teachers who are teaching English around the world to children aged 5-12. To help you find suitable activities, we have three levels on our site. These activities for level 1 are most suitable for children who can understand and use some words and short phrases, and can follow simple stories, songs and texts. Teachers can use the levels as a guide. For example, if they start to find level 1 activities too easy, you can try more level 2 activities. However, all children learn differently, so try activities from different levels at any time, especially if it is a topic they enjoy.

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Where are you? Prepositions of place

Although this is a grammar point and you’d be advised to limit grammar input for primary learners, you can present the prepositions as units of vocabulary.

Zero Materials

Do you find yourself spending hours preparing your lessons? Are you getting very little support from colleagues? Is it difficult to know what to teach your children without a syllabus? Would you like some tips on how to create a good lesson when you find yourself with ten minutes to prepare a lesson, a broken photocopier, and your bag of teaching goodies safely locked up at home?

Lucky number 6

This is a quick simple game that reviews question forms and can be used as a warmer or a filler at the end of the lesson with all students aged 7 – 11.

Vanishing Dialogue

This activity practises language of ordering food in a restaurant although this can be adapted for any scenario. It's a great way to consolidate the language and recycle the vocabulary.

Scrabble letters

These activities all use letters from the classic game of Scrabble.

Drawing and colouring in the primary classroom

Art is an important part of the young learners’ development at school and can also be part of their English learning. Colouring shouldn’t and needn’t however become simply a means to fill in time. Here we look at different ways to use colouring and drawing and to practise English at the same time.

The Last Lesson

After teaching your pupils for a year you will probably have forgotten how much you’ve taught them and you’ll be pleasantly surprised to find out how much they actually remember. The last lesson is a great opportunity for having some fun and reviewing the year’s work at the same time.

Daily routines

This is a writing and speaking activity using the silent-method to practise the vocabulary of daily routines, present simple and telling the time.

My favourite day 2

This is the second in a two part series. Part two focuses on special days and birthdays in particular. You can do this early on in the school year so you can include as many children as possible. If you have a very large group, actually celebrating everyone's birthday is probably impossible. However this doesn't stop you knowing when their birthdays are and singing happy birthday!

Research and insight

Browse fascinating case studies, research papers, publications and books by researchers and ELT experts from around the world.

See our publications, research and insight