The New Year is here and at Cambridge Assessment English we start the New Year with renewed enthusiasm! This month’s activities deal with positive plans and intentions and use our digital platform The Digital Teacher to make your lessons more interactive and attractive while remaining meaningful and useful. Victoria encourages your B1 students to take a virtual tour of King’s Cross station. The New Year is a good time to take up a new sport – our activity for A2 students gives them plenty of ideas to make the most of the cold weather. Doing exercise should be combined with a healthy diet so Starters groups will learn some new food and drink vocabulary. Finally, as we know that sometimes it is difficult to stick to our resolutions, the activity for B2 and C1 students tries to foster some reflection to come up with ideas to help us carry our resolutions through.

1. 1
January – New Year’s Resolutions
The New Year is here and at Cambridge Assessment English we start the New Year with
renewed enthusiasm! This month’s activities deal with positive plans and intentions and use
our digital platform The Digital Teacher to make your lessons more interactive and attractive
while remaining meaningful and useful. Victoria encourages your B1 students to take a virtual
tour of King’s Cross station. The New Year is a good time to take up a new sport – our activity
for A2 students gives them plenty of ideas to make the most of the cold weather. Doing
exercise should be combined with a healthy diet so Starters groups will learn some new food
and drink vocabulary. Finally, as we know that sometimes it is difficult to stick to our
resolutions, the activity for B2 and C1 students tries to foster some reflection to come up with
ideas to help us carry our resolutions through.
1. Take a trip!........................................................................................................................................2
2. New Year’s resolutions ...................................................................................................................6
3. Winter sports. Do more exercise!..................................................................................................8
4. Eat healthily! ...................................................................................................................................11
5. References......................................................................................................................................13

2. 2
1. Take a trip!
Level: B1
Skills: speaking, listening, writing
Interaction: whole class, pairs, individual activity
Pre-teaching: prepositions and structures to describe
pictures
Time: 75 minutes
Warm up (20’) – whole class activity/in pairs
 Do you like travelling?
 What is the most special place you have been to? Why was it special?
 What is the worst place you have been to? What made it the worst?
 Tell us about your most recent trip.
 What is your dream trip?
 Do you like planning everything in detail or do you prefer to just go?
 Have you ever had a serious problem when travelling e.g. delays, cancelled flights,
problems with accommodation?
 Do you read reviews before choosing accommodation, restaurants etc.? Why (not)?
Where do you go for this information?
 What aspects do you enjoy most when travelling?
 What aspects do you find the most difficult to put up with?
Brainstorming (15’) – whole class activity
 Do you like travelling by train? Why (not)?
 What comes to mind when you think of a train station?
 Think of tasks, problems, people and places that are related to train trips.
Speaking (10’) – in pairs
Ask you students to work in pairs. They will take turns to describe two pictures (one each)
while their partner is taking notes to give them feedback (aspects to improve and aspects they
did well in terms of grammar and vocabulary, pronunciation and discourse management). In
addition, s/he should have an active listening attitude (using body language and short phrases
to encourage their partner to continue talking and asking questions if their partner gets stuck).
Candidate A. Here is your photograph. Please tell me what you can see in your photograph.

3. 3
Candidate B. Here is your photograph. It also shows a train station. Please tell me what you
can see in it.
Candidate A
Candidate B

4. 4
Listening (10’) – individual activity
Your students are going to listen to very short extracts and they have to answer some
questions about them. Play the recordings twice.
Thinglink
Buying something from a newsagent.
1. What two services does the customer request?
At the ticket office
2. What did the man buy?
3. How much was it?
Asking for information on a delayed train.
4. What time was the train to Cambridge supposed to arrive?
5. Which platform is it due to leave from?
Ordering a coffee.
6. How much are the two americanos and the blueberry muffin?
7. How is the customer going to pay?
Follow up (20’) – individual activity/in pairs/Homework – individual activity
Your train has been delayed due to a technical problem. As a consequence, you and your
friend have missed your flight to New York. Write an email to the railway company asking for
compensation. You must include your journey details and explain the consequence of the
delay. Write 100 words.

5. 5
KEY
1. The customer wants to buy four first-class stamps and get £10 cashback.
2. He bought two single tickets to Cambridge.
3. He paid £18.
4. The train was supposed to leave at 15.48.
5. The train is due to leave from platform 1.
6. They are £4.50.
7. He is going to pay by card.

6. 6
2. New Year’s resolutions
Level: B2/C1
Skills: reading and speaking
Content: vocabulary related to activities, plans and intentions, future, past
Interaction: in pairs, individual, whole group activity
Pre-teaching: discourse markers and cohesive devices
Time: 45 minutes
Lead in (10’) – individual activity
Ask your students to read this article to get some background information and useful language.
Forbes article

7. 7
Warm up (10’) – whole group activity
1. What New Year’s resolutions do you think are the most popular?
Speaking (15’) – in pairs
Show the top 10 New Year’s resolutions for 2018.
 Are these resolutions similar to yours?
 Did you stick to them?
 What happened?
 How did you manage to stick to them?
Speaking (10’) – in pairs
Students should work in pairs. Each of them will have about two minutes to talk about their
resolutions. They should work on discourse management techniques (use of cohesive devices
and discourse markers, controlling hesitation, avoiding repetition, organisation of ideas). They
will have around 30 seconds to prepare their short monologue. Their partner will just listen but
should have an active listening attitude (using body language and short phrases to encourage
their partner to continue talking and asking questions if their partner gets stuck).
Choose one of your resolutions for 2018 and explain how you managed to stick to them or
why you didn’t. Try to find one resolution for 2019 that could work as a follow up to the one for
2018.
Top 10 New Year’s Resolutions for 2018
1. Eat better.
2. Exercise more.
3. Spend less money.
4. Self-care.
5. Read more books.
6. Learn a new skill.
7. Get a new job.
8. Make new friends.
9. Get a new hobby.
10. Be better organised.

8. 8
3. Winter sports. Do more exercise!
Level: A2
Skills: speaking
Content: sports vocabulary
Interaction: in pairs, in groups and whole class activity
Time: 50 minutes
Warm up (10’) – whole class activity
 How often do you do exercise?
 Do you play any sports?
 Is there a new sport you would like to take up?
 What winter sports do you know?
Vocabulary (10’) – whole class activity
Show all the winter sports. They have to identify the ones that aren’t real.
Follow up (15’) – in pairs
Which equipment do you need to play these sports? Where do you play these sports? Find
the vocabulary related to these sports in the word search and match it to the right sport.
There are a few words not related to winter sports.
SKIING ICE SKATING ICE HOCKEY SNOWBOARDING

9. 9
Follow up (15’) – groups of 3
Ask your students to choose one of the made up sports and draw a picture about it and write
the equipment they would need.

10. 10
KEY
SKIING
boots
goggles
helmet
mountain
poles
ski suit
ICE SKATING
rink
ski skates
ICE HOCKEY
ski skates
goal
helmet
mask
rink
skates
ski suit
puck
stick
SNOWBOARDING
board
goggles
helmet
mountain
ski suit
boots

11. 11
4. Eat healthily!
Level: Starters
Content: food and drink vocabulary, prepositions, spelling
Interaction: individual activity, whole class activity
Pre-teaching: prepositions
Time: 35 minutes
Warm up (15’) – whole class activity
1. What’s your favourite food?
2. Can you name a food that is red?
3. Can you name a food that is round?
4. Can you name a food that is sweet?
5. What do you have for breakfast?
6. What do you have for dinner?
7. What food don’t you like?
Activity (5’) – individual activity
Look at the pictures. Look at the letters. Write the words.
Example
cmare cei ice cream
1. oleemand _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
2. npppaiele _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
3. ftsakareb _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

12. 12
4. wemeanoltr _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
5. tooccun _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Follow up (10’) – whole class activity
The teacher can use flashcards/realia and ask students to put the food/drink in different
places while asking the rest of the students some questions.
Follow up (5’) – whole group activity*/Homework – individual activity
Game
* If done as a whole class activity, the teacher can ask questions about the food and drink
that appear in the game (colour, what is it, size, etc.).

13. 13
5. References
Allegue Barros, J. (2018). Choices. [image/ jpeg]. Available at:
https://unsplash.com/photos/C7B-ExXpOIE/info [20th
December 2018]
Ashmarin, S. (2009). Train Station / Volokolamsk, Russia [image/jpeg]. Available at:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?search=train+station+russia+photos&titl
e=Special%3ASearch&go=Go#/media/File:Train_Station_Volokolamsk,_Russia.jpg
[12th
December 2018].
Beheshti, N. (2018). New Year's Resolutions Don't Last. Try This Instead. [online] Forbes.
Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/nazbeheshti/2018/12/11/new-years-
resolutions-dont-last-try-this-instead/#24e24ec559da [5th
December 2018].
Bunkatt LLC (2011). Word Search. Available at:
https://www.flippity.net/ws.asp?k=1m3jzeGb7lY_9zdFA7ii4zGIS8bUDB9wMDJy5hN
DPg2s [19th
December 2018].
Davis, J. (2018). Wordcloud. Available at: https://www.jasondavies.com/wordcloud/ [13th
December 2018].
Dooley, I. (2017). I scream You Scream. [image/jpeg]. Available at:
https://unsplash.com/photos/TLD6iCOlyb0/info [20th
December 2018].
Eversley, T. (2016). Oats and Nuts in Gray Bowl. [image/jpeg]. Available at:
https://www.pexels.com/photo/bowl-breakfast-cereal-cereal-bowl-543730/ [20th
December 2018].
Higgins, J. (2016). Girl in Snow. [image/jpeg]. Available at:
https://unsplash.com/photos/HahhS2WmyKA/info [20th
December 2018].
Lawton, C. (2017). Map compass camera [image/jpeg]. Available at:
https://unsplash.com/photos/duQ1ulzTJbM/info [20th
December 2018].
Long, C. B. (2018). Tray of Lemonade. [image/jpeg]. Available at:
https://unsplash.com/photos/_PaXoN4_2s0 [19th
December 2018].
Romero-Dneprovski, C. (2012). Pineapple. [image/jpeg]. Available at:
https://www.pexels.com/photo/pineapple-951873/ [19th
December 2018].
Thinglink. Available at: https://www.thinglink.com/fullscreen/1123560477343875074 [20th
December 2018].
UCLES (2018). Teacher’s notes. Using Thinglink to support situational language teaching.
Available at: https://thedigitalteacher.com/assets/training/Teachers_Notes-
ThingLink.pdf [4th
December 2018].
UCLES (2018). The Digital Teacher [online]. How to use Thinglink to support situational
language teaching. Available at: https://thedigitalteacher.com/training/using-thinglink-
to-support-situational-language-teaching-lesson-plan [4th
December 2018].