50 Direct Method Activities for Intermediate-Advanced Learners: A Very Practical Guide to Using the Direct Method in the ESL Classroom (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798185320679)

Break the intermediate plateau and get your stronger learners producing the language they already understand. Most learners at this level can follow a film and read a sophisticated argument, then open their mouths and produce a fraction of what they take in. This practical handbook tackles that gap head on, turning the Direct Method into fifty ready-to-teach activities that push learners off their safe core and into real, extended, precise speech.

The fifty activities sit in five sets that build higher-level spoken command step by step:

• Beat the plateau with activities that refuse the short, safe answer and demand more
• Close the gap between what learners understand and what they can actually say
• Build real fluency across sustaining long turns, narrating, arguing, handling nuance, and controlling register under pressure
• Pick up and teach in minutes thanks to a consistent eight-field format covering aim, level, time, materials, target language, procedure, variations and a teacher's note
• Stretch any group from B1 to C2, with variations built into every activity to push stronger learners and support less confident ones
• Develop precise, adult speech including hedging, emphasis, implication, tone and the language of genuine debate

Every activity runs on three moves: sustain, shape, sharpen. Learners keep talk going past the comfortable full stop, organise it into connected narrative and argument, then tighten it through inductive noticing and self-correction. The method is built entirely on production, which makes it ideally suited to the level where production is exactly what's stuck.

Whether your learners are stalled in comfortable fluency or reaching for genuine command, this book gives you everything you need to run a speaking-first course that moves them on. Written in a clear teacher-trainer voice by an experienced ELT author, it's a companion you'll reach for lesson after lesson. Buy the book today!