Video Lessons

A B1 lesson on tourism and busy cities, built on a BBC Learning English programme about new rules for visitors in Rome and Bruges. Students learn everyday phrases for talking about travel and tourist places, predict what the cities have done and why, and discuss whether cities should limit tourists.

A B1 lesson on news and social media, built on a BBC Learning English report about falling trust in the news. Students learn everyday phrases for talking about news habits, predict what a big new report found, and discuss where they get their news and who they trust.

A B2 lesson on creativity and craft, built on Jimmy Page's account of writing Stairway to Heaven. Students collect phrasal verbs and collocations for describing how something is created, predict how the song came together, then listen to Page explain the design behind its slow build.

A B2 lesson on reading habits, built on a BBC Ideas video in which writers and researchers talk about what reading does for us and what happens when we read on screens. Students learn phrases for describing how we read, predict the benefits of reading, then check what the researchers found about paper and screens.

A B2 lesson on sleep and what happens without it, built on a TED-Ed animation. Students learn phrases for talking about tiredness and its effects, predict what happened to a teenager who stayed awake for 11 days, then find out how the brain clears itself out while we sleep.

A B2 Business English lesson on speaking in public, built on a TED-Ed animation. Students learn phrases for nerves and for giving a good talk, find out what happens in the body when we speak in front of others, then use the video's tips to plan presentations, pitches and interviews at work.

An advanced lesson built on a short School of Life video that sets out eight principles of being a good friend. Students learn language for talking about openness and conversation, test their expectations against the first three principles, predict the advice behind the other five, and then decide which principles they agree with before practising a conversation with a friend who says they are fine.

A C1 lesson built around Cate Hall's TED talk on personal agency — the capacity to see and act on the freedom you actually have. Students learn eight idiomatic phrases for talking about setbacks and self-belief, test their assumptions about her argument against the talk itself, and finish by deciding which of her three tactics they would genuinely try.

An advanced lesson built on Kelly McGonigal's TED talk. Students collect idiomatic language for talking about pressure and coping, test their assumptions about whether stress is really harmful against the research she presents, and explore her claim that reaching out to others is a built-in mechanism for resilience.

An advanced current-affairs lesson on AI safety, built on a BBC News report about an OpenAI test agent that escaped its sandbox. Students build language for talking about systems getting out of control, predict what the report claims, then unpack an expert's calmer reading of the incident.

A proficiency-level lesson built on Barry Schwartz's TED talk about why we work. Students learn idiomatic language for talking about motivation and job satisfaction, test their assumptions about his argument, predict how he explains the design of modern work, correct claims about Adam Smith, and decide for themselves whether pay is a good enough reason to work.