Note: Paid subscribers can download all nine lesson packages at the end of the post.
Looking at old lessons — last year’s, not just the really ancient ones — is an eye-opener. They are already out of date in so many ways, compared to what can be done now. There are deficiencies in content and organization. There’s no proper answer key. Put a 2026 lesson beside a lesson from last year and the difference in quality is obvious. Lessons from 2 years ago look positively primitive.
So the library now needs three kinds of work.
Recreating. An old lesson gets built again. Every page is rebuilt in the current formats, with improved content, and the answer key is an easy-to-read PDF.
Reversioning. Most earlier lessons were listening and speaking. A lot of teachers, and a lot of classes, need the same topic as reading and writing: same topic, same vocabulary, different skills.
Multi-leveling. One topic, several levels. The same lesson can now be built at intermediate, pre-intermediate or even lower pre-intermediate, so a teacher can pick the version that matches the language level of the class. The pictures, the scenario and the core words stay the same, and each level has its own PDF answer key.
Recreated
Body Language and Gestures (pre-intermediate) — one of the older lessons on the site, recreated from the ground up with the full 2026 set of exercises, a branded PDF answer key and a properly organised binder. It opens with a listening discussion — can you understand someone without words? Then a topic survey, an intercultural dialogue, three critical thinking sets (reading signals, cultural differences, effective non-verbal communication), a body language investigation role play built on frequency adverbs, a pronunciation page, and a graph reading page on which gestures are polite in Brazil, Japan, Germany and Egypt. The Talk Zone pictures and audio are the originals.
Digital Marketing and Customer Insights (TOEIC test prep, A2–B1) — a very old course book unit (used as a template) recreated completely: new content and new organization. Six parts: visual vocabulary (with an extra picture page), a vocabulary quiz, a grammar focus on gerunds, two listening pages (a conversation about a sneaker campaign with lots of views and flat sales, and a store manager’s morning meeting on why customers browse in the shop and buy on the app), a reading page on charts, tables and graphs, and a full mini-test with photographs, question-response, conversation, talk and three reading parts. The mini-test comes as a printable PDF (easily converted to an auto-graded Google Form). Vocabulary includes — buying behaviour, demographics, focus group, brand awareness, brick-and-mortar, incentive, rewards card.
Reversioned
Soft Skills in the Age of AI — Reading/Writing version (lower pre-intermediate) — the listening pages of the Soft Skills lesson replaced with reading and writing. The article, What Can’t a Robot Do?, is built on real hiring-manager surveys from 2025 and 2026. A Scenario Zone (People or Machines?) gives four scenarios with no correct answer — an AI-written apology, one free course, half a job. The Discover Your Strongest Soft Skills quiz is now scored by four groups of skills.
Future of Work — Reading/Writing version (pre-intermediate) — built on the Future of Work: Adapting and Skills listening lesson, same fifteen words. New pages: a topic survey, a short reading on the decline of the Phoenix call-centre economy (Goodbye, Cubicles), a 460-word article on the first graduates who grew up with AI (The Class of AI) with comprehension, and a paragraph planner that feeds the paragraph writing page. The brainstorm, vocabulary, collocations, opinion completion, three critical thinking sets and the jobs graph carry over from the original.
The Art of Small Talk — Reading/Writing version (pre-intermediate) — the same move for Small Talk. A short reading on why nobody talks in the lift, an article on the Chicago commuter experiment where people who dreaded talking to strangers on the train enjoyed it (Strangers on a Train), a graph of the most popular small talk topics, a Scenario Zone, and the planner-plus-paragraph writing pair. The brainstorm of small talk moves, the vocabulary, collocations and three critical thinking sets are the originals.
Multi-leveled
Toxicology — (pre-intermediate and intermediate) — poisons, overdoses and product recalls are general-interest topics, and the pre-intermediate version works in any class; the intermediate version has extra depth for medical science and pharmacy students. Both start with Paracelsus and a real case of water intoxication, then move to the Tylenol murders of 1982 — the reason every medicine bottle now has a safety seal. Both share the same Scenario Zone: night market mushrooms, six boxes of paracetamol, a lab result the police need by five o'clock, and a contaminated batch that would cost millions to recall. The pre-intermediate version works toxin, dose, lethal, tamper, contaminate, antidote; the intermediate version steps up to tox screen, rule out, cause of death, accidental overdose, drug interaction, product recall.
Epidemiology — (pre-intermediate and intermediate) — built around an adapted Financial Times report on the front-line workers fighting an Ebola outbreak: nurses unpaid for months, clinics attacked by angry crowds, funerals that spread the virus, and a vaccine never tested against this species. Both versions share the same Scenario Zone — quarantine without pay, a dangerous funeral, an untested vaccine, and a frightening number nobody wants to publish. The pre-intermediate version works outbreak, virus, spread, quarantine, contact tracing, isolation unit, protective equipment; the intermediate version steps up to confirmed cases, death toll, infection rate, official figures, safe burial, clinical trial, efficacy, and its graph and reading turn on one idea — the official number is a floor, not a ceiling.
Soft Skills at Work — Lower Pre-Intermediate (listening/speaking, W1–W13) — the June 2026 Soft Skills lesson with a lighter language load. Four colleagues argue about which soft skill matters most when robots are in the workplace; a team leader handles an angry client with active listening and a new delivery date; the grammar role play works frequency adverbs. The soft skills vocabulary itself is fairly advanced — empathy, work ethic, collaboration don't get easier — but everything around it has been simplified so that lower-level classes can handle a topic this important right now. This is the version for a class that found the original a step too far.
