Contents
When teaching English in a classroom, it’s important to use phrases that help you manage each part of the lesson. This reference includes over 300 helpful classroom English phrases, neatly categorized for different parts of the lesson. The main sections covered are the beginning of the lesson, during the lesson, and the end of the lesson.
THE BEGINNING OF THE LESSON | Classroom English
Greetings
- Hello, everyone.
- Good morning, everybody.
- Good afternoon, class.
- Hello there, Tom.
- Good afternoon, everybody.
- How are you today?
- How are you getting on?
- How’s life?
- How are things with you?
- Are you feeling better today, David?
- What a lovely day!
- What a rainy day!
- Today is very cold, isn’t it?
Introductions
- My name is Mr/Mrs/Ms Smith. I’ll be teaching you English this year.
- I’m your new English teacher.
- I’ve got five lessons with you each week.
Time to begin
- Let’s begin today’s lesson.
- Let’s begin our lesson now.
- I hope you are all ready for your English lesson.
- I think we can start now.
- Is everybody ready to start?
- Now we can get down to work.
- It’s time to begin, please stop talking.
- I’m waiting for you to be quiet.
- Settle down now so we can start.
- We won’t start until everyone is quiet.
- Stop talking and be quiet.
Put your things away
- Pack your things away.
- Close your books.
- Put your books away.
Register
- Who isn’t here today?
- Who is absent today?
- Why were you absent last Friday, Tom?
- What’s the matter with Anna today?
- What’s wrong with Anna today?
Late
- We started ten minutes ago. What have you been doing?
- Did you oversleep?
- Don’t let it happen again.
- Where have you been?
- Did you miss your bus?
DURING THE LESSON | Classroom English
Classroom English | Common instructions
Instructions can be used at the beginning of a session
- Are you ready?
- Everybody …
- Pay attention, everybody.
- Open your books at page…
- You need pencils/rulers.
- We’ll learn how to …
- You have five minutes to do this.
- Turn to page …
- Look at activity five.
- Listen to this tape.
- Repeat after me.
- Again, please.
- Who’s next?
- Like this, not like that.
Comprehension language
- Do you get it?
- Are you with me?
- Are you OK?
- Do you follow me?
- OK so far?
- Do you understand?
- What did you say?
- One more time, please.
- Say it again, please.
- Like this?
- Is this OK?
Other common instructions
- Come in.
- Go out.
- Stand by your desks.
- Stand up.
- Sit down.
- Come to the front of the class.
- Put your hands up.
- Put your hands down.
- Hold your books/pens up.
- Show me your pencil.
Classroom English | Classroom management
Giving instructions
- Open your books at page 75.
- I want you all to join in.
- The whole class, please.
- All together now.
- Come out and write it on the board.
- Listen to the tape, please.
- Get into groups of four.
- Finish off this song at home.
- Everybody, please.
- Could you try the next one?
- I would like you to write this down.
- Would you mind switching the lights on?
- It might be an idea to leave this till next time.
- Who would like to read?
- Which topic will your group report on?
- Do you want to answer question 4?
- Can you all see the board?
Sequencing
- First/ First of all, today, …
- After that/ Then
- Right. Now we will go on to the next exercise.
- Have you finished?
- For the last thing today, let’s …
- Whose turn is it to read?
- Which question are you on?
- Next/ Next one, please.
- Who hasn’t answered yet?
- Let me explain what I want you to do next.
- The idea of this exercise is for you to …
- You have ten minutes to do this.
- Your time is up.
- Finish this by twenty to eleven.
- Have you found the place?
- Are you all ready?
Supervision
- Stop talking.
- Look this way.
- Listen to what … is saying.
- Leave that alone now.
- Be careful.
Questions
- Any questions?
- Do you have any questions?
- Now I’m going to ask you some questions.
- Who knows the answer?
- Raise your hand.
- Please raise your hand if you don’t understand.
- Try to answer by yourself.
- Try again.
- A full sentence, please.
- Use a full sentence please.
- Make a sentence.
- Say it in a loud voice.
- Louder, please!
- Again, please.
Responding to questions
- Yes, that’s right,
- Fine.
- Almost. Try again.
- What about this word?
Reference
- As I said earlier, …
- While we’re on the subject, …
- In the background you can see …
- The church was started in the last century.
- This is a picture of a typically English castle.
- Let me sum up.
Encouragement
- That’s interesting!
- That really is very kind of you.
- Don’t worry about it.
- Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll do better next time.
- I’m really impressed. I knew you could do it!
- Have a go! Have another try!
- Practise makes perfect.
- Good! Excellent! Well done! That’s great!
- That’ much better! You’re really improving.
- Your marks will get better if you practise more.
- Stop making excuses.
- Don’t pretend you can’t speak English, I know you can.
- Your marks are getting better all the time.
Classroom English | Error correction
Giving feedback to students
- Magnificent!
- Right!
- Fine.
- Very good.
- That’s very good.
- Great stuff!
- Well done.
- That’s it.
- Yes!
- Yes, you’ve got it.
- Fantastic!
- Very fine.
- That’s nice.
- I like that.
- Marvellous!
- You did a great job.
- Terrific!
- Wow!
- That’s correct.
- Quite right
- That’s right.
- That’s quite right.
- It depends.
- That’s much better.
- In a way, perhaps.
- You’ve improved a lot.
- Sort of, yes.
- That’s more like it.
- It might be, I suppose.
- That’s a lot better.
- You’re on the right lines (UK).
- There’s no hurry.
- Have a guess.
- That’s almost it.
- You’re halfway there.
- You’ve almost got it.
- You were almost right.
- There’s no need to rush.
- We have plenty of time
- Unfortunately not.
- I’m afraid that’s not quite right.
- Not quite right. Try again.
- Good try, but not quite right.
- You can’t say that, I’m afraid.
- You can’t use that word here.
- Have another try.
- Not really.
- Not exactly.
Classroom English | Special situations
- Happy birthday!
- Merry Christmas!
- I hope you all have a good Christmas.
- Happy New Year!
- All the best for the New Year.
- Happy Easter.
- Tom has his 11th birthday today.
- Anna is eleven today. Let’s sing “Happy Birthday”.
- Cheerio now.
- God bless!
- Have a nice weekend.
- Thanks for your help.
- Best of luck.
- Good luck.
- I hope you pass.
- Congratulations!
- Well done!
- Hard lines!
- Never mind.
- Better luck next time.
- Do you feel better today?
- Are you better now?
- Have you been ill?
- What was the matter?
- I’ll be back in a moment.
- Carry on with the exercise while I’m away.
- I’ve got to go next door for a moment.
- I’m afraid I can’t speak any louder.
- I seem to be losing my voice.
- I have a headache.
- I’m feeling under the weather.
- Do you mind if I sit down?
- I have a sore throat.
THE END OF THE LESSON | Classroom English
Time to stop
- Let’s stop now.
- It’s time to finish now.
- It’s almost time to stop.
- I’m afraid it’s time to finish now.
- We’ve run out of time.
- We’ll have to stop here.
- There’s the bell. It’s time to stop.
- That’s all for today. You can go now.
- Have you finished?
- Stop now.
- Any questions?
- Collect your work please.
- Pack up your books.
- One minute to finish that activity. It’s nearly time to go.
- Are your desks tidy?
- Don’t forget to bring your … tomorrow.
- The next class is waiting (outside/ to come in)
- You’ll be late for your next class (if you don’t stop now)
- We’ll have to finish this tomorrow/ in the next lesson
- Look at the time/ What time is it now?
- That’s all (we have time) for today.
Not time to stop
- The bell hasn’t gone yet.
- The lesson doesn’t finish till ten past.
- Hang on a moment.
- We seem to have finished early.
- Just a moment, please.
- Just a sec/ Just a second/ Wait for it!
- There are still three minutes to go.
- Just hold on a moment.
- One more thing before you go.
- We still have a couple of minutes left.
- Your watch must be fast.
- We have an extra five minutes.
- Sit quietly until the bell goes.
- Tom, you have to stay five extra minutes (as I told you earlier/ because you…)
- Back to your places.
- Stay where you are for a moment.
Homework
- Remember your homework.
- Take a worksheet as you leave.
- What do you have to do before the next lesson?
- This is your homework for tonight.
- Finish this exercise
- Do the next exercise tonight, and we’ll check it tomorrow.
- Prepare the next chapter for Tuesday.
- Do exercise 5 on page 36 for your homework. There is no homework today.
- There is no homework tonight (but there will be tomorrow)
Next time
- The next class starts at 7 o’clock.
- We’ll do the rest of this chapter next time.
- We’ve run out of time, so we’ll continue next lesson.
- We’ll continue this chapter next Monday.
- We’ll do some more practice of this in the next class.
- We’ll finish this exercise next lesson.
- We’re going to continue with this tomorrow, so please sit together again.
Goodbye
- Goodbye, everyone.
- See you again next Thursday/ next week/ tomorrow/ on Monday
- Have a good holiday.
- Enjoy your vacation.
- See you tomorrow afternoon.
- Stand up and say goodbye to the class, please
- See you in room 8 after the break.
Leaving the room
- Form a queue (UK) and wait for the bell.
- Get into a queue (UK).
- Be quiet as you leave. Other classes are still working.
- Try not to make any noise as you leave.
- It’s tidy up time
- Everybody outside!
- All of you get outside now!
- Hurry up and get out!
- Line up
Classroom Language For English Teachers | Video
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