About the Site

About Luke – Teacher and Writer

Hi! I’m Luke. I teach English, and I’m the writer of all the materials on this site. If you’re interested in doing online lessons with me, here’s the link.

I grew up in Northern Ireland, and studied at university in York and Cambridge (MPhil, 2005).

I’ve been in the English teaching industry since 2008, and have worked in twelve countries including Japan, Austria and Andorra. I soon got interested in creating content and activities for use in the classroom, and I’ve had a lot of fun writing unique lessons ever since. As you can see from this site, I like to use current news, interesting videos and the kinds of thought-provoking questions that you don’t see in many coursebooks.

I’ve also written teaching resources and exam items for various schools and organisations, and these have been used all around Europe and further afield. If you’re interested in working with me on a writing project, please contact me here or on LinkedIn.

Outside the things I do for work, I like growing plants from seed and I’m really into art, architecture and classical music.

About englishin3d

I set up this site in 2018, and started adding lessons the following year. My goal has always been to use the functionality of the web to create something more engaging and useful than the traditional textbooks which are still used in many language classrooms – or their clunky online versions. The site originally got its name, ‘English in 3 dimensions’, for two related reasons:

• Whereas textbooks tend to slice language into chunks of grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation (etcetera) and these chunks appear exactly once in the book, in one chapter, linked to one single topic, I wanted to write learning resources which would let learners repeat and revise these chunks – if they need to – and use the same language in different contexts. In my mind, I pictured these type of resources as adding another dimension to the flat, 2d shape of textbook English.
• I wanted the finished site to be a network of hyperlinked activities and resources which teachers and students could browse and explore together, taking more time over the bits that they feel will be most useful and leaving out any parts they don’t find useful. Whereas teaching from a textbook tends to be a linear process, teaching using hyperlinked pages would mirror the way that we browse for information online, providing more chance for students to choose what they learn.

English language teaching resources have changed a lot since 2018! There are now a lot more language learning apps than there were, and the ability of AI to create instant educational resources is something which looks likely to have an increasing impact on the way teaching is done. Probably, a lot of language-learners are managing without a teacher at all.

However, I reckon there is still plenty of room on the web for extended, high-quality lesson content. It’s easy to find online grammar tests, worksheets and games, but it takes a lot more effort to track down complete lessons that take learners on a journey through a particular theme and cover a range of skills along the way.

Additionally, many resource sites are paywalled and their focus is on pushing teachers to subscribe monthly or yearly. By contrast, I wanted most of the content of Englishin3d to be freely available to teachers and students for classroom use. The paywalled materials on my Payhip are simply the ones which took the most hours to write, and the income from users of these resources helps to cover the costs of maintaining the site.

About the lessons

I’d describe the method I use here as input-led: the lessons have mostly grown outwards from a text, video or sometimes just a word which caught my attention. If I find myself thinking about a story or issue, playing with scenarios in my head, or pondering the implications of a word or idea, the next stage is usually to consider how I can turn it into a lesson plan by borrowing texts and videos from around the web, and by adding discussion questions and communicative tasks.

Most of the lessons on this site have multiple pages, examining one concept or theme from different angles and introducing varied sub-themes. In some cases, the resource seems too long to be called a lesson – these I’ve labelled ‘modules’. In any case, there is no need to try to cover everything in a lesson or module; my suggestion is to include anything which students find useful or interesting, and leave the rest!

All the lessons are designed to be usable by students working alone with a teacher, or by students in groups with or without a teacher. For that reason, instructions are incorporated into the pages of the lessons, though in many cases there are purchasable teaching notes which contain fuller instructions and an answer key.

I welcome any constructive comments or feedback on the contents of the site. If you’re a student working without a teacher, feel free to use the comment boxes to test out new vocabulary by writing example sentences.

An important note on copyright

All of our written content on englishin3d.net is freely available to teachers and students for classroom use and you may freely download, store or print it: if you do any of these things, please make sure to include a note clearly acknowledging englishin3d.net as the owner of the material.

Do not republish or paste any of our content – from englishin3d.net or from Payhip – elsewhere on the web without our permission. You are welcome to refer to or comment upon our material on another website, on condition that you add a link to englishin3d.net and make sure to acknowledge the material as our work.

Purchasable downloads from our Payhip site are intended to be bought by individual teachers for classroom use. One purchase provides a licence for one teacher to use the purchased material for the purpose of teaching. Please do not share our purchasable resources with other teachers and please do not upload them to any servers, apps or websites.

Most of the photos and videos on this site are not ours and the rights belong to their respective owners.