Art Project (powered by Google)

Here's another lovely site if you want some visual stimulation for descriptive work.  With this website, you can go on a virtual tour of lots of the most famous art galleries in the world - MoMA in New York, the National Gallery and the Tate in London, The Hermitage in St Petersburg - if you're into art, it's really fab, and even if you think your students are not so interested in high culture, how much nicer to describe beautiful pictures than mediocre ones.

The gallery tour looks like this and you can navigate your way around using your mouse. 

 You can also zoom in and have a better look at individual pictures, like this:

There are lots of ways you could use these pictures.  You could use this picture, with low levels for example to practise prepositions (the bed is next to the wall, there are pictures on the wall, etc) and articles (there is a table under the window, on the table is a glass).  At higher levels ask them for homework to choose a museum, choose a picture and write a description of it, or just a paragraph on why they like it.

Limitations?  I guess it won't appeal to everyone, as quite a lot of people may feel that this is a bit 'high' culture - for teenagers, it may not be very 'cool' - and, to be honest, navigating your way around isn't all that easy (you can end up staring at the wall, or the ceiling or going through the wall into the street!), but it works well if you choose a museum and them go through the pictures that they have selected.

Worldmapper

This site is really interesting, especially if you have students who are quite politically aware (or you feel you'd like to make them more politically aware!).  It has a wide range of world maps that are distorted according to various criteria.  You can choose what you'd like to see -anything from numbers of people in tertiary education to internet use, and a whole raft of other things.  Below is an example of one showing GDP, showing how the purchasing power of various currencies varies form country to country and therefore the discrepancies in power between nations. It's a bit of an eye-opener....

I think that this would work very well with educated teenagers or adults who are interested in world events.  A simple print out would make a great warmer for a discussion on the topic and could be used for work on comparatives and superlatives, too. If you were teaching articles with geographical place names, it might make an interesting alternative to the 'take a trip round the world' activity, too.

I suppose that the only limitations are that the class would need to be fairly well educated and have a good sense of the actual geography of a world map (this wouldn't work so well with my ESOL class of middle aged South Asian women, I don't think) and that they need to have a background of expressing the kind of critical thought that this discussion would entail.