Those of you who have come to see me in Paris and Salamanca might have not seen all the games described below as due to time constraints I had to modify and cut out some of the activities.
- Paper Conversations - students work in pairs. They need a piece of paper and something to write. Tell them they need to write a question they would like to ask their friend. Next, they exchange the papers, read the question they were given, answer it in writing, and write a follow up question to continue the conversation. They exchange papers again and continue repeating all the steps i.e. read the question, answer it, write a follow up. It works really well with very noisy classes especially teenagers as the students shouldn't speak at all during the activity. Also, used at the beginning of a class it tends to have a calming effect on the students. As a follow up, you may ask your students to take their 'paper conversation' home and look for any mistakes (tenses, question formation etc) and rewrite it or expand both questions and answers.
- The longest word - students line up in two rows facing the board. The teacher writes a long word horizontally (or vertically, which is an easier option) on the board twice (there should be one word for each group). After a signal, the students run to the board one by one and write down words beginning with one of the letters in the word written by the teacher in any order. The team that finishes first, wins. Extra point may be given to the team that writes the longest word. It works really well as a filler, ice-breaker or as a way of eliciting new lexis once you tell the students that they must write only certain types of words (e.g. personality adjectives or animals).
- A-Z race - students line up in two rows facing the board. The teacher writes all letters of the alphabet on the board twice, one on the left, one on the right (there should be set of letters for each group). The teacher chooses a category e.g. clothes, food, animals, sports etc. The students, after making a group decision, choose to eliminate 3-5 letters from each set of alphabets (the decision on how many depends on the teacher). Having done that, after a signal, the students run to the board one by one and write words beginning with each of the letters of alphabet in any order. The team that finishes first i.e. has a word for all the letters, wins. A variation involves having only one set of letters on a whiteboard and giving two teams two markers of different colours. In this case, the teacher decides who won by counting the words (e.g. 15 words written in green and 10 in blue means that the green marker team won). I use this game for brainstorming and eliciting ideas but it works fine as a revision acitivity as well.
- Revision Game - prepare a set of 25 A4 cards (scrap paper in my case). Number each card (A1-A5, B1-B5, C1-C5, D1-D5, E1-E5). On each card write a question or task you want your students to answer. To do it, copy things from the revision unit in the coursebook you're using. Three of the cards should contain a Bonus point. On the board create a grid
Revision game grid Example of question cards
- Two circles game (aka Spinning Ideas) this game is based on a worksheet I found on my desk one day and which has been recently identified as Spinning Ideas ('Games for Grammar Practice' by CUP). I have also seen a similar activity in 'Working with Words' by CUP. In the original game, the students, after being put in pairs or small groups, were presented with two circles containing places and certain modal verbs (see below). The teacher or a student rolls a dice twice (one for each circle) and depending on the number moved around each circle. Next the students had to write down three sentences combining a place from one circle with a modal verb from the other e.g. 5 and 5 - what you shouldn't do on holiday. Sentences are read aloud and 2 points are given if a sentence is logical and grammatically correct, 1 point, if there are some mistakes.
The original worksheet
- Who am I? (What am I?, Which city am I? etc)- the teacher prepares small cards with famous people’s/ film/ book character’s names – one for each student (you can use sticky labels to do that).
Labels with names of film/TV characters
- Call my bluff - students are put into teams and given dictionaries, one for each team. The teams choose a few difficult, new words from the dictionary that they think other people in class may not be familiar with. Stick around closely and help them choose as teenagers tend look for offensive language and slang and adults sometimes choose specialized words which, in general, are not the most useful ones to know. Next they have to create definitions for each word, only one of which should be correct. Allow them to copy parts of the definition from the dictionary but not all of it. When each team has e.g. 3 definitions they read them out to each other, choose the correct option and are given points. It's nice to keep putting all the words on the board and use them later e.g. to play Hot Seats or to write a story as homework. Needless to say, it's one of my first choices to practise relative clauses.
Have fun playing the games with your students!