Backs to the board

Most of you will know this, it is a very common and simple vocabulary game with great classroom potential. In this case, I use it to focus students' attention on new lexis. After a brainstorming session leads to a board full of words, sit a student with their back to the board and circle one of the words. Other students then describe it without saying it. The student sat with their back to the board has to guess what it is. Repeat this until three or four word remain, and move on.

Doctors and patients

This lesson can take anything from half an hour to an hour and a half.

Divide your class in half, half are doctors, half are patients.

• Put the patients in an area of the class which becomes the waiting room. The patients should either come up with their own symptoms, or you can give them a few ideas - the one who wakes up in the morning feeling sick, the one who can’t sleep or the one who’s putting on a lot of weight or the one who’s losing weight - you can have any kind of ailment you want and the idea is that every patient should visit every doctor and get advice from that doctor.

• Be careful to set a time limit for each consultation with the doctors. Once the patients have visited each doctor – they may want to make notes of the advice given – they return to the waiting area and decide who was the best doctor, and perhaps who was the craziest! Meanwhile, the doctors all get together, because they are at a medical conference, and they have to compare the advice they’d given – and perhaps decide who was the craziest patient!

This activity can be used for both vocabulary and structures - you can use it for reported speech ‘he said ... he told me…’, you can use it for practising modals like ‘should’ or ‘must’, or for practising verb patterns such as ‘he suggested I should ....’ or ‘he insisted on my doing ..’, ‘he told me to do ..’

It’s usually a great fun lesson, students love it because there’s lots of speaking and listening practice and they can use their imaginations and senses of humour.

Original Ideal by Gillie Cunningham, Teacher/Teacher Trainer

A creative writing activity: A dark and stormy night

This is an idea I learned when I first started teaching and still use to this day. The main focus of the activity is on developing writing skills, but it's also good for developing listening and reading skills and also for practising past tenses and descriptive vocabulary.

The activity should work at most levels above elementary, as long as your students have some knowledge of past tenses, but it works best when they also know past continuous / progressive too. All you need to get things started is a sheet of plain paper for each pair of students.

The listening part comes first:

• Ask the students to draw the face of a person in the top right-hand corner of the page.

• Once they've done this ask them to give the person a name.

• Then on the top left of the page ask them to write five adjectives to describe the person's appearance.

• Next ask them to write five more adjectives to describe the person's character.

• After they've done this ask the students to write three things that the person likes doing.

• Then ask them to write who the person lives with.

In this way they build up a character profile for the person they are going to write about.

The writing part:

• Now dictate the following sentence to your students: 'It was a dark and stormy night and'. Stop at this point and ask them to write in the name of the person they have drawn and followed by the word 'was'.

• Then ask the students to complete the sentence from their imagination and add one more sentence.

• Once all the students have added a sentence to their stories, get them to stop and pass the paper to the pair on their right (this means that every pair of students now has a new character).

• The students then read through the information and the beginning of the story and then add one more sentence to it.

• Once they've done this you ask them once more to pass the paper to the next pair on their right. Continue to do this with each pair of students adding a sentence to each story, gradually building up each story as the papers are passed around the class.

• Continue with this until you decide that the students are starting to lose interest or have written enough and then tell them to finish the story.

Follow up:

• Once all the stories are complete there are a number of follow-up options you can try.

• Put the stories up around the class and get the students to read them all and decide which is best.

• Give each pair of students a story and get them to try to find and correct errors.

• Get the students to write the stories up on a computer and then ask them to add more description and detail to the stories.

This activity is fun and creative and has always worked well for me both with adults and younger students.

Original Idea - Nik Peachey, Teacher, Trainer, Materials writer, British Council

Dating Game

This is a great activity for getting students talking. I have used it successfully with many different levels and age groups and have found that it is very effective at motivating teenagers to talk. It is particularly useful for practising describing appearance, character and interests.

Preparation
You will need a selection of flashcards of people, a mixture of ages and types.

Procedure

• Put a picture of a person on the board and ask the students to tell you his/her name, age and job. Write whatever they tell you on the board. (Note: at first they may be a bit confused and think that they should know the person, they will soon get the idea.)
  • Then ask them to describe him/her physically (again write what they tell you on the board). Repeat this procedure for his/her character and hobbies. You should end up with a paragraph profile of the person.
  • Read the description of the person and elicit from the students that he/she is not happy because they are single and would like to meet a man/woman.
  • Then follow the same procedure above to elicit a description of the person that they would like to meet. At the end of all this you should have two descriptions.
  • Tell the students that you see these kinds of descriptions in lonely hearts pages in magazines and newspapers.(You could even bring some in to show them.)

• Give the students a picture each and tell them not to show it to anyone. You may have to stress this, as it is a temptation to show the pictures to friends in the class. The students then have to write a description of the person in the picture and the person they would like to meet. Point out that they can use the model on the board as a guide. Monitor and feed in language as they need it.

• Tell the students to leave their pictures face down on the table and to mingle. The aim is for them to try and find a partner for the person in their picture. At lower levels they can take the description with them as they mingle. They need to talk to everybody and not just settle for the first person who comes along asking questions to ensure they find the right person. It is also a good idea to play some romantic music in the background as they are mingling (Marvin Gaye or Stevie Wonder).

• After you have given them enough time to find partners, stop the activity (if they are being very choosy give them a time limit and tell them they must compromise and find a partner). Conduct a feedback session and ask the students to tell the class about their invented character and the partner that they have found. The class can then see the pictures for the first time and decide if they think it will be a successful relationship.

Follow-up ideas

• Students can write the story of the relationship or can write letters to the new partners.

Variations

• You can change the context and replace the pictures of the people with pictures of houses/flats and ask the students to be either estate agents or buyers looking for a place to live. Again they can write descriptions of places they want to sell (of varying standards) and places they would like to buy, mingle and try to find their dream homes.

• You can adapt the basic idea to suit many different topics.

Original Idea - Richard Frost, British Council, Turkey

Past Perfect Practice

Begin the class telling students you’ve had a bad couple of days. Tell them that your house has been burgled. Begin the main part of the story by saying:

• ‘When I arrived home I realized I’d been burgled. I couldn’t believe my eyes. The burglars:
  
  • had broken down the door
  • had left my papers and photos all over the floor
  • had locked my dog in the cellar/shed had taken my... ( a special item)
  • had smashed a window
  • had stolen my laptop
  • had eaten the cake I’d bought for my (friend/daughter/wife)’s birthday
  • had urinated all over the floor
  • ...
    
  
  As you tell your story explain, or ask other class members to explain, any vocabulary students are not sure of.

Focus on language

• Once your students have a good mental picture of the crime scene write the first sentence up on the board:
  
  When I arrived home I saw the burglars...
  
  
• Together as a class get students to remember the various events and write up the list on the board. Then spend some time thinking about the form and meaning.
  
  • Do students know the name of this tense? (past perfect)
  • How is it formed? (had + past participle)
  • Why do we use this tense and not the simple past in this example? (The starting point for the story is when the teacher arrives home from work. The burglars’ actions all happen before this point in the past)
  • How could we tell the same story using only the simple past? (The burglars broke down the door. They stole the laptop etc. The teacher arrived home.)
    

Put students into groups of three or four and give each group a situation. They should keep this secret from other groups.

1. Parents arrive home from holiday having left their teenage son in charge of the house. They soon realize he’s had a big party while they been away. Start: When they arrived home they saw...
2. A man arrived home having left his new puppy on its own for the first time. Start: When he arrived home he saw...
3. Someone arrived home to discover his/her partner has clearly found out about the affair he/she’d been having with his/her secretary. Start: When s/he arrived home s/he saw...
4. A teacher came back into the class and realized she shouldn’t have left the students on their own for that long. Start: She walked back in and saw...
5. ...
   

• The teacher needs to go to each group just to make sure they have the idea of what to do and then continue to help and monitor throughout the activity.

Follow up

Once students have written seven or eight sentences, stop the activity and pass the papers from group to group. Each group should read the sentences and see if they can guess what the situation was from the sentences.

Good Writing Activity

Each person writes one or two sentences, folds the paper and passes it to the next person. Nobody can see what has been written before.

Each student needs a piece of paper and a pen, and the teacher needs a list of questions. This is a possible list of questions:

· What’s your name and where are you from?

· What do you like doing in your free time?

· Why are you learning English?

· What is your family like? (you could also say ‘Describe your family’ if the ‘is…like’ structure is too difficult)

· When was your last holiday? What did you do?

· What are you going to do this evening?

· What are your future plans? Is English important for your future?

· What is one thing you love and one thing you hate?

Students answered the questions one at a time, folded the paper and passed it on, then answered the next question. In the end, we had over one page of writing for each student, something which they are often reluctant to produce otherwise.

Integrating song titles in a text

Tell students to bring next day the names of their 10 favourite English songs.
The following day, put students in groups of 3 or 4 students and tell them to write a text integrating the titles of the songs.

First Conditional Warmer

Give one student a warning about some small, insignificant action, e.g. 'If you drop your pen it'll break'. Invite learners to continue by taking the second half of your warning and creating a new warning, e.g. 'If your pen breaks you won't be able to do your exam'. Once this sentence is established, elicit the next warning - becoming bigger and stranger as they go on: e.g. 'If you can't do your exam you'll have to leave school' etc. At the end, see if learners working in pairs can recall the whole chain of warnings - starting from that one small initial action. Pairs should then create their own chain starting from a new warning.

Because

Use this fun warmer to review 'because' and to practice listening skills.

Begin by telling the class something you did yesterday.

eg: I went to the market.

Choose a student and have them repeat what you said, add because, and give an explanation.

eg: I went to the market because I needed cilantro.

Then have that student choose a classmate, and have her repeat the process.

eg: I needed cilantro because I was making tacos. (S chooses a classmate to create a sentence using because) I was making tacos because it was my turn to cook.

Present Continuous Countries

First demonstrate it yourself: secretly choose a country (for example, France) and describe what (most/some/a few) people in that country are probably doing right now: 'Some people are drinking wine with cheese' etc. Provide additional sentences until someone guesses where it is. Then have students work in pairs and have them guess each other's secret country. You may also want to provide a map with time zones for this activity, or draw one on the board

Story Creation

Collect together a number of objects and place in a canvas bag. The objects can include everyday items i.e. a pencil, key-ring, mobile phone, but also include some more unusual ones i.e. a fossil, holiday photograph, wig! Pass the bag around the group and invite each young person to dip their hand into the bag (without looking) and pull out one of the objects. The leader begins a story which includes his object. After 20 seconds, the next person takes up the story and adds another 20 seconds, incorporating the object they are holding. And so on, until everyone has made a contribution to your epic literary tale.

Going to

Start by saying that all of us (the class) are friends with Paul (or any name you like), and that we are all going to bring him a gift/present. Explain that it´s a memory game and you have to remember what everyone is going to bring and continue until someone makes a mistake.
Example:
(First person) I´m going to Paul's party and I´m going to give him a t-shirt...
(second person) Í´m going to Paul´s party and I´m going to give him a t-shirt and a book...
So on and so on.
This can work for any level but especially basic. To make it harder you can make them adjectives and add rules such as all the nouns can only start with `s´.

Categories

*Divide the class in half.
*Mix up the alphabet cards.
*Write the category on the board. (See suggestions below)
*Show the students one card at a time.
*Students must shout out a word that begins with that letter in the category.
*Whoever you hear first with the correct answer, wins the card for their team.
*Whichever team has the most cards at the end, wins the round.

Some suggestions for Categories: *Animals *Fruit and Vegetables *Famous Dead People *Celebrities *Household Goods *Things in the Ocean *Gerunds *Past Tense Verbs *Things in the Grocery Store *Past Participles *Adjectives *Jobs *Things Found in Nature *Things in the Kitchen

Verbs TIC TAC TOE

The idea of the game is for groups to link together three squares to win as in normal tic-tac-toe. Groups gain a square by giving a correct sentence for their chosen word. In this way, you can target the game at any level you want for what ever target language you want.

Recipe Card Mix-Up

Give each student a recipe or index card. Choose about five questions that you might ask of students. Try to be as creative as possible with the questions. Possible questions might include the following:

What is the title of a favorite book?

What do you like doing in your free time?

What is your favorite game?

What is your favorite TV program?

If you could request your favorite meal for your birthday, what would that meal be?

Once students and the teacher have written their answers to the questions, collect the cards and shuffle them. Then pass out a card to each student being sure students do not receive their own cards. When everyone has a card each student has to find the student in the room who belongs to the card the student holds.

Word of the day

Start each day throughout the school year introducing a Word of the Day. Write the word on the board and ask students to read the word. Give a few clues for students to guess the meaning of the word. Then use the word in several statements.

Complete the Dialogue

SS complete a dialogue in pairs using their imagination. Then they act it out in front of the class. Which dialogue was the best? (vote)

E.g.1)

Ann: ...

Ben: My God!

Ann: ...

Ben:...

Ann: A big red one.

E.g.2)

George:...

Sharon:...

George: In the car park, I think.

Sharon:... George:...

Sharon: Thirty-seven pounds fifty!

Biographical Deductions

Repeating Chain

It is an enjoyable activity for students to familiarize the subject and have a good laugh at the same time

• Ask your students form a circle.

• Start the chain with a sentence in the target structure.

• The first student remembers and repeats what you said using the correct pronouns, and then adds his own sentence.

• The next student repeats what you and his friend said, and then adds his own sentence.

• The chain goes on like this till the last student.

Guess Who

Each student is to write, on a card, the following:

1. Something I have in common with everyone in the class is….
2. Something I have in common with several people in the class is…
3. Something I have in common with a few people in the class is…
4. Something I have in common with no one in the class is….

The teacher collects the cards and picks one at random. All students are standing and the first sentence is read by the teacher. Students try to guess who the writer is. The second sentence is read. If the common topic doesn’t apply to some students, those students sit down. Students guess again who they think the writer is. The third sentence is read, and again, those that don’t have the issue in common, sit down. Now with only a few left standing, the guessing continues. After the fourth sentence is read, only the writer should be left standing.