Word Association

A nice quick filler or warmer to get the class thinking on their feet is just a quick round or two of word associations. There doesn't need to be any right or wrong answer.
There are a few ways of starting this activity. you can put a word on the board. flash a picture or

simply get your students to say any word and the next person in line has to say a word related to the previous one, without thinking. I always set a 2 second time limit. They just have to shout out the first word that comes into their head. You can do this around the class or get students to throw a ball around to keep them on their toes. It can take the class on a weird and wonderful journey. You can also learn an awful lot about the workings of your students minds.

Til the next time

Writing outside the box

Yes, write on that. Why? Because you can

While most of my posts are aimed at speaking and trying to get your students to open up as much as possible.
Today  I want to go down the writing road. I'm not going to try and pretend these ideas are mine, they're mostly from the weird wonderful mind the ELTgenius that is Chris Roland.http://chrisroland.net/ I've used them this year and they've really worked well on getting kids interested in writing and making sure teens actually give a damn about what comes from their pen.

Much like my recent potato post for speaking I've found writing on things that aren't there to be written on can really spark students' interest.

It's a fairly simple four step plan I implement each time I use something strange.
 I go through how to do said writing. Be it kids, exam students or adults.
 I do a quick plan and/or in class to make sure the students are all on the right track.
 Next I set the writing as homework and tell them in the next class, after correcting their work, they'll be writning their letter, essay, review on something a bit different, which is then put up around the room.

Some of the things I've used this year have been, tin foil/aluminium paper wrapped around an A4 sheet of paper, balloons, paper plates, napkins and latex gloves. Before I give any of the students their blank canvas I get the student to write me a letter of request to ask to use the object and to promise not to abuse it. They then in turn have to take great care and attention so as not to rip, burst or destroy their work. If they do, It's time to start again.

What this has done is made my students really focus on their work. They also end up having an almost perfect example of whatever piece of writing you have set and it sticks in their mind because it was somewhat out of the ordinary.

Making writing fun is the key to success and also giving students something fun to write on will really encourage them to do their homework. Can you imagine being in a class where all of your classmates are blowing up balloons and you'e stuck there doing the homework you "left at home."

Give it a shot. It realy livened up my writing session.

The Mind Boggles as does the game

Have you ever played boggle? It's a wonderful game to use in the classroom. you have a set of 16 dice each with 6 different letters on them. you shake them up and have to find as many words as you can. In the traditional games the letters have to be conected. In the classroom version I just get students to find as many words as they can. Or for the longest word they can conjure up with the letters on show in the time limit.  You can buy your own game then you can use it at home on those long cold rainy winter's nights or you can simply use an online generator.  I find the real game
engages my students more as they can be the ones in control of what letters come out and if there are 6 e's then they can blame Pablo and not just say it's impossible.
After the students have made a list or two I then ask them to use those words as the basis to a story or a dialogue between their teams. 
I tried this with my elementary adult class at the start of the year and saw they were porducing short sentences which often made very little sense. By the end of the year the students were trotting out bizarre and unique and often fairly racey stories. This game can really add to the studentes spontinaaity and helps them think on their feet about what to write. You can get students to keep a boggle folder and play the game a few times throughout the year. Your students will be able to see how much they've improved by the end of the year. Not only at writing but also at spotting hidden words within the game.

I trust you'll have as much fun with it as I have. Probably the best investment in a board game since buying Trivial Pursuit.