A Fistful of Fillers. Loads of Games!

A few weeks back I was asked to do a training session at the academy for which I work. When it comes to training sessions and meeting my opinion has long been one of practical over theoretical. I truly beleive that as teachers we tend to prefer the talks we leave with a whole bunch of ideas and or materials which make our classroom and class planning a wee bit easier.
It was for that very reason that I put together this session of low prep, no technology games so they could be used whenever, whereever one chooses to use them.

Here's the handout. There is a little powerpoint that I tend to throw up in class so students know which game is which and what they have to look forward to if and when they complete the main tasks of the class. It also gives them the option of which "English Learning Activities" they get to play.

A terrible two minute transition? An awkward eight minutes remaining at the end of your planned materials?  This is a simple session to help you fill those gaps with something fun and rewarding. Activities you probably know and you may have seen in the past but completely forgot. Harry’s here to remind you and hopefully add a few to your teaching repertoire.

POWEPOINT

 Why is there a Monkey in your bag?

I tend to ask one of the stronger students this question. They are then forced to come up with an answer. In turn I get each of the students to ask a question about said monkey. You can then get the students to develop the idea and ask each other why they have various other bizarre objects in their bag. It’s great for question formation and imagination.  Works with all levels from about K2.

2.       Line of Excuses

A great cooler. As students are preparing to leave they have to give reasons as to why they should leave first to get their way to the front of the line. The teacher decides who has the best excuse and that person gets to leave first.

3.       City Race

Elicit a city from your students. Write them vertically down the board two or three times. Students must then take turns (in their teams) to come up to the board and write the longest word they can which starts with each letter. For higher levels you can make the parameters more difficult. Eg. Adjectives or Words related to a specific lexical set.

4.       Consequences/Secret Story

Students write a line each for a story and then fold the page. After 8 rounds the pages are unraveled and stories read. This game is great for working on narrative tenses and the art of surprise. The 8 topics I use are: 1: His name 2: Her name 3: Where they met 4: When they met 5: What he said 6: What she said 7: What happened next 8: Why did that happen.

5.       Pig, Dog, Cat, Duck

This is a pronunciation activity to work on weak forms. You can use any single syllable words from a lexical set. After Christmas perhaps you’d use. Toy, Ball, Doll, Car. Set a beat of about 112bpm. Then chant the words. Show them how the stress remains on the words even when other words are added. Stage 2. A pig, a dog, a cat, a duck. Stage 3. A pig and a dog and a cat and a duck. Stage 4. A pig and then a dog and then a cat and then a duck.

6.       Rapid Spidergram

This is as easy as it sounds. Write a word on the board about the topic you’re studying or about to study and get students to come to the board and write ANY word they can thing of related to that topic. I usually do this before and after a unit to show how much they’ve improved.

7.       Scattagories

I’m sure you often use this. It’s nothing like the board game of the same name. Although that is also super fun.  It’s similar to rapid spidergrams but it’s done in a notebook. I often ask other categories as opposed to just lexical sets.  Eg. Adverbs that don’t end LY. Or words containing the ə sound.

8.    Stop the Bus

This absolute classic has been a staple in my classroom since day one. 4/5 categories 1 letter.  Students have to complete each category using the letter chosen. When each category is complete they shout stop the bus and the game is over. You can make students write two or three in each column if they’re getting through the answers too quickly.

9.       Shark Bait

It’s hangman, it just looks different.

 Sound Match.

Start students with a word, the next student has to think of a word that starts with the same sound as the previous word ended with. Eg. Watch -  Chunder,

1   Lexical Phone Numbers

Write 0-9 on the board. Above each number write a word. Students then have to come up with a very short story including all the words that appear in their phone number. It’s a great way to recycle new vocab from the previous class.

1   Spoken Word Snake

Just like sound match except you just use the final letter from the word before.

1   Would you rather

A funny way to drill. You can make the questions as serious or silly as you like. The only important thing is students answer and then give their reasons. Eg. Would you rather have glitter ball eyes or a glow in the dark tongue? I’d obviously prefer to have a glow in the dark tongue because then I could read at night without having to run up huge electricity bills. After you’ve played a few times students will be able to come up with some real crackers.

1   Higher Lower

This is one of my favourites as you can use it to drill any kind of number and you can personalize it to you students. I usually start with something like Mount Everest and get students to guess its height. For time I get them to guess when I set my alarm or I ask them what time they had dinner. It’s great for numbers and comparative structures. You can use students’ height, shoe size, age of their grandparents. You can also get them to just think of a number between 1 and 10,000.

1   Word Sneak

This is a great way to recycle vocabulary. I often do it at the end of class to review new vocab. I give the students 5 words each and they have to seamlessly sneak them into a conversation. I normally give them a starting topic and see where the conversation goes. It’s also good to use at the start of a class to recycle vocab from the previous lesson, especially after the weekend.

1   Cheddar Gorge

A very simple game here, whereby your students create a story by using just one word each. You can make it a sentence each if you so desire.

1   Memory Shopping

It’s just a memory game you can use whatever lexical set you like. Start with, I went to the shop and I bought a banana. You then add an item to what you bought/need to buy and keep going around the room. I obviously did this one with Christmas presents. This year Santa brought me a beard comb…..

1   Alphabet Story Race

I get my students to think of a word for each letter of the alphabet and then sit with a partner and include each one in a quick story or a dialogue. Remember to encourage them to use each part of speech and not just nouns. Otherwise you’ll just get a boring list.

1   Where in the world am I?/20 Questions

Students chose a place on the map. The others have to guess where they are, more or less. This requires a small degree of geographical knowledge but it’s great for prepositions. If you’ve got a few maps then it also helps as you’re less geographically gifted lot can also figure it out. The obvious alternative to this is just 20 questions.

2   Odd one out/Throw it out

An old favourite with a recently discovered twist, thanks to a delightful lady named Gema. Give students 4 similar options they then have to discuss which one is the odd one out and why. The twisted version has you assigning each student a word and them fighting to their lives to remain as one of the three. I make out they’re all in a boat and the odd one out has to leave. Obviously this sends all the wrong messages about accepting differences in people but hey, you’re a banana get in the water.

2   Tenuous Link

Students are given 2 words they have to find a way of linking them in the most tenuous way possible. This is far better with higher levels as it gets more amusing and challenging. Eg. Table to Motor Torpedo boat. A table has legs, you can walk with legs, Birds have legs with which they walk they also have wings, wings are what make them fly, wings are also a prime component of a plane, some planes were built to drop bombs, others were built to land on the water, a motor torpedo boat goes both on the water and uses its own type of bomb.

2   Alphabet Challenge

Set a topic and students have to go through the alphabet in order naming one of each letter. Capital cities, food, Names etc.

2   Hot Seat

Utter classic. This can be played a few different ways, either with 5 words on the board that the other students have to describe or with a bunch of questions written on the board that the one in the chair has to answer.

2   Which one was yours?

Great for drilling. I get my students to write an item on a card. Perhaps a present they got or an innocuous item from their room. The cards/pieces of scrap paper are then mixed up and redistributed. Students then have to guess who the owner of their card is. I had my pet students saying. I can’t be sure but I reckon the beard comb belongs to Harry because he’s the only one in here with a beard like a majestic lion. (ok perhaps the reason wasn’t quite that elaborate)

2   Just a minute

Great for anything above PET. You give students a topic or a part one question. They then have to speak about it for a minute. Other students have to listen out for hesitation and repetition. I make this vaguely more interesting by giving each student an animal name and they have to interrupt but using said animals sound. The students speaking at the end of the minute gets the point. I often use this in a =’s and X’s kinda style.

2   Platanos Vs Bananas

This little game is a great way to get students up and moving. I use it for all levels. I put two opposing words/views on either side of the room. Students have to run to whichever they prefer. They then have to question each other as to why they chose the side they did. Eg. Cats vs Dogs. If Pablo choses dogs then you (or his cat loving, more awesome classmate) asks Why did you chose dogs, don’t you think they look far worse in selfies than cats?

2   Things You Should Never Say

This is a lovely funny filler I use with higher levels. I start with the easy ones like, things you should never say in an airport. “I’ve got a bomb.” I try and get them to think of situations. One student once said things you should never say in an elevator. “I’m just going to leave this smell for you guys.” was his divine answer.

2   Catagory Catch

I used to only use this with my kids but have started using it with higher levels as well to mix things up a bit. I simply grab a ball and throw it at to a student and shout a topic/category. Students have to both catch the ball and respond instantly without repeating what’s already been said. If they drop it they lose a life. I tend to give 2 or 3 lives. Eg.

Pepe, Animals: “Dog.” Good,

Carmen, Clothing: “A shirt.” Good.

Joaquin 15^th Century Renaissance Artist “Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simon, also known simply as Michel Angelo” Nice.  And so on.

2   Instant Role Play

Simply give your students a new identity a situation and tell them to have a conversation. If you want to give prompts and language by all means do. That does require more prep and thus makes it a bit less fillery. I usually do this as a last 3 minute thing and try re using the new vocab on the board as some kind of stimulus.

3   Word Association

Just give the students a word and they have to say the first word that comes into their head. The following student does the same. It’s a great little game to play whilst you’re doing some kinda of paper filling in, like a homework list or something.

3   5 words story

A simple and effective way to kill 5 minutes. Get students to use the theme of the day to write some kind of story. I did horror stories recently after teaching about fear. The example I gave them was one stolen from the internet. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Monday. One, particularly strange students came up with this classic: I cooked your dead cat. So be aware of who is in your class.

3   You scratch my back

This is a delightful way to get students out of their chairs and more comfortable with each other. I’ve used it to drill difficult spelling and just for fun. Students are put in a line the student at the front is the writer and the others are the information road. The student closest to the teacher is given a word. They then have to send it forward to their writer, without speaking. The method they have to use is simply drawing the word letter by letter on the back of the student in front of them with just their finger. They will then in turn do it to the person in front until they reach the writer who writes the final word on the board, letter by letter.

3   Ad something

A simple sentence transformed into a beautiful one. In this game I write a boring sentence on the board and get the students to AD something. After eliciting that adjectives and adverbs are the key to descriptive writing I set them off in pairs or threes to create the most descriptive sentence EVER. This on one I got from my CAE class a couple of weeks back. From: The Teacher Ate a Sandwich. To: The morbidly obese teacher greedily ate a disgustingly greasy BLT sandwich, without the L, the T or the sandwich.

Potatoes and Their True Potential

I've got root vegetables on the mind. Root vegetables? What are you on about Harry?!

I recently sparked a great deal of interest in one of my classes by walking simply placing a potato on my desk as the class walked in.

"Teacher, A potato?" questioned a rather befuddled Alfredo.

"Yes, Alfredo, it's a potato. Very good but what else could it be?" I asked the teenager usually nattering away in Spanish as he walks in.

He stopped in his tracks and respond it could be a Spanish omelette if we just added a few eggs and some onions.

After getting a few of the more obvious answers I got students to sit down in groups and try and write 10 unique uses of a potato.  We got a few good ones. A door stop. a pencil holder, a paper weight and one particularly strange students felt it would work well as an instrument of death as you could destroy the evidence in a delicious fashion. I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry. Or run to my car.

It's a great way to upgrade lower level students' language. I had my kids 4 (10 year old) saying things like:

"Well, it's a potato but it could be used as a toy."

For my B1 adults I created a quick conversation template that I put up on the board to get them to use language slightly above their level.

A: "Well, It's obviously a potato, but it could be used as a............ or even a........... not to mention a............."

B: "I see you're point. They're all great ideas. However, I'm pretty sure it would be best used as a............ . What do you reckon?"

My favourite idea from this class came from a lady in her early fifties who suggested the best use of a potato would be as a fake breast.

I've also found with my higher level students, teens in particular, it's a great way to get them using their mobile phones in class. Words like doorstop and bookend don't tend to pop up in everyday language, so after they've described what it could be used as:

"It could be used as the thing that keeps doors open."

I get them to take out their phones and ask Google exactly what it is. They type in, "What's the name of the thing that is used to keep doors open, in English."

As a warmer I found this really worked and got the students thinking straight away. I went on to try it with other vegetables and then on to other household items. By the end of the month students were disappointed if they walked in and there wasn't a foreign object sitting on my desk waiting to be analyzed.

Another fantastic item is the eternally useful paper clip. Which can be used as practical things such as opening your iPhone or other more surreal ideas like the zip on a zipline for small beasties. I was particularly fond of that idea.

Yesterday I ended the activity by telling my students that potatoes could be anything, which meant they were potatoes. I then went rouind and each students stated loud and proud. I AM A POTATO.

Give it a try. Get your students thinking outside the box as soon as they walk into the room. It'll go down as a class that lives long in the memory. That's for sure.

Til next time

Work Sneak with a twist

Those of you who have read my blog in the past may remember the game Shoehorn. Whereby students have to take words from the previous class or from the target vocabulary provided by the coursebook; and try to shoehorn them naturally into a somewhat contrived conversation. The results of this are often rather amusing, particularly with higher levels.

I've recently changed jobs and in our meeting we were sharing ideas.  A colleague of mine reminded me of the idea of rather than forcing the words into a conversation perhaps letting them do it a little more naturally and slightly less contrived. Students are provided with 5-10 words (from previous classes and from coursebooks) and they have to try and get them all into their speaking throughout the class. This idea jumped out at me and I decided to use it right away.

I'm not sure whether you stay on top of new vocab that occurs in class, but I do. I always write it on the side of the whiteboard, review it at the end of class and get a students to act as the scribe and write all the new vocabulary on very simple grids(which can be found here), which I later cut up and put into a box for each of my different classes. At the start of my next class I simply placed the words from the previous class on my students desks and asked them to keep their words a secret but to try and get them into the speaking throughout the class.

It went down a treat and at the end of the class students could announce how many words they'd used and the meaning of said words. The next class the pile of words grew and the task of getting the words into their natural speech became a little more difficult.

I hope your students, of all ages and abilities, enjoy it as much as mine did.

Til the next time

@ELFuencyfacilitator

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.

post-it fun for all ages.

Good morning one and all.
I'm sure you've all used and enjoyed one of 3m's finest inventions; the gloriously underrated post-it note. Be it as a reminder to pick up milk or an effort to get your son to remember to take his PE kit out of he washing.
How many of you have used it in a classroom situation? Quite a few I imagine.
This week I've been teaching clothes to my youngest students, body parts to some teens and idioms of the body to my adults. Whilst flicking through ideas online I saw people drawing outlines of their students on the white board and labelling them. I thought this might be a bit of fun. Rather than drawing around my students though I simply plunked them on a chair at the front of the class, gave each team a different colours set of post-its and got them to set about sticking them to the model at the front of class. After I saw that the kids enjoyed it so much I cranked it up a notch and tried it with my teens. A roaring success again. Finally it came to my adult class and as we all know adults are the biggest kids of all. They all got mega involved and were tearing around the classroom trying to stick their idioms to their classmate. Thankfully none of them had found a pain in the ass or being a right tit. That could've caused a complaint or two.

give it a shot. I guarantee every so gel student will have a blast.

Till next time

What's that sound, A step further.

good morrow one and all,
I've been talking a lot recently about the importance of pronunciation in class. I mentiod a few posts back about using the phonemic chart in the classroom as a useful tool but by no means as the be all and end all of how to help`pron.  I've been teaching my students, bit by bit, what each sound looks and sounds like. I mentioned my game What's that Sound a wee while ago. Not only does it help pron but it also throws up a whole bunch of new vocab the students would never have come across without a wee push. Well, it's been a few weeks since then and I have a whole bunch more sides that I've used in class. They have been added to the materials link just over there   --------------->                                                                                  Have fun with phonemes and don't thrust them upon your students or you'll just get a bunch of scared looking faces staring up at the utter guff you've projected in front of them.

I always follow the sounds, especially the minimal pairs, with a game or an activity in the next class to rehash them to the students. Minimal Phone numbers is always a favourite. I'll repost that blog next time so as to give you all a quick reminder and as a way of seeing some updated material.

'til next time

Game of Tones

Good afternoon all,

In further adventures from the land of STRIP I bring you. "You Had Me at Hello" This is a wonderfully quick activity which helps students understand the difference tone makes. With a great number of languages tone is absolutely vital so this concept is usually be very easily transmitted.

I start by asking the Ss what difference tone can make. I then arm them with two words. Hello and Really.  I  make sure they are aware the power these two words can weild and then I let them unleash that power on their partners.

For the first half of the activity I ask students to use one of the situatuions on the powerpoint (paper, boards) and speak to their partner in the tone of voice one would imagine a person in that situation would use. Their partner then has to guess which one they are trying to convey. If they get it wrong and feel their partner has misunderstoon the phrase then they can show them how it should be done.

It always helps to model the first two or three situations just to get students up to speed with the task. Especially those who aren't as quick as your star students.

When the students get to the Really section, I get them to translate or simply share with the class what each phrase means. Then they get 5 minutes to practice with a partner and finally they are called upon at random to do the same action as before, however, this time to the whole class. He, (or she) who guesses correctly get's to choose who speaks next.

The funnier you make the situations the more fun the students will have doing mock, over the top tones of voice.

As always you can find the slide for this within the STRIP presentation just there ------>STRIP materials
in  even more materials.

I hope your students enjoy this task as much as mine.

hasta la proxima.

H

Detective

A game I absolutely love to play with all my students is Detective. It's amazing for helping the formation of questions and is always a good laugh. What I've recently done, in conjunction with a game from the intonation section of STRIP, is combine it with question tags to add a bit of drilling and some much needed engagement with the grammar topic.

What I found with twenty question tags was it could get a bit stale when throwing this game into the mix it really livens things up. 

Before starting the activity you should obviously give. The students some target language. Some questions to ask, some responses to give. If you're doing this activity with question tags then really give a good review of those that could be used. O r perhaps just give students the statements and let them form the correct question tag. Eg. You took the rubber..... And You don't have any f&$#*£g evidence.......

To start the game I tend to build a story to get the students involved. I usually use something inane like a rubber or a pencil sharpener and tell the class that it holds the key to the very existence of the planet. If that rubber were to fall into the wrong hands all hell could and, most likely, would break loose.

Once the students are fully immersed in the tale I tell them that the item was, in fact, stolen the night before and two of the students, working as good cop and bad cop, would have to find the culprit in the class. 

I then send the two students out of the class and get them to decide who is the good cop and who is the bad cop, I also give them three or four minutes to prepare their questions. I give the rubber to a particularly angelic looking students and then, the two detective then re enter the class and set about questioning half of the class each. After five or six minutes the students should have a fair idea of who has taken the rubber of power. If they can retrieve the rubber they win the game and can throw it into the mount doom. 

Right I'm off to do some parenting.

Until the next time.

Just around the corner

With ACEIA just days away I've uploaded all of the content from my talk onto the link to the right (just a few materials.)
The talk has evolved ever so slightly so for all y'all who saw it at TEFL del Sur, there are some new treats and one or two changes and additions.

If you're at the conference this weekend. I assure you it's worth staying until the end. I'll treat you to a spectacular somewhat akin to a live Muse concert. Ok, that might be a bit of a lie, there will be no fireworks aside the metophorical ones flying around the room.