Here is a summary of some of the teacher ideas that were
shared last night. If I’ve missed anyone
out, please accept my apologies! Also,
if we’ve borrowed these ideas from anyone else, please accept our gratitude. I’ve summarized about 18 activities below,
but many more ideas were shared. What I
loved was the generative nature of the meeting.
As people were sharing their ideas, other ideas kept popping up, and by
sharing, our ideas grew to fit all kinds of teaching situations. Also, I tried my best to summarize everyone’s
activities. Any mistakes or omissions
are my own fault J. Anyway, as you can see, it was a very
fruitful evening!
Crystal:
Password: The class is divided into two groups, and two
chairs are put in front of the room.
Then, one person from each team comes up the front and sits on the
chairs with their backs to the whiteboards.
A vocabulary word is written up on the board, and then the each team has
to give the person at the front clues so they can guess what word is up on the
board. Hilarity ensues!
Madjid:
Add the adjective or
adverb: Create a short story with
just three or four sentences without any adjectives or adverbs. At each noun, stop and have the class
brainstorm as many adjectives as possible.
Put the choices up on the board.
Then, read the story again and stop at each verb and have the class
brainstorm as many adverbs as possible.
Put the choices up on the board.
Once all the possible adjectives and adverbs have been exhausted, have
groups rewrite the sentences with their choices of adjectives and adverbs added
in. Great for practicing collocations!
Eddie:
Liar Liar: Give each student three pieces of paper on
which they have to write three unique things about themselves. Then, bring three students to the front of
the class and have them put their papers in a pile. The teacher picks out one paper and reads it
aloud. The students at the front all
have to act as if what the teacher read aloud is true for them, but it will
only be true for one person. The class
has to ask questions to figure out who is telling the truth. Points can be awarded. Great for getting the class to know each
other at the beginning of a term.
Jeanie:
Vocabulary Review: This is a really active activity for the teacher. A topic is chose, such as body parts, and the
student then have to brainstorm as many body parts as possible for the
different areas of the body (head, torso, organs, etc.) As groups guess a body part, the teacher
writes that body part up on the appropriate area of the board. As groups run out of ideas, they drop out of
the game. The last group still
generating ideas wins!
Brenda:
Video Clip Idea: I have a Headache ESL: http://youtu.be/QJHtpAriDp0.
This catchy song can be used with
students to learn some of the expressions and vocabulary that go along with
having a headache. The class can
practice singing along, and then writing their own songs on the same
theme.
Participant (oops,
forgot who shared this – sorry!):
Verb Tennis: Create flashcards with the present tense on
one side and the past tense on the other.
In pairs, students show the cards to each other, and they have to either
shout out the present tense or the past tense.
Each correct answer gets a point.
Jane:
Communicating with
the Instructor: Students collaborate
in groups to think of ways to communicate with their instructor, for example
via email, through face book, during office hours, twitter, etc. For this discussion, a function can be added,
such as: Tell me more about that, can
you expand on this idea, etc. Great for
building awareness of register and how to write an email to a teacher.
Angela:
Vocabulary Envelope
Filler: Keep a big envelope of
vocabulary words connected to the current topic in the classroom on the
wall. If there are five minutes left at
the end of a class, students can grab words from the envelop to write
sentences, make skits, do frayer models, fit the word into conversation, etc. It’s a great filler, and a good way of
incorporating recycling of vocabulary into day to day teaching.
Participant (oops,
forgot who shared this – sorry!):
Muddiest point: If there are five minutes left at the end of
class, this makes a great closer.
Students work together in groups to decide on what the hardest, most
confusing part of the day’s less was.
They then share the muddiest point of the day’s lesson with the class,
and students try to clarify for each other.
The teacher facilitates the discussion, but doesn’t clarify.
Desiree:
Getting to Know You: Students are given cards with a topic on one
side and numbers on the other side.
Students then have to find their classmates with the same numbers on the
backs of their cards, and discuss the talking points on the front of the
cards. This is a great way to mix the
class up, and break the ice with people they don’t normally sit with.
Laura:
Blindfolded Drawing: Divide the class into groups. The groups all come up to the board, and one
person from each group is then blindfolded.
The groups are given something to draw (for example, draw a house, or
draw the teacher), and then the groups have to give directions to their
blindfolded members to draw the topic on the board as best they can. After a certain time limit, there is a big
reveal and the class votes on the best picture.
Laura said she found this activity on Dave’s ESL Café.
Heather:
Fruit Basket: The teacher sets up a circle of chairs with enough
chairs for each student except for one.
That one student has to stand in the middle of the circle. Beforehand, the teacher has prepared a basket
with statement strips. These sentences
can say things like “everyone wearing green socks”. When the class hears that, everyone wearing
green socks has to get up and change chairs.
Eventually, there will be a new person in the middle, and that person
will read out the statement strips. A
variation of this game is called “just like me.” In this variation, the person in the middle
has to say something about her or himself and people who have the same thing in
common have to get up and change chairs.
Lots of scrambling and lots of fun.
Rob:
Roll the Dice: This can be a great review activity. There is a large game board up at the front
of the class. This could be a simple one
drawn up on the board with a start, a finish, and squares in between. Students are divided up into groups, and they
are each given a mini-white board. The
teacher reads out a question, and the groups answer the question using the
mini-white boards. If a group gets the
answer correct, they can roll a dice and then move that many spots on the game
board. The first group to get to the end
of the game board wins.
Karen:
Wise Sayings: In this activity, the teacher shares a
proverb or a wise saying with the students, such as “A teacher can open a door,
but students have to decide to walk through.”
Then students come up with their own wise sayings and write them down
along with their names on a piece of paper.
Once everyone has a wise saying, they can share their wise sayings with
each other, explaining what they mean and why they chose them. The teacher can collect these wise
sayings. Later, the teacher can bring
out the wise sayings and quiz the class on who said what.
Participant (oops – I
forgot who shared this. Sorry!):
Draw Me: Students take time to interview each other,
but instead of writing down the answers to their interview questions, students
draw each other as best they can. When
the interviews are over, the teacher gathers up the portraits and puts them up
in the room like an art gallery.
Students can guess who is who in each of the pictures.
Eric:
Radio Plays: The students can break into groups to write
and record a radio play such as Casablanca or about Super Heroes. The radio plays should have both narration and
dialogue.
Donna:
Making a natural
product: Students gather the
ingredients and follow a recipe to make an all natural herbal ointment, such as
a tick repellent. This gets students
working together to create something in English. It’s a good example of Task-based language
teaching. This is great for students who
are camping or hiking.
Eddie (an extra one):
No No No Yes: Poker chips are distributed to all of the
students (for example each student receives six poker chips). Students then mingle in the classroom having
conversations with each other. However,
they are not allowed to say the words “no” or “yes” or any variations of those
words. For example, “yeah” and “nah” are
not allowed. If a conversational partner
says “yes” or “no” they have to give a poker chip away to the person they are
speaking to. The person with the most
poker chips at the end wins.
