Number - Bingo! pot

One of the students in each pair tries to guess who their partner is by asking Yes / No questions.. Tell the students to walk around the classroom and ask other students yes/no questions

• 25 numbers in each square

• nothing in it (blanc)

draws from a box If a student has this number, he/she puts a little scrap on the number The teacher goes on until a student gets five in a diagonal or horizontal row Bingo!

• 25 words in each square (for example

25 words of one unit) Make enough variations of these grids so each student has one that is slightly different

While it may seem time-consuming to make the grids, they can be used over and over This game is received very enthusiastically because often, students are already familiar with it It is great as a warmup activity and can have many

variations (past-participle,)© by Anja Schindler ;-)

• Cut out pictures or photographs of famous people from magazines or newspapers.

There are two ways to

play this game (depending

on the size of your

learner group)

1 Tape a name on the forehead of each student The individual student should not see his or her paper, but the others should

2 Then, like with 20 questions, only yes

or no questions should be asked Perhaps start with yourself and ask

"Am I am man?" If the answer is yes, I can ask again, but if the answer is no, it's the next person's turn

3 Play until everyone has guessed who

he or she is!

famous person Tell the students that they are the person in the picture they are holding Tell them not to let anyone see their picture

2 Divide the students into pairs

3 One of the students in each pair tries

to guess who their partner is by asking Yes / No questions For example, Are you a man? Are you an actor? Are you from Hong Kong? The partner answers in short Yes / No answers (e.g Yes, I am; No, I'm not.)

4 The student asking the questions continues asking questions until he / she correctly guesses who their partner is Remind them that they can only ask Yes / No questions even

if they think they know the answer (You are Julia Roberts (wrong) Are you Julia Roberts? (correct))

5 When the first student has guessed the famous person correctly, partners change roles and repeat Steps 3 and

4

This can be played with nationalities, countries, household

objects, food, … anything and it's a gas

the room and have the students stand near the center of the room, about an arm's length apart.

2 Tell the students your name is Simon You, as Simon, give instructions

to the students They are to do what you instruct only when you begin the

instruction with "Simon says " (e.g

"Simon says, 'Touch your nose.'") If you begin a command differently (e.g You only say, "Touch your nose.") then the students are not to obey your

command In other words, students should only respond to your command if you begin with "Simon says, "

3 As Simon you continue giving instructions to students telling them to touch, close, raise, etc different parts of the body, making sure to mix up proper commands (e.g "Simon says, 'Touch your nose.'") with improper commands

(e.g "Touch your nose.")

4 A student who responds to an improper command must leave the game and sit down

5 The last student left standing is the winner

The degree of difficulty of this game is left entirely up to you, the teacher You can give commands slowly or quickly You can correctly or incorrectly point to parts of the body, ensuring students listen carefully to what you say And finally, if you wish to be really tricky, you can point to parts of the body on

improper commands

Some example commands are listed below

"Simon says, 'Close your eyes.'"

"Simon says, 'Scratch your head.'"

"Simon says, 'Raise your right arm.'"

"Simon says, 'Touch your toes.'"

"Simon says, 'Fold your arms.'"

Find A Good Match

student will have one On half of the cards, write vocabulary items your students have seen recently On the other cards, write those same words phonetically

student and get students to find their new partner and sit down together

2 Tell each pair to look at their word and work out what it means

3 Ask each pair what their word is and what it means

longer, feedback, get each pair to give a definition of their word The other

students have to guess what the word is

2 On the blackboard, draw spaces for the number of letters in a word

3 Have the players guess letters in the word alternating between the teams

 If a letter in the word is guessed correctly, the teacher writes it into the correct space

 If a letter is guessed which is not in the word, the teacher draws part of the man being hanged

 The team which can guess the word first receives a point, then start the game over

Word Grab with Songs

Language

Aims:

To review vocabulary and it is a wonderful activity if you think your class needs waking up a little

have not heard before Choose 10-15 pieces of vocabulary from the song and write them on separate pieces of paper

4 Play the song

5 When the 2 students at the front of their line hear a word in the song that

is on the board they must race each other to grab that word from the board

6 They then go to the back of the line and it's up to the next pair

7 The team with the most words wins

Variation:

Be careful this can get quite violent!

I don't usually stop the tape so don't choose words that come one after the other If you want to make it more difficult you can put red herrings up You can usually play the song a couple of times until they get all the words

In my suitcase there is a toothbrush (for example)

2 Student A finds an own word and goes on: In my suitcase there are a toothbrush, …

3 Student B repeats what A said and completes it with an own word

4 Play until everybody has tried to remember all the words or until one student makes a mistake

notes and write vocabulary words on each piece You might also need sticky tape.

center of the classroom

2 Place a piece of paper with a previously taught vocabulary word on the back of each student so the student cannot see it

3 Tell the students to walk around the classroom and ask other students yes/no questions to try to figure out what the word on their back is Tell the students they can only ask three questions to one person, then they have to move on to another person

It might go something like this:

"Am I a person?" "No."

"Am I an animal?" "No."

"Am I food?" "Yes."

(Move on to the next student.)

"Am I cheese?" "Erm not exactly."

"Am I made from cheese?" "Yes."

"Am I a sandwich?" "No."

(Move on to the next student.)

"Am I a pizza?" "Yes!"

4 After a student has guessed his/her word correctly, he/she can continue to circulate and answer other students' questions.

5 The activity is finished when

everyone has guessed his/her word

so other students can understand.

have learned from their lessons Write the word on the board or OHP

2 Underline the last letter of that word and ask the students to find a new word starting with that letter

3 Repeat this process until you are satisfied with the number of words students have produced

The students should line up (either standing or sitting) according to the order that they will follow Tell students this is a timed relay race and that they need to work fast Tell the first student

to shout out any word The second student carefully listens to that word and,

in particular, for the last letter of that word The second student then shouts out a new word that begins with that last

letter The third student then continues the process until all the students have given a word (Depending on the size of your class, you may wish to have the students go twice round instead of once,

as this activity can be very short.) You record how long it took the team to go once or twice round Put their time on the board or OHP for the other team to see The other team must beat this time

to win

newspapers, etc so that each student has one photograph to look at and describe.

of a person

2 Ask each student to write a description of the person in the photo, being sure to describe his / her

appearance and clothing

3 When all of the students are finished writing, collect their writing

4 Display all of the photos on the white board Give each person in the photographs a name Write the name above the photo

5 Read the descriptions from the students one at a time When a student thinks he / she knows which photo is being described, he / she shouts the name of the person in the photo

6 The student who has guessed the most people correctly is the winner

Variation As a variation, students can be divided

into two teams and members of each team are allowed to shout the names A student who answers correctly scores one point for his / her team If a team guesses incorrectly, the other team gets

to try and guess If neither team guesses correctly, continue to read out the description, and once again, both teams are allowed to guess The team with the most points at the end is the winner

for the students to try to identify (e.g

"clock") and then write on the board: I spy with my little eye something that begins with a 'c' Ask the students to find something in the the classroom that begins with the letter 'c' Allow students to continue guessing until someone guesses correctly

2 Ask the student who guessed correctly to look for something in the classroom for the other students to identify After he/she has picked something (e.g "window") he/she says, "I spy with my little eye something that begins with a 'w' The students try to find things that begin with the letter 'w' and continue guessing until someone guesses correctly

3 Repeat Step 2 until most or all students have had a turn

take all the vowels out of the words replacing them with a dash or line This can easily be done on the word

processor by using the Find and Replace tool The paragraph can: 1 be one you have worked on before; 2 introduce something you're going to do

in class that day; 3 be a list of commonly used classroom expressions;

or 4 be about your weekend, holiday, etc

Example: T_d_y w_s v_ry h_t _t r_ _ch_d 35 d_gr_ _s C_ls_ _ s _ w_sh _ h_d _ sw_mm_ng p_ _l

the vowels taken out of all of the words

2 Tell the students to fill in the missing vowels

3 When they have finished, have the students write the paragraph on a piece of paper

3 The student on the right must then say the number that comes after (i.e."5") The student on the left says the number before (i.e."3") Note: If the student who has the ball says the number 10, the student on the right says "0" and the student on the left says "9" It is probably a good idea to practice this first to make sure

students understand the rules of the game

4 After the students say the numbers, the student who caught the ball throws it to another student and Steps 2 and 3 are repeated If a student says an incorrect number,

he/she must leave the circle.

5 The last student(s) left standing wins

pieces and attach the pieces on the wall somewhere in the classroom so that the students can easily see it

to prepare pen and paper

2 Pin or tape a few copies of the chosen

text either on the classroom walls or just outside the class Students should not

be able to read the text from their seats

3 Explain that this is a race Student 'A'

should get up and run to the text, then read and remember as much as they can After this they must return to student 'B' and dictate what they have remembered Student 'B' then writes this down Students should change roles half way through the text The first pair to rewrite the text (without spelling or other errors !) is the winner

knowledge, prepositions, etc.)

ask the students Move desks to the sides of the classroom

teams of equal numbers The students to bring the chairs out into the middle of the room

2 Each team should form a row; students sit in chairs one behind the other to form a line perpendicular to the white board

3 Assign each member of the teams a number from 1 (front of the row) to the maximum number of team members (the end of the row)

4 Ask a question and then say a number For example, "What is the opposite of 'up'? Number 5." The

student who is number 5 on each team runs to the board to write the answer The first correct answer gets a point for his/her team

Pushing, stealing the other team's pen, and erasing the other team's answer is subject to penalty

transportation Include the verb that goes with the noun (e.g ride a bicycle; drive a car; fly a plane)

front of the class Show the student the first phrase (e.g ride a bicycle) Do not let the rest of the class see it

2 Tell the student to act out that action without using any words or sounds Encourage the student to exaggerate the action

3 The other students try to guess verbally what he/she is doing by making

a sentence in the present continuous

tense (e.g "You are riding a bicycle.").

4 The student who says the complete sentence correctly then gets to select a classmate to go up and act out the next phrase

word families Or let the student mime what they had for dinner last night

of three

Year' (or any other word or phrase of your choice) on the board and tell students that they have five minutes

to make as many words as possible from the letters in Happy New Year They can only use the letters once and may not add any letters that are not in the word or phrase

3. Explain that the group with the most words wins At the end of 5 minutes ask the groups to count their words to determine the winner

Check the winning groups answers The group to call out the words whilst you write them on the board You may also like to follow up by inviting other members of the class add other words that the winning group missed

includes all the words on the board

list of the names of about ten items

quick vocabulary quiz with them so they need to have a pen and a piece

of rough paper

2 Tell them that you will point to something in the room and they must write down the English word for that object (They are not allowed to talk or share answers with other students or use their dictionaries.)

3 Say "Number 1" and point to an object (e.g a chair) The students then write down the word for that object on their paper: In the example they would

write down: 1 chair.

4 Then say "Number 2" and point to a different object (This could be

something more difficult like the

whiteboard or a cassette recorder.) Students continue to write the words for these things on their paper

5 Continue until you have pointed to about 10 things around the room (These could include: a pencil case, a schoolbag, a dictionary, the light switch, a whiteboard marker, etc.) Then tell students to stop writing

6 Students can then compare answers

or you can do a check of their

answers straight away by pointing again to the items and asking

students for the English words (You will need to refer to the list you made before class to help you remember the order of the items.) Write the correct spelling of these words on the board so that students can check their answers and correct any

pronunciation errors as students say the names of the objects