Class room ideas?

[henry villamor]

Test No. express/inter-4 "Picking you up", question 1

Nobody knows what's going on?

(a) meaning
(b) continuing
(c) happening
(d) taking

Test No. express/inter-4 "Picking you up", answer 1

Nobody knows what's happening?

Correct answer: (c) happening
_________________________

hello. im a teacher in english. i want to know more about speaking activities that can help my students learn and appreciate the subject.

thank you so much for sparing your time.

henry

[Englishfan]

Hello Henry, I have attended many English classes and of course I have had a lot of different English teachers both back at home and now here in Canada. All have them played various word games with us in the classroom, for example chainspelling. Do you know how it works? It's very simple: the teacher gives the class a word and one student has to spell it. If the student spells the word correctly, he or she can name a second student who then has to say word that begins with the last letter of the word the teacher had given. Then another student has to spell that word and so on. If a student makes a mistake he or she is out.
However, there was another game one of the teachers explained to us. At first I thought it's a stupid game which probably won't work but then I realized that most the people in our group liked it and the more often we played it the more I liked it too. Let me know if you want me to tell you that game. By the way, where do you teach?

[Alex Stream]

You have intrigued me by the second game, could you describe it? I think it'll be usefull not only for me.

[Katarzyna]

One of the games my students love:) .An excellent way to revise and extend any sort of vocabulary.

You should divide your class into small teams.

Before the lesson you should prepare some cards at home and bring a sandglass.
Each card has its own category depending on what you want to revise with the class.

Let’s say for the elementary level, the category might be FURNITURE. On your card you write the names of 10 pieces of furniture:

1. stool
2. table
3. cupboard
4. sofa
5. armchair
6. shelf
7. night table
8. bed
9. chair
10. desk

You give the students small blank pieces of paper on which they have to write (in their groups) as many words as they know belonging to the category (e.g., within three minutes). Then you say ‘stop' and collect their notes. You give the team one point for each word which is either on their and on your card. Then you read aloud the names of furniture they haven’t guessed and write them on the blackboard.

For more advanced groups the category might be words beginning with ‘mis-‘ prefixes or so. They got really involved .

I hope my explanation is clear.

[Sunny]

Nice thread!
I always need new ideas, too.
Let me introduce two more games:

- "Who am I?"
One person has to leave the room. The rest of the class has to decide upon a famous person or at least a person that everybody knows, e.g. Michael Jordan. So: The person that left the class is Michael Jordan, but he/ she doesn't know it.
So he/she has to ask questions in order to find out. The questions can only be answered with 'yes' or 'no'.
You can play this game the other way round, too: The person decides who he/ she is and the pupils have to ask questions.
This is good especially for practicing questions with auxiliaries.

- "Memory"
Two pupils leave the class. The other pupils work in pairs and, related to the topic that is dealt with in class currently, they think of a sentence. They they have to sit apart from each other.
Now, the two pupils come in and call each two pupils. The pupils each have to say their sentence. If the pupil at the front find a matching pair, they get a point and are allowed to continue guessing. The found pair is then 'dead' and musn't be called any more. If the pair doesn't match, it's the other pupil's turn.
Like in a memory game, this goes on until all pairs have been found.
This game is my favourite and students really like it.

If something is unclear, just ask