COFFEEPOT

Good for the last few minutes of class, this activity  helps students in the task of asking correct questions, which, in this case, are generated out of genuine curiosity.

Level - Low intermediate and above

Age - teens and older

Materials - none

Objective - to practice asking questions.

Start by explaining what "coffeepot" means (maybe with a picture) and telling them that they are going to use this word to replace a secret action, and that they will need to ask many questions to discover what the action is.

On the board, brainstorm and model the questions you want your students to practice. Divide them into two types: "yes or no" questions and "information" questions. (Do you "coffeepot" everyday?; Do you need any help to "coffeepot"?; Can you "coffeepot" anywhere? How many times a day do you coffeepot?; Where did you last "coffeepot"?; Who usually coffeepots with you?; etc.).

Invite one volunteer to go outside the classroom with you and agree on any action he wants to be the "coffeepot". ATTENTION TO APPROPRIATENESS HERE!!! If the student chooses a verb that you think will cause discomfort in class, suggest one yourself. Some good ones are: think, dance, dream, go to the zoo, see a doctor, floss, and write.  Bring the student back to class and instruct the group to ask, say, ten "yes or no" questions. If they are not enough  to help them find out the verb, they can ask ten  (or six, five, as many as you want) information questions. 

When there is extra time, if the group can't discover the verb, the  "coffeepotter" can give them some clues (I "coffeepot" all the time (think); I only "coffeepot" when I'm sleeping (dream), etc).

Have fun!

GOING, GOING, GONE!!!

AUCTION

This activity is extremely fun and challenging, for it involves not only language skills but also managerial abilities, since students will need to control their virtual money in order to buy as many items as they can.

OBJECTIVE - To review grammar topics, vocabulary, concepts, etc; to assess reading comprehension.

AGE LEVEL- Older teenagers and adults

PROFICIENCY LEVEL - Intermediate and above

MATERIALS 

•  slips of paper for students to write their bids;
• a list of sentences, definitions, concepts, questions, etc, that will be "auctioned"
• a white board or a large piece of paper with the 'count chart'.
• depending on the teacher's mathematical (lack of) abilities, a calculator will be of great help

RULES

1 – Divide the class into groups of three or four students.

2 – Give each group some slips of paper where they will write their bids.

3 – Make a chart on the board (or on a big piece of paper)to keep track of each group’s virtual money.

4 – Give each group an amount of virtual money, which will be written on the chart (see model below)

5 – Explain that they need to buy as many sentences as possible, and that the winner will be the group that has the largest number of sentences. In case of a tie, the group that has more money left wins.

6 – Prepare a set of items involving the grammar point under study. They can be related to error correction, definition of newly-acquired vocabulary items, reading comprehension, or any other possibility that occurs to you. 

7 – Explain the task at hand: if you want to work with error correction, for instance, tell students that, if they want to 'buy' a sentence, they need to say whether it is correct or not, and if it is not, they need to be able to correct it. If they aren’t, they lose the money spent on that sentence. If you are 'selling' questions and they want to 'buy' one, they need to be able to answer it correctly. Likewise, they will need to define a word or expression in order to get the point.

8 – Read or show the sentence/question/word or expression and give students time to discuss and come to an agreement with their group peers. They must then write their bids on a slip of paper and show it when the teacher asks for the bids. The group with the highest bid gets to answer. If two or more groups have the same bid, the teacher needs to see each group’s answer privately and then show them to the class.

9 - The amount of money paid for an item will be deducted from the total amount, even if the answer is wrong.

10 - The winner will be the group that has bought more items. In case of a tie-up, the group that has more money left will be the winner.

CHART

Group /Sentence	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	$$$
A											1000
B											1000
C	X (80)										920
D		X (100)									900

Making "art"

"Making art" is an activity for concrete learners, particularly for children, who like hands-on tasks.

Age level - preferably young learners

Proficiency level - beginners

Materials - a big piece of paper (like a chart), or space on the classroom wall; cutouts with pictures of shapes, food, animals, or any other vocabulary group you are working with, and slips with the nouns and colors or adjectives related to them.

Objective - To practice matching nouns and adjectives.

On the chart or wall, stick the pictures of the nouns.

Distribute two slips to each student, one containing the words for the pictures you've chosen and one with a color, adjective, etc, that can be attached to the noun.

Ask students to stick their slips next to the pictures on the chart/wall.

VARIATION: make the activity more challenging by giving students a bigger slip where they can write a sentence related to their picture. If your students like competitive games, divide the class in small groups (3 students, at most) and count points everytime they get the right combination and the right sentence.

Another possibility is to divide the class into two groups and have them work cooperatively, giving one group the slips with the nouns and the other group the ones with the adjectives. Looking at the pictures, they have to find their partners and write the sentence.

Example:

     GREEN      triangle

 It's a green triangle.

DELICIOUS apple

I love apples. They are delicious.

CUTE dog

My dog is very cute. His name is Banban.

MONSTERS!

Age level - Children

Proficiency level - high beginners

Material - slips of paper and a large piece of paper to draw the monster

Objective - To practice writing parts of the body

Divide the class into groups and distribute several slips of paper where students must write parts of the body (one part per slip). Collect all the slips (there must be a lot of them!), shuffle them and randomly re-distribute several to each group. The group must produce a monster with exactly the parts written on the slips they got. So, if they have eight slips with the word "eye", the monster must have eight eyes, and so on. The production of something so absurd and funny will probably make the new language memorable.

Variation 1 - Depending on the level of the students and on their interest in writing, they can produce a written description of the creature they've just created.

Variation 2 - After students draw the monster with the parts written on their slips, they can pair up with a classmate and describe their monsters while the other student draws it. They can compare their production.

WHAT'S THE ADDRESS?

WHAT’S THE ADDRESS? (Concentration/Memory game)

Age level - any
Proficiency level - low intermediate and above
Mateiral - Flashcards (with pictures) and sheets with words/expressions
Objective - To practice vocabulary or grammar structures

Prepare flashcards and sheets with the words/expressions you want to practice. On the blackboard, write letters and numbers, and place flashcards (A, B) and words/expressions (C,D), facing the board.

                        A                     B                     C                     D

1

2

3

Divide the class into two groups. Each group asks for two addresses (A-3 and C-1, for example), to try to match words/expressions to the correct pictures.

VARIATION - Instead of practicing vocabulary, you can use this game for questions and answers, if clauses, simple past + past continuous, active or passive voice, etc.

ENDLESS STREAM

ENDLESS STREAM

Age - Young learners

Proficiency level - basic to intermediate

Material - Board and markers of two different colors

Objective - To activate previous knowledge of vocabulary; to practice vocabulary

Divide the class into two groups (boys and girls, or any other criterion). Write a word on the board (let’s choose THINK, for instance) and ask one student from one of the groups to write a word that starts with the last letter of the word you wrote (KEY, or any other). A player from the other group has to write a word that starts with Y, and so on. Words cannot be repeated, and the group that fails to write a word loses.

VARIATION

This game can be played in pairs, with students writing their words on a sheet of paper.

To make it more challenging, you can restrict the words to one category. For instance, if you are teaching the past tense, ask students to write only the past of irregular verbs.

TIC TAC TOE

• Material needed – board and marker
•  Age/Proficiency level - any
• Objective - To practice any grammar point, vocabulary (synonyms, opposites, definitions), verb tenses, irregular/regular verbs, etc.

RULES

• Divide the class into two groups, O and X.
• Draw a grid like this on the board. 

1	2	3
4	5	6
7	8	9

You can either place slips on the grid or have a list of items corresponding to the numbers in it. Let’s say you are practicing irregular pasts. You would have a list of 9 irregular verbs and students would give you the past participle of the verb corresponding to the number they had chosen. This is more practical because you don’t need to write big slips of paper.

• Have groups take turns choosing a number. If they can complete the task correctly, put their symbol on the grid. The group that finishes one line first wins.

MATCH OR MISMATCH

Age level - Teens and above

Proficiency level - This activity can be adapted to every level, but it works better with intermediate and above.

Material - Slips of paper

Objective - To put clauses together and analyze them grammatically and logically. students also have the opportunity to correct the ones that don't match.

• Give each student two slips of paper.
• Ask them to write, say, a sentence beginning with "if".
• Collect all the slips and make a pile on the table.
• Ask students to write the complement to their clause on the second slip.
• Collect these too, making a second pile on the table.
• One by one, students stand up and pick one slip from each pile, reading them aloud for the group. The class will judge whether the final sentence is logical or not. If not, they have to change it so that it does.

Example: If it rains tomorrow                        my parents will give me a present.

It is not logical, so they need to change either the if clause or the result clause so as to make them logical. The result can be: If it rains tomorrow, I will stay home.

If I get good grades, my parents will give me a present.

Beginning students can write a noun and an adjective, an indefinite article and a noun, a quantifier and a noun, etc.

AGREE, DISAGREE, UNSURE

Age level - teens and older

Proficiency level - Good for intermediate and upper levels.

Material - Three big signs (AGREE, DISAGREE, UNSURE); a list of controversial, polemic statements

Objective -  this activity enhances discussion and opinion giving.

• Prepare three big signs that read AGREE, DISAGREE, UNSURE.
• Place them on three different corners of the classroom.
• Pose a controversial statement like, "I think women shouldn't ask men out."; "Poverty is a problem that only governments can solve."; "It's OK to keep something valuable that you have found."
• Students move to one of the corners and are given some time to talk and support their opinion.
• To wrap up, volunteers are invited to share their opinions with the whole group.

I Love Candy!

Talking Corners

KINESTHETIC ACTIVITIES FOR THE CLASSROOM

TALKING CORNERS  
Age level - Teens and above
Proficiency level - Low intermediate and above
Material - Slips in big print
Objective - To allow students to practice various skills in a non-threatening manner.


Prepare sheets (big print) with questions, discussion topics, sentences to be matched, combined, corrected, completed, etc. Any topic will do for this kind of exercise. Place the sheets around the classroom, far enough from each other so that pairs cannot hear each other. Pairs walk around, performing the task in each corner and moving on at the teacher’s command. (Remember: if you have 18 students, you will need 9 sheets, and so on).

Variation – If you don’t want your students to be walking around, have them sit in pairs and move the papers around.

Examples of tasks that can be used in this activity

1) GRAMMAR

1a) Men have abilities. Women have abilities. (Both, Neither, Either, None????)

1b) There ___________ several leisure options in my town.

1c) ________________________? No, I didn't. I had to study for my Math test.

1d) Correct the sentence if it is wrong: Yesterday I have seen a great movie.

(answer: I saw)

2) VOCABULARY

2a) Give a synonym for "rescue". 

(answer: save)

2b) "Rescue" means: (   )crawl               (   )save            
 (   )suffer

(answer: save)

2c) Unscramble the letters to form a word that completes the sentence:

"The ________ team was able to reach the victims in time to save them. (UCERES)  

(answer: rescue)

3) CONVERSATION STARTERS

3a) Teenagers should only get an allowance if they help around the house. Agree or disagree?

3b) How would you react if you had an encounter with a real ET?

3c) If I had a million dollars, ......