Your favorite language acquisition activities/exercises

Work Teaching English in Taiwan
1

I meant to say: GAMES! :laughing:

I don’t need to hear from the people that think games have no place in the classroom. You were the teachers I hated while growing up and I turned out smarter than you so :raspberry: . I liked and learned from games then, I like and learn from games now. And in case you didn’t get the memo; life is a game :smiley:. (Apologies, I hated school as a youth, didn’t mean to offend anyone… too much).

Well, I actually don’t play very many “games” in class now as I don’t know of many that I think are very useful, but I stumbled upon one that I like to play, they like to play, and I think they get something from it.

It’s real easy and exciting.

Run time: About 10-15 minutes

Materials: Flashcards they know or recently learned.

Setup: Everyone sits in a circle (I use chairs) and has a flashcard (they can either hold it or lay it out in front of them so everyone can see).

How to play: The game master (that’ll be you) is in the middle of the circle with a hammer (or some other soft thing you can bop heads with). The game starts with you reading one of the students flashcards (I use sentences, so the milk flashcard might be “I like milk”).

That student needs to “read” someone else’s flashcard as fast as they can (I like to do a count down or make some silly noises to put the pressure on). When he reads it I move on to the kid’s card he read. You just keep doing this until you decide someone was too slow. They lose their card and it starts over with you reading someone’s card.

You can stop when it’s gone on long enough or when your down to a few kids (have 2,3 or 4 winners).

Personal notes: I’m playing this with 4/5 year olds. In the beginning my “clock” goes slower and I help out the kids who need it. Everyone stays “tuned in” until the end because they think it’s so funny when someone gets bopped on the head.

I haven’t played this game for over two weeks and someone asked for it by name today “The circle game”. Then everyone wanted to play, so circle game it was.

2

Information gap is a common and valuable technique: make it more involving by playing guessing games – simple “Is it a (noun)?” or “Do you have a (noun)?” for beginner levels, more complex guessing as in 20 questions for other levels. The latter can be very useful in the teaching of categories such as animal taxonomy or classification of foods by taste and texture. If you are going to do this, I suggest that the vocabulary is taught through very direct techniques first – realia, TPR, pictures, plenty of teacher talk such as in the Natural Approach. The next step would be for the students to have the “answer” and the teacher to do the guessing. Then, if necessary, get the Q forms up on the board – in the case of animal guessing, you’ll need to make the distinction between “does”;
Does it have horns?
Does it swim?

and “is”;
Is it blue?
Is it smaller than a horse?
Is it a shark?
You should be eliciting these where possible rather than just telling the students the Q forms. As part of this process it could be useful to put the wrong form up such as; *Does it blue? and get the students to correct.

Then let some of the quicker or more confident students try guessing. Finally all students participate.

More activities:
Whatever your position on explicit grammar teaching, Penny Ur’s “Grammar Practice Activities” is a treasure trove of great activities and games. Her “Five-Minute activities”, co-written with Andrew Wright, is also very good, and many of the things can be extended well beyond five minutes.

[Edit: The auto correction is changing P e n n y U r to “Penny your”. Not my fault.]

3

Stand up - Sit Down

Everyone stands up. A student can sit down only if he/she can correctly answer a question. You can’t go to break until everyone is sitting down.

4

[quote=“twocs”]Stand up - Sit Down

Everyone stands up. A student can sit down only if he/she can correctly answer a question.[/quote]

FanTAStic! You should write a book! :wink:

5

[quote=“jdsmith”][quote=“twocs”]Stand up - Sit Down

Everyone stands up. A student can sit down only if he/she can correctly answer a question.[/quote]

FanTAStic! You should write a book! :wink:[/quote]
That was the hottest game ever! I’m going to try it Monday morning.
(Exaggeration yes, sarcasm, no. :wink:)

6

OK, for a simple reading practice game:

Kids in pairs of threes around a table or on the floor;
make some paper triangle footballs;
draw a red arrow in one corner of the football;
one kids spins the football;
the kid who the arrow points to must read the page/sentence…etc.

Then he/she gets to spin.

It seems simple, but the amount of fun my kids have doing defies words. Great thing is, they do the reading as though it were no trouble at all. They just want to spin the spinner.

:slight_smile:

7

Reminds me. I did 20 questions in a class of older kids I taught once a week a they loved it. At first I thought it might be too hard, but after explaining to them how it worked and giving them some examples they went bananas.

Not sure how well it’d work in larger groups, there were only 3 kids in this class.

8

You mean “is it yellow?”, “is it bent?”

I do the yes/no game as an ice breaker when dealing with new/shy students. They’re not allowed to say yes or no (or any variation such as ‘yeah’) or nod or shake their heads.

You ask the questions, and at first it usually goes something like
T: “Hi, what’s your name?”
S: “John”
T: “John?”
S: “Yes.”
:unamused:

Once they get the hang of it they start having to adapt to your questions:
T: “Do you like Miltownkid?”
S: “I like Miltownkid.”
T: “You do?”
S: “Correct. I do.” :raspberry:

You can usually get them trying to play against you, and then against each other. Once you’re sure they can do yes/no questions you could try one of those 20 question type scenario things that I don’t know the name of.

Example: Romeo and Juliet (ot George and Mary, or Tigerman and Rascal) are dead. They are lying on the floor. There is broken glass around them. The floor is wet. What happened?

The students have to find out what happened by asking clear concise yes/no questions. This one was within the grasp of my junior 1 class.

9

My favorite: Battleship

Goal: To practice a sentence pattern in a controlled environment. (Pattern should have two variables, such as subject and verb)
Setup: Create a grid sheet with 1 variable at the top of each column (typically a verb) and one variable (typically the subject) on the left of each row. Leave the grid boxes empty. Make copies for each student and reproduce on the white board for demonstration.

Draw link a Bingo grid with headings: play, sing, walk, run, eat. On the left hand side Harry Potter (he), Hermione (she), Crookshanks (it), The Dementors (they), Me and you (we) on the left hand side.

Pre game: Have students write “YES” in one and only one column for each row. Each subject should have one and only one Yes answer. Students should not allow others to see their grids.
How to play:
Students take turns ask questions using the grammar pattern being used. Students use their sheet to determine the answer. If it is marked “Yes” they use the “Yes” answer, otherwise the answer is : “no”.

If the answer is “NO” the asker marks an X in their own grid to signify a miss. The answerer does not mark their grid. If the answer is “YES” the asker has destroyed that target and puts a big circle in the square and scratches the subject off the list. The answerer marks a triangle on their sheet over the “Yes” showing their subject was hit.

The winner is the first to destroy all of the enemies subjects.

10

Simple Vocabulary Game

  1. Divide class into two teams.

  2. Write vocabulary on the board.

  3. Choose a player from each team to sit with their backs to the whiteboard.

  4. Place a magnet on one of the words.

  5. Other team members must act out the word.

  6. The first to say the word wins that round and then two more players come to the front.

Vocabulary Wordsearch

  1. Design a wordsearch.

  2. Have the wordsearch on two sheets of paper and on a large board.

  3. Divide the class into two teams.

  4. Have a player from each team come to the front and sit with their backs to the board.

  5. Place the large wordsearch behind them on the whiteboard.

  6. Give each player a wordsearch.

  7. Call out the word to find. (Alternative: give the definition)

  8. Give them 15 seconds. If they can find it score for their team. If they cannot find it open it up to the class to call to find it from the large wordsearch.

11

I love wordsearches! Most underated teaching/spelling tool I know of.

Try puzzlemaker.com to make your own. :slight_smile:

12

I agree with this. And it ain’t just because I’m a lazy teacher.

13

At a former school I was given a wordsearch with a list of colours. I was told to give it to the kids because they didn’t know the colours. Other than if I individually coloured each clue beside the word there’s no way they would be any wiser about colour differentiation.

I don’t see how wordsearches teach spelling. Letter recognition and word recognition. Yes. Ah, got it. Get the students to make their own.

14

[quote=“Matchstick_man”]At a former school I was given a wordsearch with a list of colours. I was told to give it to the kids because they didn’t know the colours. Other than if I individually coloured each clue beside the word there’s no way they would be any wiser about colour differentiation.

I don’t see how wordsearches teach spelling. Letter recognition and word recognition. Yes.[/quote]

Because they search for the word based on how it is spelled.

What IS letter/word recognition if not spelling?

:slight_smile:

15

Actually I don’t see how they don’t teach spelling, when given at the appropriate time.

They teach spelling because one letter comes after the next. That’s what spelling is, isn’t it?

I did wordsearches when I was a kid and have never had trouble spelling.

Still don’t.

16

OK. I understand. So the key is timing and perhaps using already gained vocabulary or work on dictionary skills.

Letter/word recognition would be reading if not spelling.

17

My students love worsearches.

Easy ones can be had, as well as difficult ones;

It’s a good “fuck TV” activity

:slight_smile:

18

Brilliant adaptation. :notworthy:

I’ve never been a fan of word searches. I think quite often you have kids who look for sequences of letters rather than recognizing them as words. Like, find the sequence HGMRBFQ in the box. You can find it, circle it, and have no clue what it is supposed to mean.

Not that word searches aren’t useful. Matchstick Man’s adaptation is good. You can also give them familiar words and have close, but incorrect spellings included to see if they can see which is which. You can also focus on certain sound combinations and spelling combinations to help key kids into repeated patterns in spelling.

But more often than not I find ones I’m given to give out to be examples of less effective activities.

19

They won’t be doing that if they know them as words.

The point is that they ought be able to recognize the word.

I think it’s better to give them familiar words that they know. At the early stages it is a little too much to ask them to figure out the difference between something like: they’re, their, and there.

How about giving them familiar words with familiar, though not perfected, spellings?

[quote]You can also focus on certain sound combinations and spelling combinations to help key kids into repeated patterns in spelling.
[/quote]

Nothing wrong with that.

I’ve got no answer for that.

20

Sorry for being Mr. Practical, but then what’s the fargin piont?