Entries Tagged as 'speaking'
Sometimes pictures/shapes/diagrams are more effective than words, so I’ve decided to bring together creative diagrams and shapes to make English Language Learning more fun and interesting. I also can’t deny the inspiration of Teaching Unplugged by Meddings & Thornbury (2009) to write this blog post. I’m sure the following activities will make your lessons more fun and more student-based.
Life Circle
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First of all, draw the shape below on the board.
- Tell the students to draw these circles on a piece of paper and think about the things that they don’t like in each circle.
- Divide the class into pairs and tell them to interview with each other about their life circles.
- The activity is suitable to be adapted into writing. Instead of an interview, the students can write a paragraph about their life circles.
- It is also possible to change the topic and the names of each circle accordingly.
Star Shape
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Draw a star shape on the board and write five senses around it.
- Tell the students to brainstorm
some memorable events related to five senses such as a traffic accident or a moment of beautiful sunset with a special person.
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Next, divide the class into groups and ask them to share their findings with each other.
A Square within the Other
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Draw the following shape on the board and make groups of four.
- The group members write their similarities inside the square while writing the differences into the triangles. Each triangle belongs to a group member.
- Afterwards, the groups come together and compare their answers.
- Instead of asking students to write about themselves, you can also use this shape to compare anything (eg: cities, technology or films, etc…)
Summary Chart
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This is one of my favorite charts that I mostly use towards the end of the lesson. At first, tell the students to draw the chart below on their notebooks and summarize what they have learned in each activity during the lesson.
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The students are expected to write a simple formula or an example showing the rule for the grammar section, new words and collocations for the vocabulary part, and lastly, decide on which type of skill (skimming, scanning, fluently speaking, etc…) they’ve practiced more.
Up and Down
The following diagram is quite suitable for several tasks.
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One of them is to create fictional stories according to the up and downs of the chart. Divide the class into groups, and then give a starting sentence for the story. The groups create a story according to the up and down edges of the diagram.
- In another activity, tell the students to draw a similar diagram indicating their mood during the week. After they complete their drawings, divide the class into pairs and tell them to interview with each other asking questions related to what happened.
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Tags: charts·diagrams·ELT·teaching fun
When teaching speaking, we should create different situations in which the learners are aware of the purpose of the communication and its function. Depending on the level of the students, the activities are varied from controlled to the free practices. Today I’ll share some speaking activities that I learned long time ago but didn’t get round to typing. Hope you find them fun and useful.
Repeating Chain: It is an enjoyable activity for students to familiarize the subject and have a good laugh at the same time
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Ask your students form a circle.
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Start the chain with a sentence in the target structure.
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The first student remembers and repeats what you said using the correct pronouns, and then adds his own sentence.
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The next student repeats what you and his friend said, and then adds his own sentence.
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The chain goes on like this till the last student.
Example:
- The target structure is “Simple Past Tense”
- The teacher says “I read 3 pages before sleeping yesterday”
- 1st student says “She read 30 pages before sleeping yesterday and I rode bike on Red Street yesterday.”
- 2nd student says “She read 30 pages before sleeping yesterday and he rode his bike on Red Street yesterday and I watched TV for two hours.”
Numbers Game: It is an activity in which you can revise the question forms effectively.
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The students think of a set of numbers that have a special meaning for them,
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Each student writes the set of numbers on the board one by one
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The other students try to guess what the meaning is asking Yes/No questions and suggesting answers.
Example:
- The number set is “10032007″
- Is it a date?
- Did something good happen on that day?
- Is that somebody’s birthday?
- Is it your brother’s birthday?
Never Say “NO” : This is one of my favorite timesaver activities. You don’t need to prepare anything beforehand. The main focus of the activity is based on functional language. It takes approximately 10 minutes.
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A student comes to the board to answer the class’ questions
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The other students ask him different types of questions.
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The answerer must give true answers but can’t say “no”. Instead, he tries to find alternative ways of denying or refusing.
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When the answerer says “no” or answers five questions successfully, another student takes his/her place.
Mandatory Speaking: This is an activity I have learned from the Practice of English Language Teaching (J. Harmer, 2010, pg. 347) Students are given a grid on which their names are written. Each box in the grid stands for 1 minute conversation. 
For example, according to this grid, at first Okan will talk to Marie and then Marie will talk to Okan. Then Okan will talk to Sally and Sally will talk to him. And the same procedure goes on like this for the other students. The numbers in the grid show the order of the conversation. It is also important to choose interesting topics that students will enjoy talking about.
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Tags: games·speaking
Backgammon is a well known game called “Tavla” in Turkey. Let me explain the game briefly at first: It is a game where players bring checkers on, move them round the board and take them according to the roll of the dice. Here, I tried to manipulate the game in order to use it easily in our lessons.
Before Class
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Make two copies of the game board. One copy is for the groups to play on and the other one is to be hung on the board so that the teacher can show each pounce on the board.
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You will need one dice and 24 checkers (12 red and 12 white). You can decrease the number of the checkers depending on the number of the questions.
How to play the game in our classes?
1) Divide the class into two teams and arrange the students so that each group sees their faces.
2) Decide on who will be the red and white group.
3) Ask the students to place their checkers on the board as shown below. (it is possible to rearrange the places of the checkers depending on the challenge)
4) Explain to the students that the main aim of the game is to collect all the checkers on their home board at first; and then pick them up according to the roll of the dice. The most important rule of the game is no pounce can be done without answering the teacher’s question.
5) The first group rolls the dice and listens to the question of the teacher. If the group members answer the question correctly, they can move their checkers on the green bars according to roll of the dice.
6) When the students cannot answer the questions, they miss their turns.
7) The players cannot place their checkers onto the other group’s checkers but they can pass over them. Therefore, the students should play strategically enough to finish the game first.
8) When all the checkers are collected on the home board, the students can start to pick them up rolling the dice.
I think ….
it is an enjoyable game we can easily adapt for our structure classes for a revision and skill based lessons for comprehension. If you have various types of questions, I believe it will be more fun. Multiple-choice, true/false, open ended, reference, vocabulary, spelling and comprehension questions are the types of questions you might want to ask in Backgammon.
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Tags: fun·games
