MAP for fun: agosto 2010

Hi, there! How you doing? I've found more nice games to use in our classes. All of them were written by Jo Budden.
Here they are. Use them and tell us the results.

1-THE YES/ NO GAME

"Nominate one student to be in the hot seat, slightly apart from the rest of the circle. The rest of the group must think of questions to ask the student in the hot seat. They can ask anything they like, the only rule is that the student in the hot seat must answer the questions without using the words “yes” or “no”. Also ban “yeah”, head nods and shakes! For example, a student asks, “Are you wearing jeans today?” The student in the hot seat could reply, “I am” or “you can see that they’re jeans!” "

2-THE PRESS CONFERENCE

"This is a longer activity that needs some preparation. It’s great for practising question forms in a fun way and gives structured speaking practice to lower levels. You will need a sticky label for each student or a pack of Post-It notes.
Tell students that they have got the job of reporter for a magazine about famous people. They are going to interview some famous people and they need to prepare some general questions they can ask any famous person – actors, singers, sports stars, politicians etc. Give some examples, like, ‘Do you enjoy your job?’ or ‘Are you happy being so famous?’ and get students to write four questions and put them into a table with the questions going down the left hand side and space for five columns to the right. Then ask students which famous person they would like to be and give each one a sticky label or a Post-It note for them to write the name of the famous person on and stick on themselves.
Put students into two concentric circles with the inner circle facing out and outer circle facing in. Tell students that they are going to interview the person directly in front of them for two minutes and note down all the information they find out. They are also going to be interviewed. The facing pairs take turns in the different roles of interviewer and famous person. At two minute intervals shout ‘stop’ and ask the outer circle to step one person to the right. Shout ‘start’ to give students two more minutes with a new famous person. When each student has interviewed and been interviewed five or six times stop the activity and seat students. The information they have gathered about the famous people can then be shared with the group orally or used for a piece of writing for a gossip magazine. If you have an odd number rotate one person out of the circle each time you move the other circle around. This person can help you to monitor and can walk around the circle listening to the others in action and making a note of any mistakes they hear. This activity gets very noisy with a large group but it can be a great way to keep students speaking English for quite a long period of time and you will probably see how their confidence grows as they get the hang of asking and answering the questions."

3-THE CHAT ROOM

"It can be especially useful if you have to substitute a class at the last minute as it takes no preparation at all. Each student needs a blank piece of paper and a pen. Tell them they are going into a pre-historic internet chat room so they all need to decide on a nickname. Tell students that you are going to be the net and you will need to stand in the middle of the circle to exchange the papers. Explain that the net has gone a little bit crazy and they can’t send messages to specific people. If you have a big group ask a student or two to help you be the net in the middle.
Give students an example of how to start. Eg. Pingu: How are you feeling today? As students complete their questions they should hold the paper in the air and then you swap the papers over as if their messages are being sent. They then reply to the one they’ve just received and so it goes on until each student has a page full of ‘chat’. Then give the papers back to the student who wrote the initial question and they can see how the chat developed. This could lead on to talking about the internet, or chat rooms or you could use the text to do some error correction. As students have been writing quickly there will probably be lots of silly mistakes they can correct themselves."

4-CONDITIONAL CHAIN GAME

"This game is good to revise and practise structures in the first conditional. The teacher begins with a sentence, for example “If I go out tonight, I’ll go to the cinema.” The next person in the circle must use the end of the previous sentence to begin their own sentence. Eg “If I go to the cinema, I’ll watch Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.” The next person could say, “If I watch Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, I’ll eat lots of chocolate.” Then, “If I eat lots of chocolate, I’ll put on weight” etc. etc. "

MAP for fun

sexta-feira, 27 de agosto de 2010

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domingo, 1 de agosto de 2010

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