Tag Archives: games

Present Continuous Games

General, , , , ,

If you’ve been reading me for some time you’ll probably have guessed that I favour kinesthetic learning.The activities where students take an active part and enjoy while learning are my favourite.I like them getting up and moving around the classroom and I even welcome the noise because they are using English.

And you cannot even begin to imagine how proud I feel when I see that they have been able to overcome their natural shyness at making mistakes and just concentrate on using the language and having fun.

These are two of my favourite activities to orally practise present continuous. Hilarious, trust me!

♥MIMING

I divided the class into two groups Group A and Group B; one student from Group A comes up to the front of the class and is given a card with a sentence containing the Present Continuous, like for example, I am watching TV. The student has to mime this activity and the members of his group have to guess, exactly, the same words written on the card. The student is given one minute to mimic as many sentences as possible.

Suggestions

  • I’m cleaning the house
  • He’s cooking an egg
  • She is dancing in the disco
  • I am playing the guitar
  • He is drinking a coke
  • He is reading a novel
  • I am thinking about my teacher
  • My mother is working now
  • He is walking to school
  • He is painting the house
  • I am studying History
  • I am not sleeping
  • I am playing tennis now
  • She is reading a newspaper
  • She is eating chocolate
  • I am riding a blue bicycle

♥DESCRIPTION OF A PHOTO

For this activity, the students are sitting in pairs, one student facing the board and the other with his back to the board. Using the OHP, a picture of people performing something is displayed. Now, the person seeing the picture has to describe it in as much detail as possible and the other person has to draw the picture. Allow them four or five minutes and then choose the best picture. Below are two of the pictures that I used:

Blog de Cristina is also on Facebook. Click to follow

Backs to the Board: Picture Description

Create your own stuff, Games, Music, Pictures, Speaking, Vocabulary, , , , ,

Oh My goodness! This first week has been hectic in the high school and by Friday  it had taken its toll on me;  I was worn out and I sort of needed to unwind. Can you think of a better way than going to the concert the great Gloria Gaynor gave in Oviedo and  dancing to the rhythm of  her hit I Will Survive? (fits like a glove :), it was just what I needed! Enjoy!

And now, to more down to earth issues. I wanted to show you an exercise I’m going to do with my second-year students  you might find helpful. If so, feel free to use it.

The aim is for students to use the vocabulary studied for Physical Description.

Preparation: Pictures of well-known people: celebrities, politicians,singers…

Procedure: Divide students into pairs. One of them faces the board and the other one sits with his back to the board. Display the picture of the famous person and ask the student facing the board to describe this person to his partner.

Some rules for the game: students must start by giving a physical description of the person and only then can they move on to give more information about this person. The student guessing can ask as many questions as he wants. I’m planning of setting a time limit for each picure; maybe  1m or 1.30m. Needless to say, only English is allowed. 😉

This is my choice of pictures
Picture Description on PhotoPeach

Back to School ! Part II : Icebreakers to get to know my students

Games, Speaking, , , ,

So much for writing about going back to school but… my classes haven’t started yet.The big day is going to be Monday and I am still deciding which ice-breakers will work better  with my new students.

Let me show you some of the ones I’m considering and you might want to drop a line if you know of any others that work well. The good things about these ones is that they require “No Preparation“.

♣The one I like best is Personal Star for many reasons, but mainly because it requires no preparation  and students always  enjoy a bit of gossip  about their new teacher.

I draw a star on the board and inside it  6  answers to questions about me. (My answers are black , London, December 9, tennis, Terry, English , and meat.)

Tell students that the star contains information about you. Ask them to try to guess the information behind the words by asking questions.If they don’t get the idea give an example. Tell them “My favourite colour is black. What question do you need to ask to find out this information?” Elicit from them, “What’s your favourite colour?” and cross out the word ‘black’ from the star.

Then, put the students in pairs. Ask them to draw their own personal star and put 6 pieces of information about themselves inside. In pairs they can ask each other questions to find out about their partner. When they have all finished, ask them as a group to tell the others what they have found out about their partner.

♣ Who has never told a white lie?? This is another very traditional way of getting to know your students. The Game could be called True or False? or any other name you fancy.

Write on the board  3 statements about yourself :, 2 must be  true ones and 1 must be false.  Grade the statements depending on the level of the class. For beginners, use the present simple.

 

♥I go to the gym four times a week
♥I like football
♥My favourite singer is Justin Bieber

For a more advanced level, a mixture of tenses would be great:
♥I have been to Israel in July
♥I once did a bungee jump
♥I don’t like hoovering

Students will have to  guess which one is false. Then, ask the students to do the same and write 3 sentences about themselves. In small groups they read out their sentences and the others guess the false one.

♣Add an adjective
The aim of this activity is to try to learn their names. Introduce yourself by saying, “my name’s Cristina and I’m calm”. (Replace Cristina with your name and “calm” with an adjective which has the same first letter) Emphasise the fact that your adjective starts with same letter as your name. Invite the students to introduce themselves in the same way.

♣Hot Seat: Preparation: some vocabulary for revision. Split the  class into two teams. Take two chairs and place them at the front of the class. One member from each team sit in the chairs so they are facing their teams and with their backs to the board.
Now, write one of the words you want to revise and write it on the board. The aim of the game is for the students in the teams to describe that word, using synonyms, antonyms, definitions etc. to their team mate who is in the hot seat – that person can’t see the word! The student in the hot seat listens to their team mates and tries to guess the word.
The first hot seat student to say the word wins a point for their team.
Then change the students over, with a new member of each team taking their place in their team’s hot seat.
Then write the next word…

Source: straight from http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/language-assistant

Back to School! :)Part 1

General, Pictures, Speaking, , , ,

Here I am again!!!! Summer has slipped  by and I can hardly believe that I am about to start a new school year. This year I’ll be teaching in a different high school and yeeesss,  there are some butterflies in my stomach!! I don’t know the teachers , I don’t know the students… and they don’t know me. It’s hard to start all over again. This year I’ll be teaching lots of different levels (OMG!) mainly due to cutbacks so , sadly, I don’t think I’ll have much time to research new tools or create new materials .

Anyway, these are some of the pictures I’ll be using on the first day to try to make my new students relax and  have a healthy laugh and, then, there also follows some other pictures to get them into more serious thinking. My aim: to make students talk. Is there ever any other?