Tag Archives: games

Human Bingo to Revise Irregular Verbs

Games, , , , , , ,

I got this wonderful idea from Mel Wawen although I have slightly modified it. As she explains, it can be used as a warm up before the lesson or at the end of it when students feel they have had enough of English,

This time I needed to revise Irregular Verbs and this is how I did it.

  • I asked students to tidily sit individually and in rows of three or four.
  • Then, I asked each of them to choose an irregular verb from the ones we had studied. I told them to write it down in its irregular past form on a piece of paper.
  • Every row is a team, so they should make sure every student in the same team has chosen a different irregular verb.
  • Tell them you are going to say a verb at a time, using the infinitive form. When the students hear the infinitive for the irregular they have chosen, they must say the irregular past form aloud and then sit down.
  • The first team with all the students sitting down wins the game.

Follow up:

I used this game when they first learned there was something called irregular verbs. It was funny and it only took about three or four minutes.

The second time I played this human bingo, students also had to write a sentence containing the irregular verb. After checking that their sentence was grammatically correct, I made sure they knew how to pronounce in wors in their sentences.

It was their turn now. They had to stand up and read aloud their sentence but without saying the verb. Students in the class had to provide the right verb in the past to fill in the gap.

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Treasure Hunt: a funny way to revise

Games, , ,

I’ve been using this idea for quite a long time but though I can remember it was a word of  mouth idea I can’t quite say who it came from, so forgive me if you’re reading this and I haven’t given you any credit.

I’ve tried this game in the EOI with adults and now I have just tried it with teens and I can say it works very well with both, the only difference being that teens are probably “a bit” noisier .

How to revise: this game requires some preparation. You need to decide beforehand if you are going to revise the whole book or one or two units. Then, you have to write some questions (see my own game for ideas here) with content from the units you want to revise and produce a worksheet.

♥In class, ask students to sit in pairs or threes and give each pair just one photocopy. You don’t want everybody in the group to have a photocopy in case they feel tempted to cheat.

♥ Tell them they can use their textbooks, workbooks and notebooks (they’re going to love you).

♥ Explain that the aim of the game is to revise, so they will have to be able to give the right answer to each of the questions in the worksheet.

♥ They can only answer one question at a time and they can only start question 2 when they have answered correctly question number 1.

♥ So students in pairs or in threes answer question number 1 and then they rush up to your table. If you put a tick, it means it is correct and they can proceed to question number 2. Othewise, they have to go back to their group and try again.

♥ The winner is the pair who finishes first, obviously! I don’t normally take sweets to the classroom, so I give them a Free Homework Pass, which they normally kill to get. I download it from here.

A fast-paced game to revise

Games, , ,

With my elementary classes I need to revise very often, especially for exams. We usually do it as in a competition, with students being eliminated if they fail to provide the right answer. ( games work very well with adults , too)

This time, we are going to do our revision in a different way.

♥First, I need to pair the students, mixing strong students with weaker ones.

♥Ask students to choose a winning name they can identify themselves with. Write it on the blackboard.

♥Explain that you are going to revise some  material from the textbook and that they have 5 seconds to write their answer. Give them slips of paper.

♥After the countdown 5…4…3…2…..1… students hold up their slips of paper

♥Give one point for every correct answer

♥Count points at the end of the game, ask the winning students to stand up and give them a big cheer.

This game is highly motivating and works well with teens. Appoint the noisiest student to keep the score on the blackboard and if you want to make it look real, download from this website the sound of a clock ticking . It gets even funnier!

http://recursostic.educacion.es/bancoimagenes/web/. As this site is in Spanish, you might need some help to download the clock sound .

1.Tick the Sonidos box only.

2. In the Search box , write “reloj” , which means “clock” in English.

There you have it! Choose the one you like best and let the fun begin!

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Improving writing skills

Writing, , , , ,

This is an activity I’m going to do tomorrow with my intermediate students and I thought someone might find it useful. It can be done to revise vocabulary and make students write, a skill we often neglect in class. By including visual aid I have made the role of the teacher seem less important and therefore encouraged autonomous learning.

In this activity we will be revising vocabulary, mainly phrasal verbs with “turn” and verbs followed by infinitive or/and -ing.

How to do it:
Ask students to work in pairs and give each pair a blank sheet of paper. Tell students they are going to use their imagination to write a dialogue .Give students a situation they can start with (for ex two flatmates talking about their plans for the weekend; their names Christina and George). The aim of the exercise is to build up a dialogue using the prompt you display in the photopeach slideshow. Once they have written their sentence containing the prompt they have to pass their paper to the students on the left who must continue the story using the next prompt. Sometimes an additional sentence will be necessary to transition form one idea to the next.
Collect their dialogues and stick them on the walls of the class for everybody to read

Revising – Using Prompts to Revise Vocabulary on PhotoPeach

Click here to see a sample of the dialogue. I wasn’t very inspired!

Road to Grammar

Grammar, Vocabulary, , , ,

Road to Grammar is a great site to practise grammar and vocabulary. One of the best things about this site, in my opinion, is that if you choose the wrong answer in the quiz  and you click on NOTES, it provides  a note explaining why your answer is correct or incorrect.
Apart from these quizzes there’s a section that I love called Games. My favourite one is called FLUENT and it allows two students to play. Be careful if you choose to play, it’s kind of addictive!
I also recommend trying the Extra Practice section and the Downloads, which has some great PDFs for students and teachers. And last but not least, there’s a section called Road to Grammar JR dedicated to young learners