Aka my new favourite vocabulary game. Seriously, this little game is about to be your favourite vocabulary revision game. Why? Because it’s both fun and effective and requires almost no preparation. Your whole class is going to love it! I promise!
How does it work?
In advance, write a list of the vocabulary you want to revise.
Divide the class into two, or maybe three teams, with the same number of students in each team. Well, more or less; it doesn’t have to be the exact same number. To be honest, it is easier with only two teams.
Ask a representative from each team to stand up.
Now, define one of the words on your list. You can also give a synonym or an antonym. Whatever helps them guess the word.
The first person to guess the word remains standing and the person from the other team who couldn’t guess or guessed second sits down. The student sitting down is quickly replaced by another person from this same team.
Call out all the words you want to revise.
The winner will be the team whose members had to sit down less often.
Follow up: ask students to write a list of all the words they can remember from the game and revise them once again, this time focusing on pronunciation. If you have time, you can ask them to provide a sentence including the target word or chunk.
Is there anything better than a little game to break the ice?
This board game I am sharing with you today is meant to be used as a get-to-know-each-other activity for my first class, but I am sure it can be used in other contexts.
Here’s the thing, I like games as much as the next girl; buut…, although I haven’t started teaching yet, I already feel the pressure of an overwhelming curriculum. Is it the same for you? So, first-day fun speaking activities? Totally. But, and this is a big “but”, adding a grammar structure that needs to be learned.
This year, goodbye normalcy. So long. See you next year. Hopefully.
Aim: to teach or revise “would rather” in positive, negative, and interrogative sentences
After explaining/revising the grammar and giving and asking for lots of examples both in written and spoken form, it’s time to play with our digital board game. I have used Genial.ly, one of my fave sites, to create content for my classes.
The instructions are pretty simple.
Ask students to work in pairs.
Throw the built-in dice and move the counter.
Click on the square and a would you rather question would be displayed.
Ask students to work in pairs expressing their preferences. Encourage them to elaborate on their answers.
Choose a couple of students to express their preferences aloud for the rest of the class. You can always ask someone who has chosen a different option in the would you rather question. Students answers should follow this model:
Question: Would you rather be Donald Trump or Melania Trump for a moth?
Answer: I’d rather be Melania Trump than D. Trump because…
6. Writing: if they land on a square with the question gif, students will need to write a “would you rather” question for the teacher. Yes. You have to answer. You are allowed some white lies, though.
EXTRA: to spice up this activity a bit more, you might ask random students to guess your preference.
Note: You might want to click on the arrows to enlarge the board
FOLLOW UP: Working with Would you Prefer
Below, you will find the same board; only this time, students will be required to use a Would Prefer structure
Would you prefer to be Donald Trump or Melania Trump for a month?
I’d prefer to be Donald Trump rather than Melania Trump because…
This is a perfect example of killing two birds with one stone: same board, two grammar points.
Interactive, engaging, effective and if possible, fun are the ingredients I want in every lesson. Even if it is online.
This low-tech activity is a marriage between any video conferencing platform and a whiteboard. t can be used as an end-of-term vocabulary revision or to revise the vocabulary of a single unit.
We are going to use two techs here:
A video conference platform. As I have explained in previous posts, I am using the super-easy 8×8.vc video platform – I think they need to start paying me for all the free publicity- but any platform will do as long as it has a chatbox.
A very easy to use interactive whiteboard: the famous Google whiteboard, JamBoard: easy, free and collaborative and….. with sticky notes. Yay!!!
Now that we have the perfect wedding, let’s start:
How to go about it:
Using the chat box in the video conference platform of your choice.
Step 1. Ask students to type vocabulary they have learned in this unit (this course) into the chatbox. Allow several minutes for this step. Remind them to check their spelling before clicking the Send button.
Step 2. Revise the meanings of the vocabulary they have written pointing out, at the same time, any spelling mistakes or typos they might have made.
Using the white interactive board Jamboard
Tell students you are going to play a bingo game and to do this, they are going to use a very cool tool called Jamboard.
Tell them you are going to assign each of them a different frame(slide) containing a bingo card. They should write their name on the frame in the space provided and this frame will become only theirs. They will need to choose 9 words from the chatbox and write them in the bingo squares of their bingo card.
Have a look at my Bingo Jamboard and make a copy if you want to use it. The instructions for the students to play this bingo game are on the second frame. This is a gif to show you an easy option to mark off squares
Watch this easy tutorial explaining how to use Jamboard and how to set up a bingo card game. Hope you and your students enjoy the activity!!!
Are you teaching remotely? You are gonna love this tool!!!!
Guess what. I have the most incredible job in the world. I love teaching. It might seem boring from the outside. Even some people might say it is repetitive; you know, always teaching the same things … but believe me when I tell you that if you are willing and committed to teaching, you can explore ways to make teaching always new for you. And this is what has kept me hooked to this job all my life. Having fun trying new things. Some work, some don’t. What I am going to share with you today, definitely works.
So, this morning I woke up well-rested and thinking about my next online lesson and racking my brains about how to make my next class memorable and effective for my students. And then, I had an aha moment and pictured a tool I had on my virtual ever-growing shelf named “Things to Try”.
The tool is called Classroom Q and below, you will get a sneak peek of what the tool can do. This is a recording of one of my classes doing different tasks. (00:10)
Why do I like it?
This tool has some ingredients that are my absolute favourites:
Simple
Free
Engaging
Interactive
and to top it all, students don’t have to register
What is ClassroomQ?
ClassroomQ was designed as a virtual hand-raising tool that lets students ask questions and wait in a queue for their teacher’s assistance. But, I have not used it for this.
ClassroomQ has an online buzzer which can be used to play games or to turn a boring exercise into a game. However, the great thing about this tool is not its buzzer, it is its Box for Comments. This is where students can write whatever assignment you have given them. It allows a maximum of 200 characters/ about 35 words)
Imagine the possibilities: from very quick answers, like “what is the past of “take?” to more complex written assignments, like writing a small paragraph containing XXX
What gets students really engaged and motivated is the possibility to interact in real-time and the added challenge of being the first to answer correctly.
You will be given a class code you will need to share with your students.
For more detailed instructions, watch these short video tutorials below
How have I used Classroom Q with my students?
Before the class:
As we are revising Sports, I created a hangman hiding vocabulary related to, obviously, sports. To get the chance to say a letter and guess the hidden word, I posed a question they needed to answer using ClassroomQ. I asked a mix of very short answers and some sentences to translate using the vocabulary in context. Classroom Q displays the answers of the first 5 fastest students. You can make room for another student to move up the queue by clicking on the name of one student and deleting them from the queue. They can also remove themselves from the queue by clicking their Cancel Button.
For more details, I have recorded these short video tutorials where I explain in detail how the tool works.
I always start my classes revising what we learned in the previous lesson. I do it for many reasons: it allows students who have missed the previous lesson to catch up and not fall behind, it gives students the opportunity to clarify meanings or pronunciation they haven’t quite grasped, and also it encourages retrieval practice that, in my opinion, is the way to learn.
I really think that the first 5 minutes are really important as it sets the mood for the rest of the lesson. That’s why I am always designing revision activities that add variety in my lessons and, if possible, fun.
This one I will call The List. It’s quick, fun and effective.
Context: I have been working with the topic Language Learning and my students have been learning some new vocabulary. Time to revise it!
Procedure: Ask your students to write a secret list of 10 words, collocations or expressions they learned during the previous lesson. Ask them to keep it secret.
Pair students up. Tell students they will have 1 minute to try to guess the words on their partner’s list. Say Student A starts trying to guess the words on Student B’s list. As B listens to the words, he crosses the ones Student A has guessed. Ask them to change roles. Let students compare lists and have a look at the ones they could not guess. You might want to write them on the board to revise and reinforce.
