My 2 most successful games:
Charades (10-30min)
- I write the language on the board they �re going to use. (For example: You �re ______)
- One player from each group follows you outside the class and all the students look at the charades card
- They run back into the class and perform for their group.
- The first student to put their hand up and use the language correctly as well as have the correct guess wins a point.
- Keys to the game: counting down from 10 at the end of every round. The students are supposed to run outside and back inside, ready to perform in only ten seconds. It helps maintain the tension and it relieves the students of having to worry and think too much about their turn. They �ll spend most of their energy thinking about how to mime the information
- No speaking from students who are coming back into the classroom. They might try to sneak one by you
- Pre-mime things as examples before the game (choose difficult ones like "cooking steak" or "playing mario" to mime to the students). They �ll think it �s funny and it will require you to do many complex movements. It will help the students during the game.
Syllable game (I saw this on the website called Genki English) (10-20min)
- You say a word (or phrase), and the students have to guess as a group how many syllables are in the word. It will challenge them to think in English rhythm and not the rhythm of their native language.
- Make cards with the numbers 1-10
- Teach students to pound their fist into their hand as they count syllables
- Show examples like "Canada" ---> KA-nu-du (and pound your fist as if you �re trying to work out how many syllables are in the word. I like to make mistakes before I show them the correct answer), and then I count down 5-4-3-2-1...GO! And I raise the number for how many syllables there are (there are 3 in the word Canada).
- Then we practice a couple of words as a class, and then we start the game
- The elementary school kids ask for this game every class, and the 15 year olds thought it was really novel.
- Teaching them new vocab became vastly easier after teaching that game, because from that point on I was then able to show them the rhythm by pounding my hand.
- For the Christmas lesson, I said words like... "Merry Christmas", "Happy New Year", "Rudolph the red nosed reindeer", "Christmas stocking", "turkey n � all the fixn �s", and whatever other Christmas vocab I could think of.
John
