Classroom Baseball July 31, 2007
Posted by serenden in introductions, questions-asking.add a comment
I found this activity in a book I have titled “Practical Handbook for Elementary School English Activities”, published for the JET program.
It goes like this:
Materials: none
Make a baseball diamond in the room and divide the students into 2 teams. The first batter comes to homeplate and the teacher asks them a question like “How old are you?”, etc. If the batter responds correctly, they get to move to first base, and their next teammate comes up to bat. If they don’t answer correctly, they’re out.
After 3 outs for a team, the other team comes up to bat. After the kids get the hang of it, the teacher is replaced with a pitcher who asks the questions. The defense team can listen carefully to the answers from the batter and point out mistakes if they’re made, and help out their own teammates when they’re up to bat.
Go Fish July 30, 2007
Posted by serenden in card-games, occupations, questions, questions-asking, sentence-making, vocabulary-any.add a comment
From Three Wise Monkeys
Aims: occupations / what do you want to be? / other
Materials: game cards with 10-12 pictures of different occupations, a set of 3 for each student.
Ex:
To play: students find a partner and ‘Jan-ken’; the winner is Student ‘A’, the other is student ‘B’.
‘A’: “I want to be a farmer.” (They must use one of their cards), “Do you want to be a farmer?”
‘B’: “Yes, I do. I want to be a farmer, too.” (‘B’ surrenders their card to ‘A’).
or
“No, I don’t. I don’t want to be a farmer.” (No card is lost or won)
Battleship 1 July 30, 2007
Posted by serenden in board-games, pronunciation, questions, questions-asking, sentence-making.add a comment
Aims: Questions / Does & Doesn’t / very adaptable
Materials: worksheets and a large example worksheet
There are tons of ways to play this game in the ESL classroom. I have found it to be a very useful activity that the kids generally enjoy.
The simplest explanation:
Hand out Battleship worksheets to each student. They plot their ships in their grid – 2 5-square “ships”, 2 4-square ships, and 2 3-square ships, or whatever you decide.
The students pair up, and ask each other questions based on the coordinates of the square they think their opponent may have a “ship” on. Ex:
A: “Does Sally go to school?”
B: “Yes, she does” or “No, she doesn’t” (depending on if they have a ship in that square).
The first student to “sink” all of their opponents “ships” wins the game, or whoever has the most sunk at the end of the class time.
HINT: I have found that as long as you go over the activity with the teacher you’re working with well in advance, and you give the students an active example, it goes very smoothly.
Go to this activity…
on MES-English (complete with downloadable worksheet)
Telephone Game July 25, 2007
Posted by serenden in greetings, introductions, questions-asking, warm-ups.add a comment
From Genki English
Materials: 2 fake telephones, music
Use 2 telephones to pass around the room, and kids ask questions or have conversations with them. Go to this activity »
Billy Goats Gruff July 25, 2007
Posted by serenden in questions-asking, school-supplies, vocabulary-any.add a comment
From GenkiEnglish
Materials: classroom objects – enough for 5 for each kid
A crazy game where the students have to pass through trolls by giving up school items! Go to this activity »
Bag & Ball Pass July 25, 2007
Posted by serenden in questions-asking, vocabulary-any.add a comment
Materials: bag of questions, ball, music.
Like hot potato. When the music stops, the 2 students with a bag and a ball play. The student with the ball asks a question. The student with the bag pulls out a card and answers with that card. Also used for Q&A.
I Like Everything! July 25, 2007
Posted by serenden in greetings, questions-asking, vocabulary-any.add a comment
From Genki English
Materials: stopwatch.
Practice vocab plus a question. Example: “Do you like …?”
Teach 4 objects. students stand up and make pairs. When you start the stopwatch, students must go through the questions. When they finish, switch partners and begin again, but with a different object. After they finish all 4, they sit down. Go to this activity »
Matching People Pairs July 25, 2007
Posted by serenden in greetings, questions-asking, vocabulary-any.add a comment
Materials: 4-5 sets of cards, enough for matching pairs, one per student.
Based on the memory game.
Can use with any grammar. Ex: “how are you?” with various answers.
Put students in rows, hand out one card per student. Make sure they keep their card a secret and that everyone knows what their card is.
Choose one student to come to the front. They must find two matching people by asking, for example, “Miss / Mr. …, how are you?” That student answers with their card. student at the front then asks another student the same question. If the two answers are the same, it’s a match! If not, ok, it’s someone else’s turn.
When a student becomes a match, they can get new cards and continue to play until time runs out, etc. Can split the class into two teams and award point to make it more competitive. Or prizes to those who find pairs.
NOTE: Make sure the students know that their own card doesn’t matter when they come to the front. This game is called shin kei gumi in Japanese.
