Charades for Elementary School November 5, 2007
Posted by serenden in KINDERGARDEN, Primary School, actions, animals, occupations, role-playing, sports.Tags: actions
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I love the idea of using a game of charades to make English learning fun for young kids. But sometimes it can be difficult to incorporate the game into a structured class.
I was introduced to this method of charades last week by a patient and creative 3rd grade teacher here in Japan. Here’s the magic:
Materials: set of large flashcards, chairs, stopwatch / timer
Time: 10-15 min.Vocabulary: Sports, actions, animals… anything you can portray with action.
Split the class into 3 groups, A / B / C.
Team A will be split into two = the guesser and the actors.
Place two small lines of chairs opposite of, and facing each other, in the front of the room.
Team A’s guessers sit on one side, Team A’s actors sit on the other.
Team B and C sit in the remaining chairs, facing the front, as an audience.
The JTE stands behind Team A guessers with the flashcards.
The ALT stands at the blackboard behind the actors, and keeps score and starts/stops the timer.
When the class chants “ready, GO!”, the JTE turns over the first flashcard and shows it to the actors. (The guessers can’t see it because the JTE is behind them.) The first actor comes forward and acts out the gesture. When anyone from the guessing side yells the correct word with pronunciation, the ALT records one point for Team A on the board. Immediately, the JTE shows the next card, and the next actor comes forward to perform the gesture. Continue until the timer beeps at 1 MINUTE.
Have the teams rotate so that Team B is now at the front, split into guessers and actors, and Teams A & C are the audience.
Play so that each team goes twice, the guessers and actors rotating so everyone gets a chance at both roles. Tally the points at the end and congratulate everyone on how many English words their team yelled!
Charades 2 July 31, 2007
Posted by serenden in actions, present-progressive, questions-asking, role-playing, sentence-making, verbs, vocabulary-any, warm-up.add a comment
Aims: -ing verbs
From Three Wise Monkeys
Materials: none
Three Wise Monkeys gives a number of different ways to use this activity to practice various ways of using verbs in different tenses.
HINTS: Use with a high-energy class only. Try for warm-up.
Ultimate Communication Game July 30, 2007
Posted by serenden in role-playing, warm-up.add a comment
From Three Wise Monkeys
Aims: Communication / drama, becoming comfortable with using another language.
Materials: situation sheets
Students act out situations, such as buying train tickets, or going to a restaurant, using only English OR drawing and gestures, or a mix of all three. It’s a good exercise to teach the students that you don’t have to speak perfect English AT ALL to use it! Go to this activity »
What are you doing? July 30, 2007
Posted by serenden in actions, present-progressive, questions, role-playing, sentence-making.add a comment
From Dave’s ESL Cafe
Aims: present progressive verbs
Materials: none
A really fun charades activity. The students come up to the front of the room in pairs, and trade off actions by asking “what are you doing?”, and then the other student answers, for example, “I’m brushing my teeth”, as they are acting out running in place, etc. Then the student who asked must begin acting out “brushing their teeth”, and the play goes on. Fun, fun. Go to this activity »
Angry Swimming, Happy Hair Brushing July 30, 2007
Posted by serenden in feelings, present-progressive, role-playing.add a comment
From Dave’s ESL Cafe
Aims: -ing verbs / emotions
Materials: 2 envelopes with verbs / emotions
A fantastic charades-like game where the students act out an emotional action, and the group must figure out both the emotion and the action. Go to this activity
HINT: I’ve tried this with my adult conversation class, and they had a lot of fun. It may be a little more difficult to get younger school kids, particularly junior high or high school kids, to perform, but if they do, it’s pretty fun.
Charades 1 July 30, 2007
Posted by serenden in present-progressive, questions, role-playing, sentence-making, sports, verbs.add a comment
Aims: any / verbs / can & can’t
Materials: verb cards
Make little cards each with a verb written on it, such as…”swimming”. Have 2 teams. Invite one person to the front. He/She chooses a card from the hat…reads it privately…then must act this verb to their team…the hands go up…you choose a person from the actors team first…if they get it correct, that team gets a point…if not then you choose a hand from the other team and vice versa until the action is identified with an English word. You can expand the game by using simple and amusing language forms on the cards, such as “I can’t swim”. The correct answer will be “you can’t swim”. Good fun and not dissimilar to “Whose line is it anyways” guess the Ailment of the Partygoer game, (an expansion possibility with adjectives thrown in the mix).
HINTS: Could be fun with a high-energy class.
Who Am I? July 30, 2007
Posted by serenden in people, question-words, questions, questions-asking, role-playing.add a comment
Aims: any /questions / did & didn’t
Materials: game cards or famous-people cards
Students ask questions to each other until they can guess who they are supposed to be. There are lots and lots of ways to use this type of activity. Here are just a few…
Name the Place July 26, 2007
Posted by serenden in places, role-playing.add a comment
Materials: about 20 strips of paper with places written on them.
Divide students into groups of 4-6. One member chooses a piece of paper and between the group they prepare a dialogue or drama based on their place. When all the groups have prepared their work they take it in turns to read or play them out and the other students have to guess the name of the place it is happening in. A time limit can be based on the students’ level.
Restaurant Game July 26, 2007
Posted by serenden in restaurants, role-playing.add a comment
Materials: none / paper
As a warm-up, have the class discuss their favorite foods and ingredients, and how to cook them.
Then, each student writes down their four favorite dishes, keeping them a secret. Then write some questions about your favorite restaurant on the board for discussion. What’s the service like, costs, type of food, location, etc.
The students will establish their own restaurant. First they must agree on a name that will attract customers. Then create a menu. One student writes down the dishes – disagreement is encouraged about which dishes to include. Work out prices and profit per dish.
After the menus are created, each group selects a waiter. The waiter goes to the other group and shows the menu so the group can order from it. The teacher can make it a bit more interesting by providing role cards to the waiters and/or customers with suggestions such as “ask for a group discount” or “you are a rude waiter”.
Who Gets the Goodies? July 25, 2007
Posted by serenden in role-playing.add a comment
From Dave’s ESL Cafe.
Materials: a list of things, character cards created by you or the students.
This is a two- or three-part lesson where the students act as relatives / friends / acquaintances of a recently deceased rich lady. Great practice with role-playing and as a lengthy review. Go to this activity »
