Coffee House discussion ideas

With both the Auburn and Union groups, we had one evening program wherein the theme was "coffeehouse." Now, Ukrainians don't really drink coffee, so it should possibly have been called "teahouse," but whatever. :)

Anyway, I'm going to try to put up some of the themes and activities that we used for these nights. The way we structured it was very similar to how Mystery Night worked: the Ukrainians remained stationary at the tables, and the Americans rotated around the groups so that everyone was able to interact with all of the Americans. These are designed to last for about 10 minutes, depending on the size of the group.

Fears

1. 2-minute list of things people are afraid of

2. (group question) What were things that you were afraid of as a child?

3. (group question) How do fears change as we grow older?

4. Pictionary: spiders, snakes, dark, heights, airplanes, small places, storms, crowds of people

I'll include more as I locate my prompt cards...

Spur-of-the-moment Travel lesson

Through a crazy series of events, I ended up needing to craft an additional lesson while the Union team was here. We decided to go with "travel" as our theme, and this is what we did:

1. Interesting fact game.

2. Starburst game with travel-related questions (small groups). We used these: a) if you could visit any city or state in the US, where would you go/why? b) if you could visit anywhere in the world, where would you go/why? c) if you moved to another country, what would you miss most about Ukraine?

3. American landmarks activity. The Auburn team left some of their supplies with me, and I was able to put them to good use! Thanks to Rachel and Mrs. Kinard. :) The class stayed in small groups. The Americans each took a map of the USA and photocopied pictures of landmarks from around the country (the Hollywood sign, Statue of Liberty, Mt. Rushmore, etc) and discussed their locations, significance, etc.

4. World map labeling. Each group is given a map of the world. Their task is to label as many countries, oceans, continents as they can (in English).

5. Each group is assigned a vacation destination and must create a packing list (Switzerland, Jamaica, Morocco).

6. This was a BIG winner: Each group pretends that they work for a travel agency. They must create a list of 5 Russian phrases that would be helpful for American visitors to know while visiting Ukraine. Then, the students had to teach the American in their group to pronounce one of the phrases. It was really funny and enjoyed by all!

***One extremely successful element of these group projects has been small group rotation. Most of the teams coming in have about 4-5 Americans working in a classroom. So, we divide the students into small groups and 1 American goes with each group. We usually keep one "point man" to help keep an eye on the clock and to keep things moving. I usually have the Americans rotate groups after every activity. This helps to keep things interesting and gives the students more practice with different accents and speech patterns.

Quick and Useful Ideas for Student-Led Projects

Here are some quick and useful ideas for English classes in colleges and universities here in Poltava:

1. Choose a basic theme and vocabulary. Example: Sports.

You can help tailor this lesson for several different ability levels fairly easily. Create a basic vocabulary list (basketball, fans, soccer, whistle, score). Then, add/take away some words to make it more advanced. You can specialize it a little by including words for equipment or verbs (swing, serve, spike, goggles, pom poms).

2. Create-a-clue/ Catchphrase

After going over the vocabulary words (either in large groups or in smaller groups- depending on how many Americans you have to work with), assign a few of the vocabulary words to each team. They must create definitions/ clues for each one. Once everyone has done this, have the teams take turns reading their clues, giving the other teams opportunities to guess which word they're describing. This is a good way to review the words.

3. Stand up if...

Create a list of statements that are agree/disagree or yes/no related. If the students agree, they stand up when you read the statement. If they don't, they remain seated. Examples: stand up if you play soccer. Stand up if you'd rather watch sports than play them.

4. Two-minute list

5. Jeopardy.

You can create your questions with two different ability levels in mind; that way, if you end up in a class with an ability level different than you'd anticipated, you'll be prepared to upgrade or downgrade.

6. Hangman

If you need to make it more complicated, you can use some of the specialized words you discussed, adjectives to describe sports, or use phrases instead of only words.

7. Starburst game. You can make the questions harder or easier, based on the class.

These are good activities that keep things from getting too stagnant and that you can tweak and modify, based on your needs. Most of them require very little prep and tend to be crowd-pleasers.

Mystery Night

Because the Auburn team and the Union team were only separated by one week, I had to be very creative when coming up with themes for our evening programs. I took a risk on the theme for Union Evening Program 1 and crafted a "mystery night." My original idea had been to create a Clue-type game (like, the board game- I love it!), but the more I thought about it, the more I decided that was a bad plan. My criteria for Union's evening programs were: a) minimal prep work, b) minimal supplies needed, c) would work well with a large group (50ish people), and d) would provide a good amount of English practice.

I started scouting on the internet and found this. I started tinkering with the idea and came up with the following plan:

1. I created a "crime" that was committed in Poltava. The crime? A Lada (Soviet-esque car that no Ukrainian would bother stealing- this added an element of humor for the Ukrainian students) was stolen and 9 Americans (the number of people on the Union team) were suspects.

2. 3 Ukrainian friends served as our "witnesses." They made up hilarious little stories (which they told in Russian) about what they had seen. The Americans' alibi was that they had been at a local pizza place eating dinner while the car was being stolen. We had a "waitress," a "passerby," and a "security guard" give testimony of what they had "seen."

3. After our witnesses spoke, I sent the Americans out of the room. Two things happened simultaneously:

a) The Americans were to make up a more detailed alibi (I had only told them that their alibi was that they had been eating at a pizza place).

b) The Ukrainians (broken into groups around tables) were to make up questions intended to crack the Americans' alibis.

The way this works is that the suspects have a few minutes to craft details for their alibi (i.e. what they ordered, what the waitresses were wearing, what the restaurant looked like) so that they all have matching alibis. While they're doing this, the Ukrainians (in their groups) were creating lists of questions.

4. The Americans came back in and split up amongst the tables. I gave them about 4-5 minutes at each table before calling time and having them rotate (by the end, each table of Ukrainians had interviewed all of the Americans). The Ukrainians asked the same questions to each American, making note of whether or not their answers all matched.

5. After everyone had rotated to each table, I sent the Americans back out and took a vote of the Ukrainians, determining whether or not the Americans were innocent or guilty. Of course, they were guilty. :)

6. So, we decided on "punishments." Their punishments were to sing a group song ("I'm a Little Teapot"- complete with motions) and to try to pronounce an extremely difficult Russian word.

The whole thing went over very well! The Ukrainians loved it, and it seemed to break down awkward barriers between the American and Ukrainian students. I'd say it was a hit.

It's a head-scratcher, huh, John?

Dr. Fant, telling his side of the story.

Time to pay up, Americans! They were great sports about trying to pronounce their Russian word. Thankfully, I've been practicing that word for over a year now.

Staging the heist! Yes, that's a Lada.

Guess-My-Interesting-Fact Game

This is a game that I've suggested to several groups, and it usually works pretty well- if there are 4 or so people in the group. This is how it works:

1. Before class, each group member chooses one interesting fact about him- or herself. Write the facts on the board, sans names.

2. After going over the names of each person leading the class, read through the facts.

3. Have the students vote on whom they think most likely to belong to the different facts. It's really funny to see their guesses and reactions.

I've had a lot of success with this game. Sometimes, however, the class is a little shy about guessing. You need to read your audience to see if they can handle it. :)

Jeopardy

This is a definite winner in pretty much any class, and you can do it with pretty much any topic. I usually use it after I've covered a pretty good amount of vocabulary. It USUALLY takes few supplies; if you have access to a black/white board and writing implements, you can make it in no time.

1. Choose a theme (or several, if you want to use it as a major review), such as Transportation.

2. Choose the words/phrases/idioms that you want to use for the game (i.e. car, truck, gas station, bicycle, etc.). I suggest about 20 words.

3. Create definitions (it's best if you use the same definitions that you used when you first introduced the vocabulary) for each word (i.e. "a vehicle with 4 wheels that uses gasoline"- car).

4. Create categories (or just random category titles like Red, Yellow, Orange, Blue) and assign point values to the different questions.

5. My method of organizing the questions and answers is just to make a master list:

Red

100- A vehicle with 4 wheels that uses gasoline (car)

200- A large vehicle that flies through the air (plane)

6. Draw the grid on board. As the students answer questions, erase the value from the board (unless you have to MacGyver things a little...).

MacGyver-ed board.

7. Don't forget to keep score!

I have used this MANY times and all have been successful. It's super.

Auburn: Shopping Lesson and modified Transportation

On the second day of Auburn classes, I went with a different group to another school in town. We started the day by using the "Shopping" lesson and ended with the "Transportation lesson. Here's the rundown on the "shopping" lesson:

1. As a kind of introduction, complete this phrase: "My name is _____ and I like to shop for _____." You fill in the first blank with your name (obviously) and the second with an item that begins with the same letter as your name.

2. "Matching" game. This game is a little different than the usual matching game. For this game, there are category cards (shopping verbs, people, merchandise, patterns) and item cards (to exchange, cashier, socks, plaid). The students are to sort all the different item cards (there are quite a few that fall into each category) into the correct category. After the smaller groups sort through all of their cards, the students divide the items from each category amongst themselves and give clues to the other team (taking turns between teams), so that the other team can guess which word is being described.

3. American-Ukrainian comparison: The Auburn team brought sale papers for this lesson and let the student peruse them, comparing products and prices to those found here in Ukraine.

4. Following up on the sale papers, the students were given paper and colored pencils, with the aim of creating their own advertisements for the product of their choosing. After they created ads, they presented them to the rest of the class.

Example of one of the advertisements.

5. As a class closer, we played Hangman, using the vocabulary words from the "matching" game.

Transportation modification:

In our third class of the day, we ran into a few obstacles that required some quick and creative thinking. Our class was very reluctant to speak out, so we introduced the transportation vocabulary (using the pictures brought from the States) in small groups. The Americans divided the pictures among themselves and discussed a few at a time in their groups. After each team had finished their small stack, they rotated the pictures until all of the groups had seen and discussed all of them.

We ran into an unfortunate incident, wherein we had no markers for the white board (excluding our options of jeopardy and hangman). While the groups discussed vocabulary and played Transportation matching, I MacGyvered a game board, using strips of paper and crayons. I discovered that I could stick the papers underneath the top ledge of the board. I then bent the tops and bottoms of the papers to form a chain. Maybe you can see it in the picture. It was ridiculous but worked pretty well.

Auburn: Transportation Lesson

It's that time of year again: students from Auburn are here to lead English classes for a week! They always do an excellent job, and I love having them here.

Today was day 1 in the classes, and I went with one of the groups who did a lesson on transportation. Here's a rundown of the ideas they created:

1. Pictures from home. One of the girls in the group brought some really great pictures of vehicles she sees on a regular basis (bikes on campus, semis, cars, trucks, boats), as well as unique vehicles like a cruise ship and a hot air balloon. They went through all of the pictures (including one of a gas station, a speed limit sign, bumper sticker, and a crosswalk) and discussed the vocabulary.

2. Matching game! You know I'm a fan of the matching games. :)

Action shot of Melanie working with a group of Matchers.

3. Create-your-own-bumper-sticker. This was a fun one; they brought an Auburn University bumper sticker as an example and had the students design bumper stickers for their favorite sports teams. I'm including pictures of the winning bumper stickers from each class.

"Vorskla" is the local soccer team- ALL of the groups from both classes chose to make bumper stickers for Vorskla! This one copies the font used on the scarves that fans wear to the games.

The guys that drew this one were truly talented; this is the crest (for lack of a better word) for the team. The "f" and "c" stand for "football club."

4. Transportation Jeopardy. I'll do a separate post of how to construct and conduct a simple game of Jeopardy. I use it ALL the time and canNOT believe I don't already have a post of it!

5. When a time-filler was needed, we fell back to trusty ol' Hangman! Can't go wrong with that!

Bag of supplies for this lesson:
- pictures for vocabulary
- 4 sets of matching cards
- sample bumper sticker
- strips of paper cut to bumper sticker size for groups to design on
- several packs of colored pencils
- small prizes for winning group
- master copy of lesson plan, including the questions for Jeopardy
- list of supplemental activities in case of need

American Culture Moment: Volunteering

I recently began including a few minutes of "American culture" as a part of Intermediate English club. Many of the students who come are interested in traveling to the States for a study or work program, so I thought it might be appropriate. Last week, our slice of culture was Volunteering. It was interesting to me when I first got here to see a large contrast between American emphasis on volunteerism and Ukraine's approach to it. In most colleges in the States, you can find any number of opportunities to volunteer or donate for some cause: natural disasters, cancer research, abuse victims. Most all American school children have participated in Thanksgiving food drives. It's just kind of a part of our lives, I guess.

We discussed these things, and I asked questions about volunteering in Ukraine. We came up with a list of things that occur here, as well as a list of things that could been done here. We discussed words like "charity", "donate", "give of your time", etc.

As an emphasis, I gave the students a "puzzle" to work out; I created a word scramble puzzle for the verse John 15:13: "No one shows greater love than when he lays down his life for his friends." The girls' team actually worked out the whole puzzle! The boys were a little bitter about it. :) Then, we discussed the meaning and importance of the verse and how we could apply it to our lives.

Building on the Student-y Type Lesson

I had a different group of students at the University today, so I ended up recycling my "student" lesson and changing it a little.

We still did the Starburst game and the idiom matching activity, but we also added Tic-Tac-Toe and a creative activity.

Tic-Tac-Toe:

We played the game normally, but in order to place their "x" or "o", each team had to provide the correct idiom in response to a prompt I would give them. Examples:

1. I overslept! (idiom = running late)

2. I shouldn't have waited so long to study. (idioms = to cram or all-nighter)

3. Next year will be my last year in school. (vocab = junior)

They really loved it and got into the strategy behind Tic-Tac-Toe.

After playing the game for a few rounds, we did a creative activity: since they are sophomores, I had them (in groups) make lists of advice that they would now pass on to freshmen. That turned out to be very FUNNY!

All about feelings

This past week, we did a similar activity in both the Intermediate and Beginner clubs. I just tweaked them a little bit to accommodate the ability levels. I had some matching cards (very much like the activity matching cards) with emotions/thoughts on them. The phrase cards were things like, "I feel sleepy," "I'm so confused," "I feel very happy today," etc. The picture cards were clip art pictures of faces depicting those feelings/ thoughts.

We spent time matching them and discussing them. As we discussed them, we brainstormed reasons behind the emotions. Why do you think he's confused? Maybe he's lost and needs directions. Why is he scared? Maybe he's on top of a building and is afraid of heights. I jumped in with some personal stories of being scared when I first moved to Ukraine and was alone. I explained the different situations that made me afraid and what I did to help overcome it. My mom had packed many decorated cards for me that were covered in Bible verses to remind me that I'm never alone and that God protects me and holds me when I'm afraid. It was a good practice for the students to imagine scenarios and put their thoughts into words. I think they thought I was crazy at first, asking them to make up stories, but they secretly had fun. :)

Student-y type lesson

I was in an advanced English lesson at one of the universities today. The particular group of students I was with today are actually a special group that has all of their classes (except Ukrainian history and Ukrainian language) in English. I decided to do a student-related lesson with them today.

We started off by going over names and playing the Interesting Fact game. This has always been a good ice breaker for me. It gets everyone talking and interacting with each other.

Next, I had made a set of matching cards (the cards written in purple ink were the words/idioms and the cards written in green were the definitions), using idioms (and a few vocab words) that might relate to students. Here are some of the ones that we worked with:

1. senior

2. junior

3. sophomore

4. freshman

5. skip class

6. running late

7. on time

8. ace a test

9. bomb a test

10. all-nighter

11. cram

12. a quick study

13. a know-it-all

14. a mental block

15. to catch up

16. to hit the books

There are tons more that could be used, but these are just a few. They really enjoyed racing to match them up. After discussing them, I divided them into groups and assigned each group 3 phrases to use in creating dialogues. They did an excellent job and enjoyed acting them out.

After that, we played the Starburst game. These were the questions we used:

red: What is the most important lesson that you've learned?

yellow: What is your main goal in life?

pink: Who is someone that you've learned an important lesson from? What lesson did you learn?

orange: If you could give advice to a college freshman, what would it be?

These questions sparked good discussions. Overall, it was a good lesson.

Go Fish!

This is an easy game to play, but it does take some prep work.

The basic concept is the same as a regular game of Go Fish:

1. deal 5 cards to each player.

2. Players take turns, asking other players for specific cards (to match cards already in his or her hand).

3. If the asking player receives a card from the ask-ee, he or she can ask for a card from a different player.

4. If the ask-ee does not have the requested card, he or she tells the asker to "go fish," meaning "draw a card from the central deck.

5. The game ends when one player has matched up and discarded all of his or her cards OR the central stack has been used up. If that is the case, the player with the most matching sets wins!

For ESL, you can use this concept with vocabulary or grammar or phrases. For example, if you are playing with beginners, you could make a deck of cards with colors, animals, foods, family members, etc. If you're playing with more advanced students, you could make a deck with parts of speech or tenses. Here are links to other teachers who have done this activity, as well: http://www.eslcafe.com/idea/index.cgi?display:1159772723-2945.txt and http://www.eslcafe.com/idea/index.cgi?display:1084153220-91558.txt.

Draw-a-question

I use this a lot as a warm-up activity; it gets students talking without having to put too much brain power into it. I usually use it more with Beginners or Intermediates, but you can most definitely adjust the questions for Advanced students or to complement a particular theme.

The basic principle is this:
1. Write questions on strips of paper and fold them up.
2. Mix them all up in a bag or hat or some other container.
3. Have students draw one.
4. Go around the circle so that everyone can answer.

Simple and effective.

Travel brochures

This is an activity that I've used in a lot of different classes and situations. I live in Ukraine, and Ukrainians are VERY artistic and talented with their hands. Incredibly talented, on the whole. They really warm up to this activity.

This activity doesn't take much prep; you just need paper and markers. The assignment is for the students to create travel brochures. I usually divide the students into groups of 3 or 4. I like for them to choose a location in our city or in Ukraine to write about. Tri-fold the paper. The students decorate the front as much as they want. On the inside, I usually require that they choose at least 5 things that visitors should either see or do, describing (in one or two sentences) those activities. I also have them choose 5 phrases- in Ukrainian or Russian- that they think would be useful for visitors to know how to say (one time, I got a brochure back that had the phrase, "Could you please tell me where to find borsch?"- borsch is soup, by the way). They are also to translate those phrases into English. They really seem to warm up to that part.

This activity is usually very well-liked. Often, I'll have them write out their phrases on scratch paper first, and we'll correct them. They really enjoy presenting their brochures to the class, as well. Here are some examples. I have others, but I can't seem to find them...Some students really do a fantastic job on the insides. Hope it's as fun for you and your students as it has been for me and mine!

My mom, sister, and I participated with one class: we made a brochure about Huntsville, AL.

More with Matching Cards (I promise I'm not obsessed)

Here's another activity I've done recently with my matching cards:

I divided the class into small teams and had each team draw 3 or 4 of the activity cards. Their assignment was to create clues/ definitions for their activities. After the groups finished writing their clues, they read them to the class and the other groups tried to guess which activity they were describing. They seemed to enjoy the mystery of it all.

Idea from Jaclyn!

Jaclyn posted this comment and idea yesterday. I hope to try it soon!

I'm always taking from you, so here's a fun activity I did today with my Int/Adv class: We read an article on personality last lesson, so we continued the theme today by discussing several words that describe personality or character traits. Then the class helped me make a list on the board of heroes and celebrities. We agreed that heroes and celebrities are famous or well known people, but yet they are very different. Then we wrote wrote another list in "t-chart form" of words that describe heroes and words that describe celebrities. I supplemented the lesson with other vocab and questions. Fun stuff!

Thanks, Jaclyn!

Those wonderful matching cards!

I wrote yesterday about the stuff I keep in my bag. One of those things were my matching cards. Just since yesterday, I've used them for a couple more activities. Here are some things I've used the cards for:

1. Matching. Clever, right?

2. Draw-a-card. Students (or teams) draw a card (or cards) and create sentences with the activity on the card. Sometimes, I give them guidelines, minimum requirements- so that they don't just write "I like soccer."

3. I have them create questions, using the activities. They can ask the questions of each other or write responses to their own questions. OR, they can switch questions and answer each other's questions.

4. Tonight, I had a lesson planned for my Beginner's class. Of course, when they showed up, I discovered that I needed to change/ adapt to the needs of the ones who showed up. They were having trouble with how to use the different forms of the verb "to be."

First, we made a chart

I: am/ was

You: are/ were

He, She, It: is/ was

We: are/ were

You: are/ were

They: are/ were

Then, I gave them prompts.

1. I am hungry. I will ___________.

I had them sort through the matching cards and find the ones that could be used to complete the thought (like, "get ice cream," "go to McDonald's").

2. I am bored. I will ___________. ("play soccer," "go for a walk")

This worked really well and gave them a lot of opportunity to practice making sentences. I seemed to give them a lot of confidence to have prompts. After a while, they began to create their own sentences!