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.

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!

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.

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!

Apples to Apples

Many of you are probably familiar with this game. Personally, I love it. I love any game that has to do with words. My sophomore year of college, my roommates and other friends and I would play this for loooooong periods of time and not get tired of it.

For those of you not familiar with the game:
In the game that you buy from the store, there are two kinds of cards included: green ones (adjectives) and red ones (nouns- of all kinds). To play the game, each person is dealt five red cards (nouns). Each player takes a turn being the "judge". The "judge" draws a green card from the adjective stack, reads it aloud, and lays it face up on the table. Each player (other than the judge) chooses one card from his or her hand and lays it facedown in the middle of the table, making no comment about which card was played by him or her. The judge then turns over all the cards and chooses the one that he or she thinks best compliments the adjective. This becomes funny when people pick crazy cards that don't normally correlate to a particular adjective. When the judge chooses a noun as the winning card, the person who played that card collects the green adjective card (similar to getting a point). The first person to collect ten green cards wins.

I used this game just the other day when teaching adjectives. They loved it. For that particular class, though, I dealt the teams (I had them play in pairs) green adjective cards, and I put a red noun card down in the middle. It was a success.

If you don't have an Apples to Apples game, it would be pretty easy to recreate: using index cards (or something similar), make stacks of adjectives and nouns (things, places, people, even concepts like "going to grandma's").

Speed Scrabble

Some call it Speed Scrabble. Some call it Take 2. Either way, it's a pretty good game to play with advanced students.

Supplies:
Set of Scrabble tiles. If you don't have a set of real tiles, you can make them. Paper and pen is the most basic form, of course. A volunteer team that came to work with me made me several sets on those craft, foam sheets.

Rules:
1. Each team starts out with five tiles- facedown.
2. When the game starts, each team turns over their tiles and begins making words with the tiles they have. The first team to use all five tiles says, "Take 2."
3. All teams- whether or not they have used all of their original 5- take 2 more tiles from the pile in the middle.
4. Team now try to use up the tiles they have. They can take apart their original tiles to form different words, if they wish.
5. The game continues until there are no tiles left in the middle.
6. Keep score by counting the points of all the tiles that were used to form words. If teams have tiles leftover, the points on those tiles are subtracted from the score.

Have fun!

Agree to Disagree

This game is good for upper-intermediate to advanced students.

Supplies:
5 signs- Strongly Agree, Somewhat Agree, Neutral, Somewhat Disagree, Strongly Disagree
Arrange chairs into a semi-circle and spread the signs out around the semi-circle.

Be sure that everyone understands what each category means. Explain that you are going to read a statement and that each person should move and stand next to the category that best describes his or her feelings about that statement.

Example statements:
1. Ukraine is the best country to live in.
2. Students should be required to wear uniforms to school.
3. Europeans are better-looking that Americans.

As always, be sensitive to the cultural that you're teaching to. I avoid political statements at all costs. :)

Scenarios

An activity that we've used a couple of times now is one that we just call 'scenarios.' We've used two, but I'm sure you could use others, as well.

Scenario #1:
If you and your teammates were stranded on an island but could have 5 (real, not magical) items, what five items would you choose?

Scenario #2:
If you and your teammates were moving to a new planet (a planet that you know NOTHING about), and you could take 10 items with you to keep you alive, what would those items be?

Explain that each team should agree on the choices and that they should have reasons for choosing those items.

Pictionary!

Recently, we have used Pictionary to our advantage at almost every school/club at which we teach. For beginning students, we use basic nouns from the vocabulary they've been learning (shirt, pants, glasses, etc.). For more proficient students, we use other words, like "yesterday," "Easter," "walk," and "scared." We've found that the students tended to be a little timid at the offset of the game, but after the first brave souls ventured out, everybody got really into it!

We play this on teams. We often use teams for activities because it allows weaker students to work with stronger students, thus limiting the direct discouragement from personally failing at a task.

After playing several rounds of words that we provide, we have the teams come up with 3-5 of their own words. We then take each team's words and give them to the opposing team. The opposing team is given one of the words, two minutes are put on the clock, and the drawing/guessing begins. If the drawing team is able to correctly guess, they get a point. If they don't, the other team (the one that created the word) receives the point.

It's a hit so far.

Easter lesson

For our Easter lesson with our English club, we tried something a little adventurous. We wanted to make the lesson fun and meaningful at the same time, so we set up a scavenger hunt. It wasn't terribly difficult to set up, considering that most every aspect of life is more difficult than I ever expect!

Supplies:
1. colored balloons- preferably, a different color for each team. Be sure to get enough for all the clues, plus a couple extras just in case.
2. Strips of paper with location clues written on them
3. A print out of the Easter story for each group. Divide the story into paragraphs/ sections and cut those into strips.

Before blowing up the balloons, fold a clue and a portion of the story up for each balloon and stick them inside the balloon. Blow up the balloons and put them in the locations. Our last balloons led the students back to our classroom where they had to put their stories in order. They really liked this part!

Then, we had an activity sheet prepared for them. We interspersed comprehension questions with "language-y" questions. Comprehension questions: why did the people want Jesus to die? What was rolled in front of the tomb? "Language-y" questions: how many times is 'Jesus' written in this story? Count how many words start with the letter 'p.' Find a word with 4 vowels.

After they finished this activity, we asked deeper questions: what did you think was the most interesting part of the story? Why did Jesus choose to die? Why was it important for him to die?

After we finished this portion of the lesson, I told my story. I focused on how the Lord proved faithful and real to me, particularly when the tornado came through during my senior year of college and destroyed everything. Things went really well.

To finish up, we played a 2 minute list game. Theme? Easter.

Old idea...newish twist

This past week, we stumbled upon a great idea: Create-your-own-Charades.

We use our pre-determined (by us, whenever we think of them) charades ideas to get the ball rolling. We divide students into 3 groups (ideally). We go through a few rounds of those Charades. Then, each group writes their own scenario. We then switch the new scenarios around, and the students act out each other's scenes. Such a hit!

Two-Minute Lists

Confession: this game is a fall-back filler game. However, students tend to LOVE it. It doesn't matter what level speaker, they seem to really like this one.

Basic idea: students have 2 minutes to make a list of as many items as they can.

This is how we do it: divide the students into groups. You can do this individually, too, but in our experience, students are far more comfortable when working in groups. They will need a pen and piece of paper for each group. They will have 2 minutes to list as many items as they can that pertain to the topic you give them. Here are some of the topics we have used:
1. family words
2. animals
3. American movies
4. countries
5. Jobs that begin with the letter 'd' (you'd be surprised at what we've had students come up with!)
6. Vocabulary review- they list as many vocabulary words that they can remember from your class

We often do several of these listing games in a row. If the class likes competition, after each two-minute segment, have each team read off all of their words. Count how many they got and keep score. This seems to be quite motivational. :)