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.

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!

Christmas, week 2

This lesson is a continuation of the first part of the Christmas story. We started the lesson with a warm-up: Starburst game. The questions we used were: 1) What is your favorite holiday and why? 2) What is your favorite holiday tradition and why? 3) What is your favorite part about winter? and 4) What is your favorite holiday memory?

Next, we checked to see who could retell the first part of the Christmas story from the previous week. This is GREAT for checking comprehension and triggering active thinking. I brought candy for the student who was brave enough to tell the whole thing. Everyone was rather sad that they hadn't tried. :)

We continued with more vocabulary and the spelling game:
1. Angels
2. to appear
3. Shepherds
4. (to be) afraid
5. Flocks
6. Savior
7. Nearby
8. a sign
9. Peace
10. Company
11. Terrified
12. Glory

Some of these they knew, others they didn't. We translated all of them and created sample sentences. After going over the vocabulary, we read through the story.

There were shepherds out in the fields nearby, watching over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord was around them. They were terrified. But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all people. Today in Bethlehem a Savior has been born; he is the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger." Suddenly, a great company of angels appeared, praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men."

We read, translated, discussed, etc. After going through this part of the story, we retold the first part and then added this part. They did a great job!

As a grammar section (I know, so fun!), we did a secondary activity of preposition fill-in-the-blank:

There were shepherds out ___the fields nearby, watching____their flocks___ night. An
angel of the Lord appeared___them, and the glory___the Lord was around them. They
were terrified. But the angel said___them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of
great joy that will be for all people. Today__Bethlehem a Savior has been born; he is the
Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped___cloths and lying in a
manger." Suddenly, a great company___angels appeared, praising God and saying,
"Glory to God in the highest, and___earth peace to men."

To finish up, we played a rousing game of Hangman. They love it. :)

Connect 4: bottle cap-style

This isn't the most challenging game ever, but it went over well when I played it with some upper beginners/ lower intermediates.

Make little cards with various verbs in different tenses (i.e. "will write", "bought", "am eating"). Lay these out in a grid; I'm pretty sure that my set is 6 x 6. I play this game using bottle caps from Coke, Fanta, Sprite bottles (mostly because that's what I had on hand) as the game pieces. The students- or groups- are each given a handful of caps. Then, you play it kind of like the game Connect Four. The goal is for each student/ team to get four in a row. To place their bottle cap/piece, they need to construct a sentence using their chosen verb correctly. Example: if they want to put their piece on the square for "am eating," they need to create a sentence like, "Right now, I am eating soup."

The first team to get four in a row wins!

Mad Libs

If you're working with intermediate or advanced students, you can play Mad Libs with them. I used to do these when I was younger and then revisited them in senior year Advanced Grammar at Union. Who knew, right? What you can do is Google "Mad Libs" and sift through the sites to find ones you want. This has been really entertaining for the students we've worked with and gives them a chance to practice their parts of speech!