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!

Valentine's Day

For Valentine's Day, I didn't do a whole lesson on Valentine's Day, but we did dedicate part of the lesson to it. Before class, I found a copy of the first Valentine's story and then cut/reworded so that it wasn't too difficult for intermediates. I printed it and cut the story into strips, by sentence. The students' task was to try to put the story in the correct order. After that, we read through and translated it. By the time that we finished it, it was almost time to end class, but we did ask/ answer/ discuss several questions. Here's the version I used:

Valentine was a priest who lived in ancient Rome.

He refused to obey a law by the emperor that ordered young men to remain single.

The emperor supposedly did this to grow his army.

He believed that married men did not make good soldiers.

The priest, Valentine, however, secretly performed marriage ceremonies for young men.

When the emperor found out about this, he had Valentine arrested and thrown in jail.

On the evening before Valentine was to be executed, he wrote the first "valentine" himself.

It was to a young girl that he had become friends with.

It was a note that said, "From your Valentine."