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"Odd couples"
Here's an idea for helping students review and use vocabulary. Prepare a stack of topic cards. On each, write a single topic--e.g., food, furniture, outer space, pets, dating, gardening, sports-whatever. After giving the student one of the vocabulary words under review, ask her/him to use that word in a sentence that relates somehow to the topic card (which one of you draws at random from the stack). Some pairings of words with topics are naturals--'ripped' with the topic of clothing, for instance--but others may require a real stretch of the imagination. Either way, it makes for a lively and often amusing exercise. (If you try this with your own students, I'd love to hear how it worked out!)

A bad case of the proverbials

A bad case of the proverbials........ Present the students with a couple of proverbs using, for example, Hangman. e.g. 'Actions speak louder than words' or 'Practice makes perfect' Make sure they understand what a proverb is! In groups or pairs get the students to brainstorm as many proverbs as they can think of. Give them about ten minutes for this. Get feedback on this from the groups and get them to explain what each one means (this could take ages, so you made need to limit the time). Give students the gap fill exercise, which they can do in pairs. Give them as long as they need, they may need anything between 10 - 20 minutes depending on their level. Get the students into three groups and ask them to provide explanations for five of the proverbs. Group 1 can concentrate on the first five, Group 2 on the next five and so-on. Get feedback from the groups and check their understanding, other students might offer alternative meanings. Still in their groups ask the students to think of any proverbs in their own language which have the same meaning as those five they have just looked at. Give them only a few minutes for this. Finally get them (still in their groups!) to change any of the 15 proverbs around. They could maybe just change the nouns (e.g. Money makes the world go round not Love) or think of completely new ones. Give them a couple of examples to get them started. e.g; Too many students spoil the lesson! A bad teacher blames his/her students! Finally feedback their efforts and, if time, maybe get them to write some up and put them on the wall. Sheet 2 Proverbs From the words printed at the bottom of the page can you complete the gaps and make well known English proverbs? (one word is used twice!) 1. A rolling stone gathers no ......... 2. Don't cry over spilt ......... 3. ......... makes the world go round
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4. Make ......... while the sun shines 5. Too many ......... spoil the broth 6. Don't count your ......... before they hatch 7. A bad workman blames his ......... 8. Every ......... has a silver lining 9. When in ......... do as the ......... do 10. The early ......... catches the ......... 11. Look before you ......... 12. Don't make a ......... out of a molehill 13. The more you ......... the more you ......... 14. Save for a rainy......... 15. Don't put all your ......... in one ......... cooks, milk, tools, hay, basket, Rome, bird, leap, chickens, mountain, love, worm, moss, have, day, want, cloud, eggs

All begin with the same letter

Here is an activity I have used many times. It focuses both on grammar and vocabulary, as you will see. Tell your students they are going to write sentences, but need to take the following rules into account: 1. Each sentence must have at least 5 words. 2. Each word in the sentence must begin with the same letter given by the teacher. 3. You may use a proper name, but only once in a sentence. 4. The winner is the one (or the ones) who can manage to write a correct sentence (it does not matter if it is a little bit crazy) Then you can get sentences like these: Every evening eleven elephants escape. All afternoon animals ate angry avocados. My mother makes marvelous meatballs. The tiny tailor took the Tunesian tourists to Tazmania. An so forth. You will have to correct some errors like word order, subject verb agreement, and the like. The good thing about this activity is that students make NO USE of their mother tongue, because it is useless! They need to look for an adjective or verb that begins with an "s," for example, so there will be a lot of thinking in English.

Alphabet Scramble
Put several packages of alphabet & number refrigerator magnets in a box. Introduce alphabet pronunciation. Have students take turns pulling a letter or number out of the box. If they pronounce the letter correctly, they keep it. If they draw a number, have them count to that respective letter of the alphabet and pronounce the letter. (Ex. Number 5 would be the fifth letter, E). After all pieces are drawn, place students into large groups. How many English words can
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they create with their collective letters? Dictionaries are allowed. The team with the most words wins! List new words on the board as teams report their findings. I teach adults, and they LOVE this game! :) Have fun!

Back to the board (for all levels and ages)

divide your students into two or three groups. one volunteer from each group sits in a chair with their backs to the board, facing their group. you write a word on the board so that the volunteer can't see the word. their group must give hints to their volunteer so that their volunteer guesses the word first. the first one to guess the word gets a point for their team. Works great for all levels, and ages.

Balderdash variation
a.k.a. "The Dictionary Game" I've used this a couple times and find it a fun way to teach idioms or slang to advanced learners. This vocabulary/writing/listening game is probably best for intermediate to advanced learners since it requires the students to create their own definitions for unknown vocabulary. Depending on the personalities in your class, it can range from very competitive to completely comical. Also best for small classes-- I'd imagine max 8 students, otherwise you'll drag through the day reading definitions! Having said that, this could be played in small groups with appointed secretaries to write. The teacher hands out slips of paper or 3X5 cards with a word/expression written, (perhaps phonemic spelling, too) and the part of speech ("grouchy" -- adjective). The word should be one that the students will not know, and every student gets the same word. Individually, students write a definition for that word on their slip of paper (it can be tame or completely outrageous) and pass it back to the teacher. Teacher silently reads through definitions to check for glaring grammar mistakes and to make sure it's legible. Then once all the definitions have been completed, the teacher reads each definition aloud for the students. Included somewhere in the pile of definitions is the *real* definition which the teacher has written. After listening to all the definitions, students must vote for the definition they believe is the correct one. Students score one point for: a) choosing the correct definition, b) each vote which their own definition receives, c) writing a correct definition for the word After the votes have been tallied and the true definition revealed, I reinforce the correct definition with some examples in context. Use this game as a change of pace between activities (i.e. handing out just one word to the class each day, keeping a scorecard throughout the week or month) or make a meal of it and do several words in one class period. Most of all, have fun!

Body language in limericks

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My idea is about checking your knowledge of words connected with "body language". I was inspired by my phonetic classes where we used limericks to exercise the use of stresses. I thought that i can create my own limericks to make my lesson more fun. Heres the idea: First you can give your students the example of how a real limerick should look like & the way we should read it: There was a man from Wales Who drank one hundred ales. On his way home for tea, He fell in the sea, And went to live with the whales And then you give out the limericks which they should fill in. The more funny limericks are, the easier the phrases are to remember. Each students should work on his own. BODY LANGUAGE I had a friend called Mulder Who all the time his shoulder. One day in Prague, He still wanted to shrug, And all papers fell out of his folder. *** I once knew a guy called Brad, Who used to his big head. Once holding the hen He did it again And his head fell down on the bed *** I have a friend called Beer Whos obsessed with his ear. He once bought headphones Which didnt give out any tones And said to himself Oh my Dear answers : 1 shrugged, 2 tilt 3 rubbing the first who will do it correctly might be rewarded.

Chalkboard Vocabulary Game

Hi there. Here's an idea I use with my elementary and middle school classes (beginnerintermediate). First, divide the class into 2 teams (possibly more if you have a lot of students) With one student from each team at the chalkboard, ask them to perform a task - I usually tell them to spell a level-appropriate word, then draw a picture, then write a particular number. After each task, a point is awarded to the team that finishes first. Each task can be varied to suit ANY skill level. For example, my elementary classes spell the word(s) cat, book, eraser, car,etc. My middle school classes will spell words like education, school, Canada and dictionary. When drawing, (my favourite ) students can not only be told to draw an object, but a certain number of objects, a particular emotion, and even using a
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particular colour. This makes students listen very closely to your instructions, and really gets the entire class excited (high school students have also really enjoyed this game). I sometimes (devilishly) enjoy watching my students try to draw 4 happy yellow cats and 1 angry blue gorilla. I'm not sure if anyone will find this game useful, but my students certainly find it very enjoyable and exciting for the last 10 minutes of class.

Christmas Pudding: an Anagram Activity

"CHRISTMAS PUDDING" is an anagram activity. Make as many words as you can out of the letters CHRISTMAS PUDDING ex. mud, camp, or aspirin. Work individually, then check in small groups. Common words get crossed out, make point scale. try again with different word; Silver bells.. ect. Extra. give an anagram list of hard words. Words from the list are worth double. its a mix between Boggles and Scrabble Good vocabulary/brainstorming activity for all levels.

Countries and Nationalities

Take a map of the world, and put it on the wall. Cut picture s from a magazine, such as National Geo., and post on wall next to map. Run brightly colored tape strips (the thinner the better) from the picture, to the corresponding country on the map. Ask students "where was this picture taken?" They will answer "Indonesia," or appropriately, as the picture requires. Ask "What do you call someone from "Indonesia?" They answer "Indonesian." And so on. There is a lot of room for creativity in this exercise, but the important thing is to get them walking to the board and tracing their fingers to the appropriate countries and learning about them -------- in English! Thanks everyone!!!!

Daniel's Clumsy Class

For Beginners. I used it to teach them basic vocabulary related to routine and customs. First I made some flashcards myself with stickmen on them performing some actions. Then, I wrote down the name of the action in the infinitive in a separate piece of paper. But the real thing is not in the flashcards, but in being clumsy! I used a hat, but you could use a box or something else to hide the flashcards. All you have to do is pretend you're very clumsy and drop some papers. After that, you should drop your hat or box with the flashcards while collecting the pieces of paper. You should say a lot of "Oh no" and pretend you cannot gather the pictures with the actions alone. Students will be automatically willing to help you match the pictures. This is good because you don't tell them "MATCH THE PICTURES NOW". You're giving them a genuine motive to match them. They are HELPING you, not simply MATCHING. After matching, I ask them to talk about their routines. They use very simple sentences like "I watch TV" "I don't watch TV". Don't forget to model first! Hope it helps.

Describe the Word Through Action

I just tried this and it worked great for by advanced beginners class. I wrote down lots of words from past lessons and put them on small strips of paper. I put all the paper in a hat and the students took turns drawing a word. Then they went to the front of the class (only 10 kids) and they had to describe the word in English through actions. it was great fun and I think it was an effective review AND fluency development game. The words were all forms, nouns, verbs, verb tense, adjectives, etc. Try it!

Dicing with Phrasal Verbs

AIMS: Revise phrasal verbs; perhaps teach some new ones informally; speaking; improve short-term memory and concentration; FUN. MATERIALS: A dice and a dictionary (or list) of phrasal verbs with examples for each six students; white/blackboard and pen/chalk. PROCEDURE: Write six verbs (e.g. GO,COME,GET,TAKE,PUT,GIVE) and six adverbial particles (e.g.OFF,AWAY,OUT,UP,BACK, OVER)in two separate columns on the board and number the items in each column from 1 to 6. If you use different verbs or particles, make sure that all 36 combinations give at least one meaningful phrasal verb (the students may not necessarily have met every combination before. Divide the class into groups of six, and these into teams of three. Each team has two "players" and an "umpire". The umpires' job is to keep notes of the phrasal verbs used in the game and to challenge incorrect examples of these. Each team takes it in turns to throw the dice - twice. This will produce random phrasal verbs (e.g. 2+1 in the above list gives COME+OFF).The team then has 20 seconds to produce an unambiguous explanation of the phrasal verb (e.g. the wheel of the car came off because the nuts were loose). Other mistakes are not penalized and weaker students may use gestures to compensate for missing vocabulary. Umpires are allowed to consult reference material but not to show it to other team members.If the umpire of the opposing team disagrees with the explanation given,(s)he may challenge it and provide a correct version. The teacher is the final arbiter of any disputes. Score as in tennis. If the answer is incorrect or no answer is given, the points go to the other team. If a combination is exhausted - tough for the team that drew it (that's life!) When the same phrasal verb comes up again, players are allowed to use any examples given by the umpires during challenges - but not those given before by other players. They have to give an example of the same phrasal verb with a different meaning. Umpires can also query whether the new meaning is really "new" or not (this may depend on first language translations, too!) It sounds complicated but, in fact, students learn the rules very quickly. The last time I played it with a group of six, it ran for the whole hour. Once students realize that they can't reuse examples, they start listening very carefully to the umpires explanations...

Die game
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The die made of hard board is prepared. All the six sides include the pictures of animals. Six chairs are in a circle. Six students sit on the chair which has the animal names. One student throws the die on the floor and picks up the die. If the cow is chosen on the side, he or she says " This is a cow. It has four legs. It says, Moo!" And he sits the chair which has the word(cow). The student who sat on the chair of the cow word comes in the middle of the circle. He throws the die. He picks up..... Instead of the animal, we can use shapes, colors, transportation...(for the young) We can use questions, grammar, ... on the die(for the young or the adults).

English IS Everywhere
I always ask my students to keep their eyes open and bring to each class either a simple word or a phrase they found somewhere around. You will be surprised how many expessions are there around you whichever country you live in. The great variety of (new) words undoubtedly results in expanding your students' vocabulary. And... English will become a hunt for more and more interesting phrases. Try it and drop me a line if it works also abroad.

First Letter/Last Letter

There is a game that I played with my Korean students, to test their vocabulary. The game is called first letter, last letter. The object of this game is for one team to say a word ie.apple, and for the other team to say a word that begins with the last letter of the previous word ie.elephant. You can make this a competitive game, and give points for the number of letters in each word. It was a lot of fun and the students always enjoyed playing.

Fun with Idioms

I used this activity for advanced level high school students and it worked great. First, make a list of idioms the students are unlikely to know (for example: "Over my dead body", "Bite the bullet", "Cut it out" etc.). Write each phrase on a small piece of paper. Divide your class into teams of two and have each team pick one piece of paper. The students then write a short dialogue using their phrase. Have them perform their dialogues and then explain the real meaning of the idiom. It's entertaining for students and teacher to hear how the idioms are used (usually incorrectly).

Gamze's Great "lose the card, win the game" Game

Well I haven't tried this yet. But I feel it is something worth trying. This is something I believe I have "discovered", but who knows, someone else might have thought of this before. This is a kind of "bingo. It requires preparation beforehand. But you can use it as a vocabulary revision game. It may also be good for listening practice: 1.Make as many sentences as you can with the words you have taught before(not less than 20 if you have about 25 students in your class).Write them on a sheet. But don't write the words. I mean the sentences should have blanks.(this is your copy)
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2.Write each word matching the sentences on separate small cards 3.organize your students into groups of 4 4.give each group at least 5 word cards 5.explain what they are supposed to do 6.read the first sentence without reading the expected word 7.the students should listen to you and tell you the word matching the sentence 8.the group which has that word card "loses" its card 9.the first group "losing" all its cards is the winner If I were you, I would cheat a bit. I would organize the cards beforehand to prevent the game from ending at the very beginning. I would give the first and the last words' cards to the same group. Otherwise they wouldn't listen!! (Ps:What if the group which has the answer card can't realize it??Mmmm? Any suggestions?) I hope it helps. Good luck

Geography Jeopardy
I used this game a few weeks ago at an English camp in Italy and it was wonderful! I find that even my advanced students don't know the names of countries in English. Prepare four or five categories and four answers for each category ranging from easy to difficult. Assign values like $100, $200 etc to each answer. Divide the class in groups and after they pick the category and value give them the map to help them out. I gave prizes for the hardest questions. Examples... Asia for $100 - This country has the largest population in the world. What is China? Africa for $400 - This country has the same name as a famous ex basketball player. What is Jordan? Europe for $400 - You think of this country when you want food. What is Hungary? (although my kids came up with Turkey which I thought was great) The best part of this game is watching them devour the map and reading all of the names in English! Hope you like it too.

Go Fish Variation
My idea is pretty simple really. Everyone remembers playing Go Fish as a kid, right? Well you can set up an activity game with cards that have pictures on them. For example pictures of sports like baseball and hockey. The students then ask each other a set question. Like "Are you playing baseball?" The other student replies "Yes I am" if they have the baseball card. When the student has 4 cards that are the same they place them on the table. The kid who has no cards first wins. This is just a simple game that works great for kids who really don't want to learn English. Use this and then it is important because they want to win the game!! I have tried it with adults but in Korea it didn't work to well. Maybe it would work better with other cultures.

Grab the Word

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This is a vocab game that I have used with every class I've had: adults and kids and it is really effective. I generally use it to revise recently taught or new words. List all new words and cut them into cards or strips and stick them to the board. Students are split into two teams and as I read out the definition of a word, both students run to the board and the first one to find the correct word grabs it and takes it back to their team. Then the next two students repeat the activity followed by the next... etc etc The team with the most words at the end of the game wins. I have found this great for even the quietest classes as everybody gets involved, and the sight of normally timid Japanese and South Korean students wrestling each other to the ground in order to get the word is definitely satisfying!!!

Grammar Baseball
Ages: Elementary to Junior High Materials: Magnets, vocab or number cards (cards for elem school only) Time: up to 60 min (includes some time to review vocab) Rules: Divide the class into two teams. One team is the batting team, the other pitching. Draw a baseball field on the blackboard. Use magnets for players. Have one player from each team (batter and pitcher) come to the front. Elementary: Show the pair a vocab word that they must say. If the pitcher says the word first, this counts as one out. After three outs, batting team changes to pitching and pitching team switches to batting. If the batter says the word first, (s)he may move his/her magnet around the bases. Simple vocab (ie numbers 1-10 or alphabet) count as a 1 base hit. More complex words (ie 11-99+, Hello, Good-bye) are two base hits, and phrases (How are you?, My name is~) are a three base hit. For a homerun, students must say all the complex phrases without help from their team. I show the kids the vocab words in their native language and they must say it in English. Junior High: I say the vocab word and they must spell it (written works best). Again, one out if the pitcher is first. For the batter, it's a one base hit if (s)he need the team's help to spell the word. If (s)he can spell the word without help, that's a 2 base hit. If the batter is first to spell the word, (s)he can gain an extra base by speaking the word in a sentence. That's it. Once the game gets rolling, it works really well. I'd love to know other people's and classes response to this game. If you use it, drop me a line and let me know how it went.

Guess the Object

For Beginner and Intermediate Students Materials needed: 3X5 cards Hand each student a 3X5 card and tell them to think of an object. Once they have one in mind, tell them to write descriptive words on the card to describe the object. Once everyone is done,
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swap the cards and have the other students try to guess the object. You can limit the game by allowing fewer adjectives or by restricting time. This is a good refresher of vocabulary as well as a dictionary practice tool. Good Luck!

Have you seen my friend?

For teachers with a few drawing skills. Count how many pairs of students are in your class. If there is, for example 12 pairs, take 12 index cards and draw a carton of a person (or glue one on) to each card. Make sure to have variety in age, sex, size, clothing, accessories,style and color of hair etc. Next print up a vocabulary sheet with words used to desribe each category (For example hair: long, curly, spiked etc). One sheet for each student in class. Separate students into pairs. One student in pair gets the picture (index card) and doesn't show it to his partner. Both students get a copy of the helpful vocabulary sheet. The other student listens as his partner (one with picture) describes the picture to him (using vocabulary sheet if needed) and must draw what he thinks the person on card looks like. When finished students compare both drawings. Each pair then changes cards with another pair and one who described now gets to draw. This activity is really neat to get students to practice vocabulary associated with physical appearance.

How are you feeling today?

***You need a copy of the popular poster, "How are you feeling today?". I made a handout with three columns headed "Words", "My Guess", and "Actual Meaning". The students guessed the meanings of the words (from the poster) and as a homework assignment, they filled in the actual meanings. Then I gave them a photocopy of the poster with the words blanked out and they tried to match the words to the faces. Later they were given a copy of the poster with the words and they compared their answers. They really enjoyed this! I then introduced synonyms for the "feeling" words. After they had learned these, the class took pictures of each other making "ecstatic", "perplexed", "diffident" etc... faces. We glued the pics to posterboard and hung it on the door. The class is proud of the poster and the fact that they know so many new ways to express their feelings!

I SEE SOMEONE
This is a really good game that was passed on to me a couple of years by another teacher but which I have improved upon a bit. It is great because the kids love it, it is easy to conduct, and the students benefit very quickly from it. This is how it works: 1.) Set up enough chairs at the front of the class (in a circle or a line) for all of the students minus one. So, if you have 12 students then set up 11 chairs. 2.)The student who does not have a chair has to call out "I see someone who is wearing pants/a shirt/socks/a hoody/a turtleneck/etc." 3.)Those students who are wearing the item of clothing that is called out must stand up and
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switch spots with another student. Meanwhile, the caller must also try to find a spot. 4.)The student left without a chair is the new caller. You can play variations with this game after they get better or to practice different grammatical forms or vocabulary. For example, you could have them call out "I see someone who ISN'T wearing a hat/ a jacket/ etc." to practice negations, you could have them say "I see someone who HAS long hair/blue eyes/a red bag/glasses/two arms, etc.", you could have them say "I see someone who LIKES apples/pizza/boogers/etc." and don't for get about negating these verbs. Really, the possiblities are endless on this game. If you want to play this game but don't have enough space in your classroom, I have also played this game outside and in a gymnasium. Just make sure you have some hula-hoops to replace the chairs. I hope someone finds this game useful.

I'm Thinking of a Five- Letter Word

Think of a five-letter word that is not a proper noun and that doesn't have any repeating letters. Draw five lines near the top of the board. Students then must think of five-letter words (no repeating letters and no proper nouns). I write each word on the board and create columns under the five spaces. At the end of each word that a student suggests, write the number of letters that are also in the word they are trying to guess. For example, if my word is "ghost," then if a student gives me the word "house," I write a 3 at the end since three of the letters in "house" are also in "ghost." This requires students to really concentrate on coming up with good fiveletter words. This game is always popular with my students.

Idiom of the Week

When teaching new English idioms to my Deaf students (who use American Sign Language) I have used a piece of laminated paper as our "Idiom of the Week" board. On Monday, I will have a new idiom written (i.e.: Eat your heart out). I ask my students to predict what it might mean. On the board there is also a cartoon-style drawing (by me...definitely not highly artistic) which illustrates the LITERAL meaning of the idiom (...a stick-figure person eating a heart). I don't "tell" my students what the idiom means, but rather contrive some way to slip it into conversation. I continue to do this a couple of more times until students are ready to discuss the context(s) and make better predictions about the actual idiomatic meaning. Throughout the week I reinforce (how you reinforce will depend on the age of your students) students' usage of the idiom both in conversation and in print.

If desire were a piece of furniture,..............

This activity provides some creative practice for abstract nouns, as well as review of common "superordinates" (general concepts such as animal or piece of clothing) and "hyponyms" (specific examples of a superordinate, such as orangutan or overalls). It is recommended as a vocabulary review in advanced classes where students have been confronted with a heavy dose of abstract nouns.
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1. Brainstorm together with the students on a list of superordinates, such as beverages, means of transportation, and household objects. (It can help to give the students a few minutes to brainstorm in pairs, then bring them together to read out their lists.) Write a good healthy list on the blackboard. 2. Next you want to brainstorm another list of abstract nouns, such as power, desire, and awkwardness. Write that on the board next to the first list. 3. Then write this structure on the board: If _____________ were a ________________, what __________ would it be? 4. Now for the fun part! Have students create questions along the lines of "If desire were a piece of furniture, what piece of furniture would it be?" First, provide a few examples, then give students a few minutes to construct some interesting questions.When they're ready, have them ask the class. Write the question and answers on the board. The results are often very amusing.

Imaginary Ball
1. Procedures: a Students in circle, standing up. b. Student pretend to play with a ball, which one changes its form and characteristics, colour , (eg. plastic ball, leather ball, tennis ball, basket ball...) c. The students must play with the ball and react to the changes. d. After five minutes all the balls are eliminated and the teacher keeps just one . All the class have to manipulate the game repeating the instructions given previous by the teacher. e. I use this game to practice vocabulary and adjectives as heavy, light, hot warm, cold, big, huge, attractive...

Jabberwockying
ESL and EFL students oftentimes use their dictionaries too much when reading a text. Instead, it is important to teach these students to try to understand the meaning of a vocabulary item from the context of the passage. The following activity is a fun and eye-opening activity that intermediate to advanced students seem to benefit from as well as enjoy. The activity seems to work the best when the students are working in pairs. First, ask students to volunteer to read one verse each (my experience is that several students enjoy reading aloud to the class) without telling them which poem they will read from. Next, give the students a copy of the poem "Jabberwocky" by Lewis Carroll. Immediately after the students have received a copy of the poem, they will begin to search in their dictionaries for all the nonsense words used in the poem. That's when you explain that many of the words are nonsense and made up by Carroll. Thus, they will not be found in the dictionary. Next, tell the students (working in pairs) that they will have to figure out the general meaning, semantics, of the poem and replace each nonsense word with words that do exist. Hence, they will rewrite the poem so that it makes sense. Moreover, the words have to carry a meaning appropriate for the poem as well as be grammatically correct; these words must adhere to the general rhyme pattern of the original poem. Thus, the students must try to figure out the meaning of several vocabulary items from the context only, and they must use a thesaurus in order to find words
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that will meet all the requirements. This will take about an hour. (Using an internet thesaurus is popular among the students.) When this is done, have the students read their modified "Jabberwocky" poems aloud to the class. This will bring out many laughters and interesting vocabulary items that can be assigned for homework. It also stimulates discussions about semantics and the clues the context of a text can give when encountering an unknown vocabulary item.

Just Do it !
This is fun way of recycling vocabulary and much more! Make a list of words, phrasal verbs, expressions, etc, that you have taught your students recently. Next to each word that you can glue to a card write M for mime, S for speak, D for draw. Explain the game to the class. Divide the class in two groups. One student from each group comes forward, you show the card and he/she goes quickly back to his/her group to mime, draw or speak and thus try to give the correct information so that the others can guess the word. You keep the score. Warning: students can become very competitive so don't let the activity go on too long. This is suitable for all levels and adaptable to grammar practice: prepositions (the group gets an extra point by giving the correct one in the context), word order (producing a correct sentence with the word/expression), etc.

Know them or not?

Here is a very useful activity for vocabulary recycling: After dealing with a group of words/expressions, ask your students to classify them into the following 3 categories: Words/expressions I definitely know Words/expressions I know but need to revise Words/expressions I don't know This can be done as many times as you feel like it, even with the same vocabulary items, and you can be sure your students will not get tired of it. The "Words/expressions I definitely know" list helps students become aware of how much they have learnt, which I think is a crucial part of language learning. The other two lists help the teacher know what words/expressions she should still be working on. It would be great if you could get your students to write all the words/expressions on small cards, so that they could also use them to play Word bingo, Pelmanism, Memory games, etc.

Labeling Objects
One simple way students will never forget the vocab they need to learn is by labelling objects. I did this with tools, brought in my own tools and had the students label the tools with stickers. It's also very easy to come up with vocab games once the objects have been labelled.
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Learner-Centered Idioms I've always taught a lot of idioms in class, and have long been in search of the best way to teach them. After using several different books, I have come up with the following basic procedure that can be applied to any list of idioms. 1. Introduce the idioms. It's great if your book already has a story or dialogue using them; if not go directly to step 2. 2. Go over the idioms one by one. Ask students if they know rather than just presenting the definition. Use it in a sentence and see if they can guess from your context. Be prepared to offer another sample sentence. 3. Immediately after doing the definitions, ask each student a question using one of the idioms. Try to create questions that require the students to connect the idiom to personal experience. ("When was a time when you felt ill at ease?") Occasionally, it's really hard to make a question with an idiom, but try to make questions with as many as possible. This will immediately let you sense how well the student understands the idiom. Listening to other students also helps them prepare to write their own sentences. 4. (optional) Matching exercise, using the idioms in a sentence. If you are using a book, use the one from the book. 5. Students write their own sentences using the idioms. I didn't think I had to do this, but again, it's a good way of understanding if they really understand the idiom. 6. Create the next day's exercises from the student sentences. You can do grammar correction exercises, where the students look at sentences that aren't quite right and try to improve them, or you can base a matching exercise on some of the students' good sentences. After doing these things, you can review idioms in a variety of ways. I've started reviewing them in a BINGO format, where they have to mark off the idioms that match the definitions I read (or mark off the idiom that would belong in a sentence I read). Other times I have reviewed them in a Jeapordy game format where one of the categories is idioms. Overall, I've found that students won't really learn idioms unless they have thought about how the idiom relates to their own experience and interests. So, I highly recommend spending more time on exercises that involve personalizing the idioms than following exercises in a book-sometimes these can be rather contrived. These procedures are especially good with the idioms in TOEFL study books--usually a student needs more practice than what the book can give them.

Magic Calendars, a daily notetaking wonder!

I tried this idea last year, and it really worked for the students and served as a review at the end of each class. It teaches students how to take notes about vocabulary. I make the calendar by printing it off of Microsoft publisher (takes only 2 minutes to do!). I add some extra information on the calendar as a kind of schedule such as important dates for students to remember, holidays like Thanksgiving for November,school events, etc... Then, at the end of each class period, I ask students to pick ONE new word that they learned and WANT to remember from the lesson. I ask them to write that word on their calendar and to draw a picture of the word and/ or 14

15 write a definition of the word in their own English. The goal is to practice giving definitions in English about English, and not always having to rely on translation for meaning. Once the month is finished, the students have had the chance of recording up to 30 words. Some students take the calendars home and hang them on their walls or in their bathrooms. This is a good chance for students to learn HOW to take notes in a foreign language, and to reflect about each lesson and what they have learned. The calendar is a way to document this learning, and the students can say "WOW, I learned all of that?!"

Manual mouse clicks

This is a game for memorising meanings of words. Write the words you want students to revise at random on the board. Tell the students that the board is the computer screen, and that the pen in the cursor. Ask a student to direct you to a word by saying left, right, up, down. Once the pen is over the word, tell the student to say click! This changes the word into its meaning; unfortunately there is no html on the board so you have to rub out the word and write its meaning in its place! Do this a few times so the students get the idea. If a student clicks on the meaning, it becomes the word again. Let the students do it together in pairs, with paper, pencils and rubbers, with one student holding the pencil and changing word into its meaning (or vice versa), and the other directing and Clicking

Match Maker
Before class I chose 5 ads from each category of the personals in the newspaper and copied them onto sheets for the students. I try to pick ads with lots of character. In class the students form small groups of "professional matchmakers" (2-3 per group) and they are instructed to find 3 perfect couples. Each ad can be used only once. After they do this, they then have to find the "Couple from Hell," i.e. the couple that would never work. For this couple they can use any of the ads, even ones they used previously. Once they have chosen their 4 couples, they discuss the reasons why these couples would work (or wouldn't) with the class. The activity is good for people vocabulary and it's always fun. As an alternative, students could choose from the full list in the newspaper. I haven't done this because it could be an overwhelming amount to pick from.

Memory Game
This little game is a good way to review vocabulary and different tenses. One of my classes is studying a unit on animals. The teacher starts by saying "Yesterday (Today, Tomorrow) I went to the zoo and I saw a lion." Then the next stud ent says "Yesterday I went to zoo and I saw a lion and seal." You continue on like this until someone cannot remember. For younger students you may want to give clues to help them remember the words. If 15

16 someone cannot remember they sit out and you cont inue playing until there is only one person left. My students love this game and they get really creative with their vocabulary.

More Bingo Ideas

I thought I'd add a few more bingo ideas of my own, having found a couple of good ones submitted here earlier. 1. Mime Bingo Write down a number of verbs on the board, which the students copy into their bingo squares. Next, mime each verb until you get a 'Bingo!'. Alternatively, try miming Adverbs (words which describe the Verb). Adverbs are trickier for students, so you could maybe do this after having taught adverbs to them in a previous lesson as revision. 2. Question And Answer Bingo. Write down a number of 'answers' on the board, nothing too long, maybe even just one word, which they put in their bingo squares. Next, call out questions which match one of the 'answers'. eg, they have an 'answer' like 'It's hot.', and so your question could be like 'What is the weather like today?' etc. For the higher level kids, you could even go Jeopardy style - give them some questions to put in their bingo boxes, and call out questions which could match them. 3. Pairings Bingo This broad name covers any pairings (of course questions/answers are too) which you can think of. City/Country - give them some world capitals and then call out countries (or vice-versa) to match. Opposites - give them words and call out their opposites. Verb & Tense - give them verbs and call out the same verbs in different tenses, eg, their bingo square might have 'fishing', and you call out 'fish'. This is especially good for teaching them the trickier tensed words like fly/flew, catch/caught, etc. Hope these ideas are of use.

My Word!
This activity is fine for teaching/revising vocabulary. Its both simple and fun. See how you like it... Select a word category (eg musical instruments, wild animals, nationalities...anything goes!) Allow stds. a minute or so to write down as many appropriate words as they can. The teacher should also write ONE word belonging to the chosen category. Thats HIS/HER word...and it must be kept secret till the students have read their answers. Then students take it in turns to read one of their words at a time. The first time a correct answer is given, the student who said the word (eg guitar) gets 3 points for it. All the others who wrote the same word get 1 point for their efforts. Suppose that the teachers word was, for instance, "piano". Should a student come up with that answer, Teacher says "My Word!" out and aloud and the lucky student gets 10 points for striking the right key, 16

17 while the others get none for that particular word. This ends the round. Students add up their points and try another word category. Should no one come up with the teachers word, s/he says it out and aloud and the bonus 10 points accumulate for the following round, when a lucky student will get 20 points, 30 or even more... After a few rounds, the student with the most points wins the game. When you are done, you may wish to go through the students lists again and check whether any right words remained unsaid or just add a few more anyway. The teacher is free to choose his/her word, of course. As a rule of thumb, the lower the stdss level, the simpler your words should be. You dont expect a group of young beginners to say cymbals or tuba...or do you?

Nazo's Bingo
For this game the whole class is involved. The calss is divided into groups of 4. 1-Each group draws a grid with 9 blanks on a sheet of paper. 2-The teacher writes 11 words s/he would like to have revised on the board. 3-Each group selects 9 words from the board and copies them into the blanks randomly. 4-The teacher has a bag of definitions of the words on the board. 5-The teacher starts reading out the definitions. If the group can identify the word that is defined, then the group secretary crosses the word out. 6- The group that has all the crosses shouts out BINGO and they get a present from the teacher

Nazo's Fat Man

Hello Everybody, Here is a quick vocabulary revision activity which can be done during a reading class. Coincidently, the reading lesson I did was on eating habits, but it can be adapted to any kind of text. After I finished all the pre-reading and while-reading stages of that particular text, I drew a fat man on the board with a huge stomach. I wrote on board: Do you remember what Mr Fat ate for breakfast / lunch and dinner? Inside the stomach I had written only the first letters of the words. E.g: b_________(bacon) Students had to finish all the words within a timelimit. This activity can be done after any kind of reading lesson as I said before with a little change of the question: What does Mr Fat take on holiday? (If the text is on holiday ). Thank you. Hope you can use it.

Nazo's Up, Up, Up Show

This is a vocabulary revision activity.It can be done after some units from the coursebook are dealt with. The teacher chooses 15 words to be revised. The class is divided into groups of 4. Each group finds a group name. The teacher writes the group names on the board.e. Crazy Girls. Each group chooses a secretary. Each group is given a pile of scrap paper. The teacher has a microphone in her/his hand and starts by saying :"ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Nazo's Vocabulary Show. Today, we have 6 groups and they are..." The teacher starts the show by giving definitions to the words s/he wants to be revised. e. This is something which is used for cutting wood. The groups try to find the word and the secretaries write 17

18 "axe". When the teachers tells them Up,up,up, secretaries have to raise their cards. Each correct word is 10 points, spelling mistake 5 points. This is a very practical game for revising vocabulary and it takes only 15 minutes, so can be played at the end of any lesson.

Phrasal Verb Tic Tac Toe

A great warmer for a lesson based around phrasal verbs. Draw a 3x3 grid on the board, write verbs down the side and particles along the top. Make sure that all the verbs and particles can combine to make phrasal verbs. Divide class into two teams - O's and X's. In order to win a square, the team must make a sentence using the verb and particle corresponding to that square (e.g row "get", column "on" produces "I don't get on with my brother"). Set a time limit and insist on non-literal meanings for high level groups. If a team is unable to make a sentence, offer it to the other side. The first team to make a line wins.

Pictures speak louder than words

During my work in a primary school in China I invented a relaxing way of teaching simple vocabulary to younger kids. It serves to teach not only pronunciation but also spelling by means of drawing. Its best for the names of objects like fruits or household utensils, animals etc. All you need is a blackboard and colourful chalk. First, you have to draw, say, a cat. It should be a funny picture so that children laugh at it. Then practise the pronunciation of the name with the kids and once they get it, write it clearly below the picture, underlining each letter separately. Next, draw and name other animals, but no more than five or six at a time (it can also be the number of the rows, if you wish to hold a competition at the end of the lesson). After practising the names, wipe the letters off and ask your pupils to write them again on the blackboard (the underlining will now prove helpful). When all the names are back on the blackboard, wipe the pictures off this time. The kids will vie with each other to come to the blackboard if only they have a chance to take the stage. At the end you can hold a competition. Leave either the names or the pictures and ask one person from every row to write or draw correct names or animals. You can also ask them first and then say what animal they have to draw. Therell be a lot of fun for you and the kids, on one condition though they must be young teenagers at the most. It doesnt work with high school students very well. Thankfully, neither you nor the kids need to be gifted draughtsmen;-)

Pizza and more

Hi. I teach ESL & Speech/Language. I needed a new approach for working on writing skills and vocabulary development with my 6th graders, so I got them involved in a project to create their own pizza & commercial. The students were each given their own pizza parlor/company name, and had to create lists of vocab words to describe the pizza served at their establishment, something that no other place would have. This inspired group discussions about the "ultimate" pizza. They used consummer information (from other students)to generate numerous 18

19 kinds of pizza, pizza toppings, and crust ingredients that they would serve to please their customers. The writing process put it all together in commercial format. The students have decorated pizza boxes with their logo, and will show them off in videotaped "commercials".

Pop song vocabulary

At first I asked my kids to write their own vocabulary lists, but they had trouble with that so I chose words from pop songs that we listen to in class and make a weekly vocabulary list for my students. Then we practice writing sentences with the vocabulary during the week. On their vocabulary quizzes they have to demonstrate that the know the meaning of the word by writing a sentence using it. Vocabulary in pop songs is often much like spoken English and sometimes even has common expressions for kids their age, so they like learning about it. You could make this simpler or more difficult depending on your kids levels.

PREDICTING CONTENT CONTEST

The purpose of this game is to practise vocabulary relating to specific topics. In addition to increasing learners speaking, listening, writing, and reading skills it will also increase their abilitiy to predict content in reading passages and short stories. Step One Tell the learners that they will soon get a reading passage or hear a short story (depending on whether you want to concentrate on reading or listening comprehension) entitled (for example) In the post office. Ask them individually to make a list of 16 content words that will most probably be found in the text. Ask them to use bilingual dictionaries to look up words that they dont know or are not sure of. When they are finished, ask them to compare and discuss their indivudual lists in pairs or groups of three. Step Two Ask the learners to prepare individual bingo cards containing four columns and four rows, i.e. 16 squares. Next, ask them to write the 16 words from their individual word lists in the 16 squares; one word for each square and in no particular order. Step Three Alternative one: reading comprehension Hand out the texts. Ask the learners to read through the texts and cross off all the words from the bingo cards that are also in the text. Next, ask them to count how many complete horisontal or vertical lines they have produced by crossing words off. The winner is the one with the largest number of crossed-out lines. Alternative two: listening comprehension Ask the learners to listen carefully to a short story from a tape-recorder (or read out by the teacher). Ask them to cross out the words from their bingo cards when they hear them, and invite the first learner to complete a 19

20 horisontal or vertical line to call out I have a line. The winner is the one with the largest number of crossedout lines. Step Four Ask the learners to produce as many sentences as possible using their personal four-word lines (horisontal and vertical) and irrespectively of whether they were crossed out or not. After five minutes or so, ask them to share/compare their sentences with their classmates.

Robbz Naked Finger

This game is based on the very popular quiz game Family Fortunes. A superb test your knowledge on many different and varied subjects, it brings up words that the students may not usually learn in an ordinary class. First of all, it will take a good few hours to prepare questions and answers, eg. *Something worn on a cold day 1) a woolly hat 2) a scarf 3)gloves 4)thick socks 5)warm coat 6)longjohns *The scandinavian capitals 1)Oslo 2)Copenhagen 3)Stockholm 4)Helsinki *A tool used in the garden 1)Spade 2)Fork 3)Lawnmower 4)Sheers 5)Hoe 6)Rake In the classroom, seperate the students into two teams (best size between 3-7 students per team). Then write on the white/black board the answer spaces, eg. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Stand the first two students up from each team, ask the question and the first person who gets a correct answer, that team gets to answer the rest of the missing answers. A wrong answer means they lose a life, they have three lifes to get all the missing answers, if they lose all their lives, the other team has one guess to steal all the points. 1 Spade 2 Fork 3 Lawnmower 4 Sheers 5 6 Rake Five answers correct - five points awarded. If the first team could only get four answers and the second team guessed correctly at one of the remaining two answers, the second team would take all five points and the first team would receive nothing. 20

21 Always show the answers at the end of each round and explain the meaning if needed.

Rock Scissors Paper Vocab

Put picture cards or any other type of vocabulary in a line on the table or the floor. Put the class into two teams, one team at either end of the vocab line. One person from each team stands by the first vocab word at their end. Teacher says "GO!" and they both have to name all the vocab words CORRECTLY and quickly. If they say the wrong vocab word, they have to start again from the first word. When they get to the middle (more or less depending on how fast they recall the vocab) they play Rock-ScissorsPaper. The winner continues, the looser goes back to his team and the next player comes up and names the vocab FROM THE BEGINNING. The winning team is the person who gets to the other end by naming the first vocab word from the other teams end. They really enjoy the challenge and I find after this game they practically know the vocab without even drilling!

Roll Call Round Robin

I call roll in every class at every level. To get students thinking in English, I ask them to answer their name with some English word. Beginners must name a food or color or animal or some similar broad but deffinite category. More advanced students "graduate" to emotions, English last names, Pop singers-anything that will have enough different items to cover the class because items may only be used Once. Usually I tell the class the day before as part of their homework that they will have to review or research such-and-such a category for the following day. Sometimes a discussion develops about an item used by a student, and sometimes the category of the day leads into the grammar or listening or whatever lesson (whaddyano!)

Scattegories
Have enjoyed reading the ways teachers are using games! I've taken the multi-sided "Scattegories" dice and used it with my own lists. Students are given the list (ex. write the name of something in the kitchen, something you can read, something in your wallet/purse, etc. (up to 10 different things). Somebody shakes the dice and all the words to complete the list must start with that letter. The teacher can move around the classroom and give hints (subtle or blunt!) as necessary. Give students 2-3 minutes and then take up the answers. Any word repeated by another can't count for a point - this encourages people to move past the obvious words onto more interesting ones! Categories can be adapted to suit themes once when teaching ESL to nurses I used categories like an adjective for a doctor, a body part, equipment in the operating room. Have fun!

Shopaholic
This is an activity I discovered to be more appealing to young learners than was apparent at first. It involves vocabulary related to any type of product that can be bought in a shop as well as the grammar issue of some/ any/ no. Students are asked to imagine they actually have the exciting opportunity (please make it seem so) of starting their own shop. Ask them to work in groups of whatever size you 21

22 may find convenient (3-7) to make up a list of the products they will have available. Then ask them to find a catchy name for their shop (quickly, they may tend to waste time on it) and write it as clearly as possible on a large sheet of paper. Then tell them they are going to visit each other's shop and buy whatever they like. You may write on the board the exact formula for question/ answer you want them to practise - like "Have you got any...?" "Yes, we have some/ no, we haven't got any". Finally, just ask them to hold out their shop's name and people will call out a shop and ask them about a product. If the answer is correct grammatically, they will ask the next question and so on and so forth...

Slap
These same cards that you use to play "Go Fish" can be used for those students not yet familiar with the vocabulary or not at the production stage in a game called SLAP. Students are in pairs or groups of three. Shuffle and place face up these picture cards in the middle of the students. Students must sit with their hands at their sides. The teacher then says the sentence, "I like to play basketball." The students must slap th e picture card that displays basketball. The student who slaps the card first gets to keep the card. After all the cards are described, the student with the most cards wins. This is great for all ages. Just watch a group of 30 adults get into the fun!

Stinky
This is a simple activity, though it takes some of the teacher's time. If your students have to memorize long lists of vocabulary items (with definitions), the teacher may prepare a set of cards with words and definitions plus a "stinky" card (one which does not have a match). This is better if there are more than 10 words (21 cards total). After this preparation, put students in groups of 3 or 4 and tell them to deal all the cards among them. Then they are supposed to pair up the words with their definitions (with the cards they have in their hands). Then they are to "buy" cards from their peers until there is just one left. This student is the "stinky." This game is a lot of fun and really helpful when you have to teach long vocabulary lists!

Stop!
I use the well-known game "STOP" in order to make students reviewing vocabulary. It as simple as this: draw a chart on the board, showing as much columns as the fields you want (e.g. sports, animals, etc) You add two more columns: one for points and the other for "letters". You can leave two or three subjects to be choosen by students. The game starts picking up a letter from a bag (this is easy to do). Students have to fill a word for each category. The first one who has completed ALL the columns, says STOP. And the other have to stop writting. At this point all answers are checked. Original ones are scored twice than shared ones, and the ones that only one student has, are scored three times. The winner is who scored more points after a roun, say 5 letters. You can adjust the game depending on the level, play it individually or as a group. They love it!

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SWAT it!

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Clear some space and get ready for some fast-moving fun! My beginning-low adult class had such a great time with this vocab/word recognition review activity that it's become a "fast" favorite. Prior to class, list words for review on a large piece of shelf paper and tape to a wall. Divide the class into four teams, have them line up so that they face the word wall, and supply each team with a fly swatter (new, of course!). Tell them that you will say one of the words and the first person on each team should run up to the list and give the word a BIG swat when they find it. Every person up at the wall should HEFTILY swat the word before they head back to the line. Even my new students who entered the prior week participated wholeheartedly, I think because they were able to follow the lead of the others and not feel noticably "left behind." Do it, tweak it, and you'll love it!

Table Smashing Fun

This works really well with small groups or if you have a large group, divide them up into smaller groups, it just might be harder to do 'quality control.' -Make a list of vocabulary words, normally ones they have been studying, or need to review, and put each word in English on its own sheet of paper. -Lay out the words on a table and have the group stands around the table. -Call out a word (in their language) and they have to find the word in English and slap it before anyone else does. If they are correct, they get to keep the word. For example, I say the word 'Tisch' in German, and they must find the English equivalent, 'Table.' -Whoever has the most 'words' at the end wins. If you don't know the language of your students or you teach a group of students with several mother languages, then you could describe the word in English, etc. Sometimes they just slap any word, so in order to find out if the word was really learned or not, I make them say a sentence with the word in it or tell me the German equivalent. This game has ALWAYS been a hit and their vocab has really increased since introducing this game. USE IT!!

Taboo
The game TABOO is a great way to improve vocabulary and fluency. The idea of the game (simplified rules that I use in class) is that one student has a card with a word which his/her classmates have to identify. The player with the card can only use speech to describe this word, and may not use key words listed on the card - they are TABOO! If you use the actual game, you will probably have to go through the cards first and select them for the level of your group; or you can make your own cards, listing taboo words according to the level and culture of your students. If you divide your class into two teams the competition gets really fierce! 23

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