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clipped from www.teachers.tv From Good To Outstanding - Vicky Edwards

TRAINEES´FAVOURITE ACTIVITIES 2007

Contribution by: Girolami Cecilia, Ercegovich Gisela Workshop 3 -2007

Lesson Stage: Practice

Name of activity: writing a short anecdote.

Level: Intermediate

Procedure: as a warm-up, the teacher will brainstorm types of stories such as ghost stories, fairy tales, legends, funny anecdotes, etc. and also she will elicit some short funny or scaring story they may remember. After that, she will explain the parts of a story (setting, development and ending.) The students will form groups of three and they will plan a story following the steps taught beforehand. They will also have to decide who will tell the story and how. One student per group will tell the story aloud to the rest of the class. The others should listen carefully because then one student will retell it (the teacher will chose the once who are not paying attention.)

Comment:

The students worked well and they were almost all engaged in the activity. They even did not realize that the lesson was finishing and they were working during break time. We think they liked the activity because they wrote what they wanted, i.e. it was communicative and personal. The activity was challenging compared with those in the book. Although it was carried out at the end of an 80’ lesson (they are usually restless by this time) they worked pretty well.

Contribution by Clara Miranda. Workshop III 2007.

The Game of Unspeakable Fun", Taboo is a spoken word game that involves trying to get your team to guess a secret word without using any of five clue words specified as "taboo". As a player gives clues, he is constantly monitored by a member of the opposing team; if he makes any mistakes, a point is deducted from his team's score. There are many ways to succeed in Taboo. Hand gestures, sound effects, and "sounds like" clues are prohibited, but legal clues can consist of suggestive sentences, song lyrics, fill-in-the-blanks phrases, or even one-word hints. I played Taboo on my last practice, and it was great! The students had to find the way to make their team guess the word without using the prohibited ones. And they all managed to do so very well! Here are some of the cards the students picked:

OUT In Doors Exit Leave Go COMPUTER Laptop Screen Games Chat E-mail

CAMEL Animal Desert Spit Cigarettes Hump SCHOOL Teacher Student Classroom Learn

LION Cat King Jungle Animal UMBRELLA Rain Open Get wet Under

I suggest that you try playing it in one of your classes. It can be really fun, and students will have to manage to manipulate the language in the best way possible.

Lesson Stage: 5 min activities

Name of Activity: Taboo

Level: Any (except beginners)

Procedure: Taboo involves trying to get your team to guess a secret word without using any of five clue words specified as "taboo". As a player gives clues, he is constantly monitored by a member of the opposing team; if he makes any mistakes, a point is deducted from his team's score. There are many ways to succeed in Taboo. Hand gestures, sound effects, and "sounds like" clues are prohibited, but legal clues can consist of suggestive sentences, song lyrics, fill-in-the-blanks phrases, or even one-word hints.

Contribution by Ana Laura Salinas

- WORKSHOP III - 2007 -

• Lesson Stage: Post-Reading
• Name of activity: Acting Out
• Level: pre-intermediate (can be adapted to any level)
• Procedure: After reading a text about William Shakespeare's play Hamlet, the Ss are given handouts with differents moments in the story. They have to invent the dialogues among the characters. Then, they act the scenes out (each of them can have a name tag as identification of the character they are portraying). Provide them with some previous 'rehearsing' time.

The Bomb game (ACTIVITY BANK)

Contribution by Nadia Tacchella and Evangelina Vera Workshop lll 2007

Material used: Timer

Source: Educationalworld. July,2007.

Aim: -to motivate SS -to create expectations -to make SS get involved in the subject matter

-to activate vocabulary related to food. -to contextualize the reading activity

The T says that SS are going to play a game about “FOOD”

The game has some modifications so as to fit the topic presented and the group of SS.

Procedure: The T sets a timer with an alarm for 1 minute. The timer is going to be a “bomb”. The “bomb” has to make its way around the classroom. When a S is handed the “bomb “, he/she must say a word related to the topics given in class (FOOD). When the “bomb “ explodes, the S holding it has to either answer a question from the T or do something silly, which his/her classmates will ask.

Timing (of the game): 5 min

Our experience with this activity was very nice. We used it as a warm up activity to activate vocabulary related to food. Each SS had to say an item of food/drink and pass the timer to his/her partner. When the timer rang, they had to answer to a question about themselves. SS enjoyed the game a lot, they laughed and got involved in the lesson. Even the form teacher participated!

Contribution by Georgina Murray

LESSON STAGE: Systematization
NAME OF THE ACTIVITY: Matching
LEVEL: Pre-intermediate
PROCEDURE: The T will draw a time line on the bb and she will write some years on it. Then, she will stick on the bb flashcards with some events. These ‘events’ are in the past simple tense and in the present perfect tense. The Ss will have to match these sentences to the year in which the event took place. The Ss will realize that they cannot match the sentences in the present perfect tense to any specific time in the past. After that, the T will ask the sts which tense is used to talk about past actions that we know when they happened and which is used to talk about actions that happened at an indefinite time in the past, which tense is used for actions that started in the past and have results in the present and which tense is used for actions that started in the past and finished in the past.
COMMENT: learning becomes meaningful when sts see that the present perfect tense is used to talk about indefinite past events and they cannot place the sentences anywhere in the time line. They tried very hard to find a place for them but in the end they couldn’t. That raised their awareness of the difference between the past simple and present perfect tenses.