Collection of games

Level: Pre-intermediate

Time: 5 minutes

Organisation: Groups

Procedure: The children make up groups, each with the name of a fish. The teacher, as the Sea, walks about, calling them to follow: “The Sea wants the shrimps. The Sea wants the cod...” When they are all gathered, the Sea says “I am calm”: children move on tiptoe, gliding. “I am rough”: children hop. “I am choppy”: children skip. “I am stormy”: children run, waving their arms about.

What animal is this?

Aims: To learn the names of the animals, imagination, miming

Level: Beginner

Time: 10 minutes

Organisation: Individuals

Procedure: It is very useful when children are learning the names of the animals.

Children silently act as animals, and other players try to identify them:

Tiger-paces,

Bull- paws the ground

Monkey- jumps and swings with tail

Kangaroo- bounds

Crocodile- swims and snaps mouth

Cat- washes face, curls up

Gorilla- beats chest

Dog- begs

Rabbit- bunny-hops

Bingo

Aims: Vocabulary practice, listening comprehension

Level: Beginner/Intermediate

Time: 10 minutes

Organisation: Individuals

Procedure: This involves selective copying and is an excellent way of revising vocabulary sets (e.g. colours, occupations, clothes, etc.). through a game.

Write, with the help of suggestions from the class, 12 – 16 items on the board (e.g. for clothes: jacket, hat, shirt, socks,etc.). Ask the students to copy any words from the list.

Then read out the words from the list in any order. The first student to hear all his words read out calls out BINGO!

From these suggestions it should be clear that copying need never be a boring activity! Some of the following activities, particularly dialogue writing, also involve copying: the students do not actually have to contribute to the text.

Associations

Procedure: Start by suggesting an evocative word: ‘storm’, for example. A student says what the word suggests to him or her – it might be ‘dark’. The next student suggests an association with the word ‘dark’, and so on round the class. Other words you might start with: sea, fire, tired, holiday, morning, English, family, home, angry. Or use an item of vocabulary the class has recently learnt.
Blackboard bingo

Procedure: Write on the board 10 to 15 words which you would like to review. Tell the students to choose any five of them and write them down. Read out the words, one by one and in any order. If the students have written down one of the words you call out they cross it off. When they have crossed off all their five words they tell you, by shouting ‘Bingo’. Keep a record of what you say in order to be able to check that the students really have heard all their words.