Martin sketchley

8. Get laughing with Mad Libs
If you’ve never tried this before, you absolutely should give it a try. It’s popular with chat show presenters, so you can check out how to play it on Youtube. You’ll need a worksheet for this one – but there are lots of options available for this (here’s a suggestion below). Once students know how to play, see if they can make their own versions. It’s great for building awareness of parts of speech and being super creative.
Mad Libs on Twinkl
9. Try collaborative writing
Conditional template for use on Twinkl
We often think of writing as a lonely task, done by candlelight with only an owl for company (at least, that’s how I normally write). But writing can be done together. Try making a chain of conditional sentences (works with 1st, 2nd or 3rd conditional clauses). The first student uses a prompt in order to finish an ‘if’ sentence. For example, ‘If I were a superhero, I would be able to fly’. They then pass the paper on to the next person, who continues the situation using the end of the first sentence to start a new one: ‘If I were able to fly, I’d fly to the moon’, and so the game continues. Here’s a template for this game.
10. Write with a purpose
Get students to pin up their text on the wall!
When we write, we’re normally thinking about who our reader is, and what information we need to give or receive. It’s fantastic to replicate this whenever you can in the classroom. Two examples of this are: writing and answering letters to agony aunts, and writing job application cover letters and then holding job interviews. Texts can be pinned or tacked up on the wall so that learners are moving around the room.
11. Go for a running dictation
Dictations weren’t fashionable for a while, but they’re back and looking cool again, like a kid who left class for a year and came back wearing a leather jacket and sunglasses. A running dictation involves you first of all pinning up a text on the wall. Students run over, memorise as much as they can, and run back to tell their partner what their partner read so they can write it down. Other dictation activities may be less well known but work just as well. Try repeating a short text (maybe two or three sentences). Ask students to write down the nouns the first time, the verbs the second time, and adjectives the third time. Then see if they can reconstruct the text in its entirety. This improves listening and writing skills, seasoned with just a pinch of syntax awareness.