Are you tired of the same old warmers, games and activities? This is the place to be! This blog displays a collection of top creative ideas taken from the best sites and sources to spice up your classes and involve your students in fun activities dealing with different skills and grammar topics. Welcome aboard!
This is a great ice-breaker when students are not very familiar with one another.
Level: any
Skills: listening, writing, speaking
Materials needed: none
Instructions:
Everyone has to come up with two truths about themselves and one lie. They can write those sentences or just say them. The others have to guess what the lie is. Example: The three things I could say about myself are, "I have been to England. I am allergic to flowers. And I am one of 7 children." You can transform this activity into a game by dividing the class into two groups and having them guess the lie from the student in the other group.
Source: popular activity. Adapted by Vinicius Lemos
Get your students talking about something that is meaningful to them with this activity that requires very little preparation!
Level: Intermediate and Advanced Skill: speaking Materials needed: a board and a marker *
Instructions:
Draw a triangle on the board and write three items on each side of it, such as 'spring water', 'Coca Cola', and 'coffee'. Tell students to pair up or sit in groups and discuss the three items and then decide which one is their favorite and why. Some ideas: beach,mountain,city/ salad,meat,pasta/plane,train,car/running,dancing,swimming/ winter,summer,fall/ morning,afternoon,evening/ books,CDs, films/ cats,dogs,birds/ video games,crosswords, board games/ money,love,career
* Suggestion: the triangles with topics can be made before the class using cards, posters or PowerPoint slides.
This is a very fun speaking activity that involves using creativity.
Level: advanced Skill: speaking Materials needed: common randomly chosen objects
Instructions:
Set the scene by telling students that they are survivors from a shipwreck and that now they are lost in a desert island. Luckily, they were able to bring some objects with them. However, they will not be able to use these objects for what they were originally designed for. So, it means that they will have to find new uses for them in order to survive in the island. Give each student or each pair of students one object and give them some time for discussion and negotiation. Later, students report to the whole class what they can use the objects for. Suggested objects: a cd, a lipstick, a string, a pencil, a bread knife, a ball, etc.
This short video activity can be used as a warmer for intermediate and advanced adult groups. It promotes interaction and exercises students`creativity.
Level: Intermediate and Advanced
Skill: Speaking
Material Needed: the video from Youtube
Instructions:
Set up the scene : a soldier, a colonel, a young lady and an old lady are on a train journey. Students watch the video up to the part the train enters a tunnel and all they can hear is a kiss and a slap. Pause the video when the train comes out of the tunnel, right before the students can listen to each of the passengers` thoughts. Divide students into small groups and give them some time to discuss what happened in the train. Tell them that they are expected to explain their version of the story in details. Elicit their ideas and show the end of the video so that they can compare their versions and check what really happened.
This is a great speaking activity to start the class and it involves a lot of critical thinking and creativity.
Level: advanced
Skill: speaking
Materials needed: realia or pictures of objects
Procedure:
Divide students into small groups (3 or 4) and explain that they are going to see 3 objects or pictures of 3 objects and that the objective is to explain what they have in common. For example: a car, a tv and a can opener (they all have metal pieces, they are manufactured); a cellphone, a book and a dog (the three of them can entertain us, they are a good company when we are alone). Set a time limit for discussion and elicit their ideas. The activity is more fun and challenging when the 3 objects are very different from each other. You`ll be surprised by how creative students can get!
This is a short film that can be used for several different purposes in the classroom. It`s less than 4 minutes long and has no dialogues in it.
Level: basic
Grammar Point: the simple past (regular and irregular verbs)
Skills: speaking,listening, writing, reading (depending on the activity)
Materials needed: the video, slips of paper
Instructions:
Show students the whole video. Then, split students into small groups and give them a set of slips with verbs in the base form. Tell them they have to remember the actions from the short film and organize the slips according to the order in which those actions happened. Groups,then, report to the class how they organized the sequence of events by saying the sentences in the simple past. Finally show the video again to check which group has organized the sequence more precisely.
Slips: ALARM CLOCK RING/ GET UP/ WASH HIS FACE/ PUT ON HIS GLASSES/ GET DRESSED/ LEAVE HOME/GET ON THE TRAIN/ GET OFF THE TRAIN/ ARRIVE AT THE THEATER/PLAY HIS TRIANGLE/ TAKE THE TRAIN BACK HOME/ FALL ASLEEP ON THE TRAIN/HAVE DINNER/WATCH TV/ SET HIS ALARM CLOCK/GO TO BED
* Suggestions:
-Elicit and drill the past form of the verbs before showing the video (randomly in order not to spoil the activity)
-As a follow-up, you can ask the students to write a short paragraph describing Señor Armonia`s day.
Variations:
1) If students don`t know the simple past, this activity can be done the same way but using verbs in the present focusing a typical day in Señor Armonia`s routine.
2) Students can watch the movie and later list down all the things Señor Armonia did (no slips). Then, students can compare their ideas and check who has written more sentences.
3) The teacher can do a dictation with the students after they have watched the short film. The teacher says a verb in the base form and students have to write a sentence in the affirmative or negative based on what happened. Ex: drive a car (students would write 'He didn`t drive a car'), play his triangle (students would write 'He played his triangle').
This activity aims at exercising and checking students’ awareness on word stress.
The vocabulary for this activity can be taken from a text students have just finished reading or from a vocabulary list.
Level: any
Focus: word stress
Materials needed: a ball and slips with words
Instructions:
1. Model how to work with the ball: every time a word is said, the ball should be bounced against the floor at the moment the strongest syllable is pronounced. Example: in·ter·NA·tion·al
2. Divide class into 2 teams.
3. Display the slips containing the words on the table. Then, ask a volunteer from
team A to pick a slip. Stick the slip on the board so that the whole class can see it.
Tell the student to say the word out loud and bounce the ball at the strongest syllable. If the stress is demonstrated correctly, the group gets a point. Repeat the procedure with a volunteer from team B.
Variation: Stress Dictation
In this activity the vocabulary can be taken, for instance, from a text.
Write pairs of words on the board. These pairs of words should contain the same number of syllables but with the stress on different positions. Use a ball that can be bounced against the floor. Explain that one of the words from the pair will be pronounced using the ball. For every syllable, give a gentle tap on the ball. Bounce it at the stressed syllable. Students, then, write down on their notebooks the word that has just been demonstrated according to the position of the stress.
