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A Good Use of Time

The document provides examples of short activities that teachers can use to supplement their lessons and make effective use of class time. These include review games like Hangman and vocabulary chains to reinforce recently learned material. Other suggested activities are the English Calculator math game and picture dictation to engage students. Suggested warm-up and cool-down activities include Stand Up-Sit Down If... and Words Beginning With to get students moving and practicing vocabulary. The goal is to keep students communicating in the target language through brief, engaging exercises.

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Mimoun Zeggai
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53 views

A Good Use of Time

The document provides examples of short activities that teachers can use to supplement their lessons and make effective use of class time. These include review games like Hangman and vocabulary chains to reinforce recently learned material. Other suggested activities are the English Calculator math game and picture dictation to engage students. Suggested warm-up and cool-down activities include Stand Up-Sit Down If... and Words Beginning With to get students moving and practicing vocabulary. The goal is to keep students communicating in the target language through brief, engaging exercises.

Uploaded by

Mimoun Zeggai
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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A Good Use of Time: Short Activities to Use Every Moment Well by Ruth

Petzold, US Embassy Rabat, Regional English Language Officer ([email protected])

Objectives: to try out some short activities that help students learn or practice aspects
of the language, supplement a course book, or serve as a warm-up or cool-down.

Background: It takes a long time to learn a language (the usual minimum is around
700 on-task hours!). Most teachers feel they do not have enough class time to enable
their students to accomplish that goal. We certainly do not want to waste the precious
time we have.

Regardless of how much time they have, good, communicative teachers aim to do
whatever they can to help students communicate better in the target language.
Typically, this means they try to plan activities that:
are a little bit challenging for students (at I+1 level)
focus on students' needs and interests so they are motivated
let students give their own ideas and opinions (& finish their own sentences!)
keep as many of their students verbally and mentally involved in the task as possible

Five-Minute Review Activities

Hangman
1. The teacher or a student thinks of a word or expression the class should review and
puts a blank on the board for each letter in the word or expression.
2. Students, in teams, take turns guessing letters that might be in the word. If they
guess correctly, the teacher writes the letter in each blank where it occurs, and the
team may guess again.
3. Each time a team guesses wrongly, a body part (head, body, legs, arms, hands, and
feet) is added to their "hanged man." When he is complete, the team is out of the
game.
4. The first team to guess the word or expression correctly during their turn wins.

Vocabulary Chain
1. The teacher chooses several recently-learned vocabulary words or expressions and
whispers (or gives on a piece of paper) one to each student.
2. In turn, the student must say the definition (or translation) to the rest of the class,
and they must guess what his word or expression is.
3. After each person's word is guessed, make a verbal chain by repeating all the
previous words.

The English Calculator


1. The teacher announces several mathematical steps (e.g. 3 plus 6 times 4 divided by 2
minus four)
2. The students must do them in their heads.
3. When the teachers says "Equals?" the students write down or say aloud the answer
(e.g. 14).

1
NB Most teachers will want to write down the equation as they go to be able to ensure
they have the right answer.

Around the World


1. A student begins by naming a city, country, river or other geographical word.
2. The next person must say another city, country, river, etc. beginning with the last
letter of the previous word.
3. Play continues until the bell rings.

Five-Minute Supplement Activities

Simon Says
1. (Especially good for body parts unit) The teacher or a student gives a series of
commands, one at a time, each one beginning with the words, "Simon says," e.g.
"Simon says, Scratch your nose."
2. After each command, all the students do what the command said. When the caller
does not say "Simon says" first, they should not do the command.
3. After several commands, when the students are in the habit of doing them, give a
command without saying "Simon says." Those who perform the command are out of
the game.

Picture Dictation
1. The teacher or a student describes a scene or person (related to the unit), giving
students time to draw what is said.
2. When finished let students compare pictures.
3. To check, have each student describe one thing in the picture, and the teacher
draws it on the board.

Snowballs
1. The teacher proposes what sort of structure or item to practice and gives the first
example. For example to practice prepositions of movement: 'Freddy went out the
door."
2. Then a student must repeat the model, and make their own similar contribution, e.g.
"Then he went around the house."
3. Each student must repeat the sentences already given and add their own.

Variation: I going on vacation to ____ and I'm going to take:

Disappearing Words
1. The teacher puts words or phrases that need to be memorized on the board.
2. After 30-60 seconds, the teacher erases a few letters or words throughout the text.
3. Students read the whole text, trying to recall what was erased.
4. Then the teacher erases more, and the students read again, trying to recall the parts
that were erased.
5. Continue until the board is empty and students have memorized everything.

2
Five-Minute Warm-up/Cool-down Activities

Stand Up-Sit Down If


1. The teacher or a student presents a list of conditions, one at a time. Class members
stand up if they meet the condition e.g. "Stand up if you drank milk for breakfast."
2. Once the whole class is standing, the teacher or another student presents a new list
of conditions to get everyone to sit down again.

Oral Cloze
1. The teacher or a student begins reading an easy-to-understand text out loud. After a
couple of sentences, the reader stops mid-sentence and students should guess what the
next word is.
2. Once the word is guessed, the reader continues for six, eight or ten words, and stops
again.
3. Repeat until the text (or time) is finished.

Words Beginning With


1. The teacher says a letter and asks students to write down as many words as they
can beginning with (ending with) that letter in one minute (two minutes).
2. One by one, students tell the teacher a word on their list that has not been said; the
teacher writes them on the board. Students define words that are unknown for some of
the class.

3
Ten Commandments for Language Learners (& teacher version)
(For Hangman)

1. Fear not! (Lower inhibitions)


2. Dive in! (Encourage risk taking)
3. Believe in yourself! (Build self-confidence)
4. Seize the day! (Foster intrinsic motivation)
5. Love thy neighbor! (Use cooperative learning)
6. Get the big picture! (Use right brain processes)
7. Cope with the chaos! (Promote ambiguity tolerance)
8. Go with your hunches! (Encourage following intuition)
9. Make mistakes work for you! (Process error feedback)
10. Set your own goals! (Foster student goal setting)

adapted from Teaching by Principles, HD Brown

Teacher Terms (for Vocabulary Chain )

Warm up (noun) a language classroom activity done at the beginning of a lesson to


help students get adjusted to speaking English.

Learner centered (adjective) describes language classrooms, teachers, and activities


that focus on learners' interests and needs.

Information gap (noun) a type of activity that encourages students to interact


because they need information from each other.

Display question (noun) a type of question sometimes found in language classrooms


to display correct form, but not for the real-life purpose of getting information.

Interlanguage (noun) the learner's continually-evolving second language knowledge


that usually has characteristics of both the native and the target languages.

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