endless.

Just make sure that it’s safe to

SPICING THINGS UP – bring into the classroom, isn’t going to
BRINGING FUN TO cause a mess, and isn’t culturally
sensitive.
YOUR CLASSES
Here are some examples of realia that
Now that we’ve covered planning could be brought into your class:
lessons and motivating your
students, it’s time to look at how to
keep your classes being fun and
enjoyable in the long term.
Students can grow tired of sitting
through the same old games and
activities each lesson. Similarly, it can
soon grow dull for you to repeat the
same games across your different
classes each day. This is where it helps
to have heaps of new activities hidden
up your sleeve.

SPICING THINGS UP –
BRINGING IN REALIA
Realia are real objects that you can
bring into the classroom. They add a
tangible aspect to your lessons which
give students a heightened experience
around the target language. This extra
dimension can really help students to
bind the lesson’s target language to
memory, especially for students who fall
into the kinesthetic learner category.
Think back to when you were in school,
during a ‘show and tell’ activity. The
chances are you may still remember
some items from that day, but may
struggle to recall many other lessons.

Examples of realia
So long as it can be tied into some
target language, the choices are almost
 ACTIVITIES WITH
REALIA
When used correctly, realia can be a
great way to capture your students’
interests, and reinforce their learning.

Below are a few ways in

which you can use realia
in your classes:
👜 Mystery Bag: The element of
surprise is always great for getting
attention. If you know any magic tricks
then this could be your time to shine.
Don’t worry if you don’t know any magic
– you can use the Mystery Bag
technique.
Bring in a black bag full of items. Look in
the bag and choose some emotional
reaction. Tell the students you are afraid
of/happy about/sad to see what is in the
bag. Describe what you see using color,
texture, or other adjectives and let the
students guess in turn. When a student
guesses the object correctly,
congratulate them by taking the object
out and throwing/handing it to them.

🤏 Feel It Out: Never underestimate

Items which bring some culture from the power of a blindfold. Introduce
your home country can also be great for objects by bringing students up to the
starting discussions. For example, a front of the class and have them put on
football shirt from your home town can a blindfold. Then, have them feel objects
be a great way to start off a lesson on and try to guess what they are.
hobbies or sports.
If they struggle to get it right, then you
can encourage the class to help by
providing clues.

🙋 Up for Grabs: After objects have

been introduced in class, a fun way to
review them is to play a game where
students compete in pairs to grab the
correct object.
Divide your class into teams and have
two representatives come up at a time to
square off. Choose one student on each
team to give a description, then say
“go!” letting the pair run to grab the Flashcards are an incredibly flexible tool
correct object from the pile. The one that can be used at any time during the
who gets it first must name the object class. You could use fast flashcard
and perform some action with it. This games as a warm-up to wake the
can be particularly fun with clothing, students up or as a quick review at the
toys, or classroom objects. end of class. Concentration or memory
There are countless variations of these activities can be used to bring the
games which you can experiment with. energy down a few notches, or games
So long as the object can be tied to with more movement can be used to
some target language and the activity liven things up. Just make sure that, as
involves a skill such as speaking, with any activity, there’s a clear purpose
writing, or listening, it can be both fun to include it in your lesson plan.
and educational for your class.
🎬 See how flashcards are
used in a real classroom
SPICING THINGS UP – In the video below you’ll be able to see
USING FLASHCARDS how a teacher uses flashcards in their
classroom. This is just one of many
Flashcards are a fantastic study aid for ways that you could use flashcards to
introducing new vocabulary without make your lessons more fun and
needing to write on the whiteboard. engaging.

They can come in many different forms Can’t see the video? Click to open on
and sizes, and schools will usually have YouTube.
sets of flashcards available to be used in
their lessons. They could be small hand- USING FLASHCARDS
held cards that could be passed around
and used in group activities, or large A4-
IN YOUR
sized cards that could be easily seen CLASSROOM
from across a classroom.
If your school doesn’t provide you with
any flashcards, there’s no need to worry.
You can easily make your own with
some simple clip art, or by printing out
clear templates like the ones below, and
then drawing on them:

Or if your school provides an allowance

to purchase school supplies with, then
you can purchase great flashcards
online: ESL Flashcards for kids on
Amazon, Hal and Steve’s Flashcards for
young learners and adults.
Earlier in the course, we covered a few
activities in which flashcards can be
used – such as drilling exercises.
However, there are many other fun ways
in which they can be used.
If you’re looking for something to
really liven your class up, you could
try activities like these below:

⚡️Faster, faster! Quiz students

individually or in small groups as they
come through the door, just before
formal class time. Go slower the first few
days of a new unit, and cycle through
cards lightning fast once the vocabulary
is more familiar. If your cards are large
enough you can slowly reveal pieces of
the card and have the student blurt out suitable, just as tapping your elbow
the word as they recognize the image. when saying ‘happy’ could also help
students to remember.
A bit of individual attention will make
your students feel confident and special, This can sound a little unusual, but if
while reminding them what they know used right it can have a great impact,
and priming them to become more especially with young learners.
familiar with what they don’t.
Activities with TPR
🏃🏻 On the floor or On the
Wall: Tape up an assortment of 🧘 Be Zen: A fun way to introduce
vocabulary flashcards around the room, certain vocabulary to your class can be
to the ground, or under desks. Then, through yoga-style exercises. Students
read out some fill-in-the-blank sentences can learn commands while relaxing
and have students quickly travel around themselves, which is a win-win for
to find the correct word and stand by it. loosening up your class and producing
language.
You can add variations to this game
such as having students run to pictures You can practice giving commands,
of words that match an object you’re learn body vocabulary, and new verbs
describing. with some simple phrases, for example:
“Reach your arms to the sky!”
“Touch your toes!”
“Wiggle your fingers!”
SPICING THINGS UP –
TPR With a simple routine you can help your
students, and depending on the tempo
Total Physical Response (TPR) is a
of the exercise it could be used as a fun
method of using physical gestures and
warmer or calming cool-down activity.
actions to help students remember
language. Using this method, a teacher 🎤 Sing a Song and Dance
will usually demonstrate a particular Along: Songs provide great
movement while reciting a piece of opportunities for introducing a TPR
target language. Then, they’ll have the aspect to learning. It can be easy to
students perform these actions each choose a few key lyrics and devise basic
time the target word is said, helping to actions to accompany them. Just make
bind the new piece of language to a sure the lyrics are relevant to your target
physical action in the students’ minds. language, and appropriate for your
While the actions will often be tied to the class.
meanings of the target language, they If you are teaching younger learners you
don’t necessarily need to be. For can’t go wrong with the essentials:
example – pretending to drink from a Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes, The
cup when saying the word ‘tea’ would be Wheels on the Bus, or Twinkle, Twinkle,
Little Star. However, when choosing a Here are two of our tried
song for older learners you can look for
current pop songs or first ask what type
and tested favorites to get
of music they like to listen to. you started:
⚡ Review Relay: Divide the class
When using TPR activities, make sure to into two teams and have them form
involve the entire class. It can single file lines beside the whiteboard.
sometimes be a little embarrassing, but Then, give the class a category such as
if you get the whole class involved, and animals/body parts/verbs etc, and
enjoy it yourself, it can be a great tool. challenge each player to write one word
relating to that category on the board
🎬 See how this looks in an before passing the marker onto the next
teammate.
ESL classroom:
Make sure the students know that they
Below you can see a teacher using TPR
cannot repeat words and must keep
in an actual English language class.
silent. If a player makes a mistake they
Can’t see the video? Click to open on can use their next turn to correct it. The
YouTube. team that gets through the line with the
most words and the fewest mistakes
In this video the teacher uses actions wins.
that directly relate to the language being
taught (for example “jump forwards”). 🏫 Quiz Show: In the lead-up to a big
However, it’s important to keep in mind quiz or test, it can be a good time for
that TPR actions don’t always need to you to unleash your inner game show
directly relate to the target language – host. Such quiz-style games can be a
just performing an action such as great way to gauge student readiness
tapping the syllables of a word while and can show your class just how far
reciting it can help some students. they’ve come.
Our personal favorite is Jeopardy, which
we’ve found works great with teenage
SPICING THINGS UP – and adult learners. However, you can
choose any other game show you like.
CLASSROOM GAMES Just be sure to make the low-point
Competitive classroom games are a questions truly easy and the high-point
surefire way to get students excited questions challenging enough.
about learning. They provide plenty of Games are great for getting students to
healthy competition among students and learn without realizing, but you should
lots of opportunities to give praise for make sure that learning is still the key
their efforts. objective from your side. To be effective
in your class in the long term, they
should always be relevant, test or teach
knowledge, and be used with a mix of appears. Then, you can ask the
skills such as reading, speaking or students to guess what was just said
listening. and then write down their thoughts.
From here you could continue to discuss
the different guesses, and then continue
the film to see if they were correct.
SPICING THINGS UP – This can be a lot of fun as student
FILMS AND VIDEOS dialogue can often be even better than
the film version.
It’s not unusual to find high school or
Muted documentary films featuring
college students who watch western TV
animals or landscapes can also be
shows such as Game of Thrones or
interesting to use in class. You can
Sherlock outside of class. Whilst
pause anytime and ask students to
students will usually be relying on
answer any meaningful series of
subtitles to understand the shows, it’s
questions: Where is this place? What
common for them to naturally learn
are the people/animals doing? Why?
English phrases and idioms at the same
Would you like to visit this place? Can
time.
you describe what you see? How does it
As a teacher you can take advantage of make you feel?
the keen attention students have for
Silent films make passive viewing nearly
films and videos by bringing them into
impossible, which guarantees a bit more
the classroom. However, while students
thought and active participation from the
will be more than happy to sit and watch
students.
an hour-long episode of almost any
show, you’ll need to plan certain 📺 Animated Shorts
activities to keep the lesson productive.
Animated shorts are a particularly useful
Activities with film and type of film to bring into the classroom.
video: They can be enjoyed by all ages, and
many are only 10-20 minutes in length,
🔇 Hit the Mute Button which is great for making sure that
students have time to do any related
Most students will expect at some point exercises.
to watch tv or films in class, and be
provided with some sort of written To use them, you can pick a short film
exercise. To make things just a bit more with similar content to a current unit.
challenging, consider bringing in a silent Immediately after viewing the video, you
film. can ask students to work in groups to
write alternate endings, or to write skits
You could bring in a Charlie Chaplin film about what the characters might do in
or some other fun film from that era. You an alternate setting.
can start the activity by playing a scene
and pausing it before the dialogue 🎞️Trailer Campaigning
Trailers can be great for bringing a short ONLINE ACTIVITIES
amount of video into a class, and
leaving more time for exercises WITH ESL STUDENTS:
surrounding the content. You can have
Here are some ideas for activities that
students review a set of trailers together,
you could potentially adapt and use in
and then let them choose a trailer to
your own ESL classes.
write a plotline prediction for.
In certain advanced classes, you might 🕵️‍♀️Virtual Tours and
even have the opportunity to then show Scavenger Hunts
the most popular film to the class in the
following lesson. In such situations, you Virtual tours can be fascinating for
can then use students’ previous work to students and can be used in several
discuss how the film met their ways.
expectations, or to write film critic-type
reviews, ranking the movie on a given
scale.
While videos and movies shouldn’t be
used as a regular part of classes, if used
for a purpose, they can have the
potential to capture students’ interest, or
rekindle their motivation to do well in
class.

Many of the world’s best museums can

SPICING THINGS UP – be viewed room-by-room online, and
ONLINE ACTIVITIES there are also many ready-made virtual
tour websites that walk people through
In regions where access to the internet historical material, the world’s
is very common, or if your school has a architecture, or even what it’s like to
library with computers, you can consider walk on the bottom of the ocean. You
taking some activities online. can provide students with links to such
sites, and give them an activity sheet
Navigating English language websites that they must complete. This can
can be a huge challenge for students, include finding certain objects, or facts
but once they master the basics, this from a list. Another variation could
skill unlocks almost endless possibilities include asking your students to find
for them. something they found to be interesting,
and having them explain how to
navigate to find it.
Try this example here: Smithsonian
Museum of Natural History
📰 News Search Spicing things up –
News sites can also be great resources Conclusion
for a range of online activities.
By using a range of activities in the
classroom, you’ll be able to create
lessons that are both interesting for
you and your students. If you’re
having fun with the class, it’s more than
likely that your students will be too.
With all of the activities we’ve covered in
this section, and in the previous
sections, you’ll have more than enough
tricks up your sleeve to keep your
classes fun for students of all ages.

You could provide students with a list of Just keep in mind that
safe news sites, and set them tasks you have the following
such as finding an article based on a
certain topic. Another activity could at your disposal:
involve having students find the answers
 Realia (physical objects that can
to several questions, or to find an article
bring a tangible element to your
that they find interesting and to write a
lessons)
report on it.
 Flashcards
Before planning any internet-based
activities, you should be sure to first  TPR (utilizing movements to help
consider your class context. Ask yourself students form stronger bonds
– are the students able to access the with new words & phrases)
internet at home? If not, can they access
 Educational games
it at the school? Are they old enough
and responsible enough to tackle this  Videos and audio sources
challenge? If the answers are all
positive, then internet-based activities  Online activities (note – these
can be a great way to spice up your can be fun but might not be
class. feasible in some regions of the
world)