Tag Archives: games

Stars in their Eyes

Lesson Plan: Advanced, Listening, Speaking, Vocabulary Games, Writing, Writing skill, , , , , , , , , , ,

When I was a kid in my hometown, a little village in the north of Spain, there used to be a cinema. Not any more and not for a long time. In fact, it seems to me there are very few towns or even cities which still have a cinema and I’m not talking about the outdoor cinemas, which are so popular in summer, I am talking about the real thing. Cinemas with endless rows of seats smelling oldish and where the usher always told you off before you even got to your seat and started cracking up. I remember we didn’t get to see the latest films until they were 4 or 5 years old and then, they were not new any more as our friends from the capital city kindly reminded us rolling their eyes in disbelief when they came on holiday, but all the same it brings back very good memories. I must be getting old!

So today I’m sharing with you an engaging lesson with lots of activities around the theme of films and the cinema. Hope you enjoy it!

This lesson is aimed at students with a language level of B2  (upper-intermediate) and focuses on revising, learning  and using vocabulary  related to films and the cinema  through a variety of engaging  activities which will help them improve listening, writing and speaking.

Activity 1. Warming-up. Learning and using vocabulary.

Step 1.Wordcloud.
Display the word cloud and ask students to guess the topic. Click on the words you want to highlight and ask students to guess meanings and try to use them in a sentence. Alternatively, you can choose the latest box-office hit and ask students to give you a sentence about this film containing the targeted word.

 

Step 2. Mind mapping.  Handout with vocabulary here

Ask students to work in pairs. Write on the board a mind map as the one below (give them only the words inside the circles) to help them revise vocabulary related to this thematic area. Allow them some minutes to complete their mind maps and get feedback from the whole class, completing the mind map on the board with their suggestions.

  • Exercise on types of films here
  • A crossword with film words here

Activity 2. A game.

The class is divided into two groups. In turns, one member from each group sits on the Hot Chair facing  away from the whiteboard. The members of their group have  one minute to describe the film being displayed  without mentioning the title ( that goes without saying, but just in case, I’m saying it). The aim is to guess as many films as possible in one minute. Then, it’s the other team’s turn.

They will need to talk about:

Kind of film/ Nationality of the film/ director/ plot/

Some hints:

♥The film ‘_______’ is a(n) _______ film which takes place in _______.
♥The film is set in __(ancient Greece)__.
♥The story is based on __(a popular novel)__.
♥The film is directed by _______.
♥The main character(s) in the film is/are _______.
♥_______ is a character who _______.
♥__(Johnny Depp)__ stars as __(Captain Sparks)__.
♥In the film, __(Jack Black)__ plays __(a rock guitarist). The story is about _______
♥The best scene of the film is_____

Activity 3. A listening : interview with Hitchcock talking about his film Psycho.

Ask students: What kind of films do you like? Do you have a favourite director?

Write on the board Alfred Hitchcock and Psycho and ask students if they know who he is and if they know any of his films. Students most probably will have heard about Hitchcock and seen some of his films, but in case they haven’t, tell them Hitchcock is considered “the master of suspense” and “Psycho”(1960) s is arguably Hitchcock’s best-known film.

Play the video and ask students to answer the questions. (Find the answers at the end of this post).

  1.  What’s Hitchcock’s opinion of films such as Frankenstein?
  2.  What’s his idea of a horror film?
  3. When he made Psycho, did he have a mind a horror film or an amusing film?
  4. Was the film “Psycho” a very violent film? If not, why did it make people scream? Explain in your own words.

Activity 4. Speaking.

Ask students to work in pairs or in small groups and answer the following questions.

Activity 5. Writing a film review.

Handout with the task and useful vocabulary and expressions to use in your review.

Blog de Cristina is also on facebook. Follow us!

Answers to the listening

  1. What’s Hitchcock’s opinion of films such as Frankenstein?He thinks they are very easy to make and that they are props.
  2.  What’s his idea of a horror film?
    He believes in putting the horror in the mind of the audience and not necessarily on the screen.
  3.  When he made Psycho, did he have a mind a horror film or an amusing film?
    An amusing film
  4. Was the film “Psycho” a very violent film? If not, why did it make people scream? Explain in your own words.

There is only one violent scene in the film, which is at the beginning when the girl is     violently murdered in the shower. As the film developed, there is less and less violence. The horror and the tension are transferred to the mind of the viewers, which are the end of the film are screaming.

Tools used
Tagul, Hot Potatoes, Picture Trail, Thematic

A Guessing Game to Practise Questions

Funny Stuff, Games, Grammar, Speaking, , ,

Are you in the mood for a game?

Lots of learners find it difficult to ask questions in English and these little particles called “auxiliaries” are the ones to blame; hard to believe that such tiny things cause so much trouble, but the fact that students need to remember when and how to use them– or not to use them- makes it difficult even for some advanced learner to feel confident when asking questions in English.

Based on the classic game show “What’s my line?”, this game aims at improving students’ ability to ask yes/no questions in English, something most learners find difficult.

“What’s my line?” is a guessing game in which four panellists attempt to determine the occupation or the identity of a guest by asking only yes-no questions.

Rules based on the game and adapted to the classroom.

  1. Divide the class in groups of five people. Four students are going to be the panellists and ask the questions (either to guess the identity of the famous person or the occupation), and the  fifth student is going to answer their questions playing his given role. If you decide to play the variant of guessing a famous person’s identity, I would suggest having a list of famous people and letting the student choose who he wants to be.
  2. A student  (panellist) chosen by the teacher would begin the game. If his question elicits a “yes” answer, he continues questioning. When a question is answered “no”, questioning passes to the next student.
  3. Students have the option of passing to the next and they can also request a conference, in which they have a short time to openly discuss ideas about occupations or lines of questioning.
  4. To increase the probability of affirmative answers, students can phrase questions in the negative starting with “Can I rule out…?”
  5. When after some intense questioning a student thinks he knows the identity or profession of the mysterious guest, he can say so and become the mysterious guest for the next round.

Before the game begins, play the video of the  game where Salvador Dali is the              mysterious guest.

Akinator, the Web Genie. Just as I was about to publish this post, I remembered that some time ago I used to ask my elementary students to play an online game that never failed to surprise me and that my students used to love. I recommeded it because it gave them practice to understand questions in English. I checked and it is still working. The name is Akinator and he’s a genie. It goes like this: you think of a prominent person, celebrity or fictional character. Akinator will ask you up to twenty quetions and he’ll guess the person you have in mind. Check it out!

Blog de Cristina is on Facebook. Follow us!

Activities for correcting writing in the language classroom

Common Errors, Writing, , , , , ,

Here’s my latest contribution to the British Council magazine Voices: “Activities for correcting writing in the language classroom“. The article encourages students to correct their own writing and it contains  6 error-correction activities which are a lot of fun.Who said learning English was boring?

You might also be interested in reading  “Nine ways to revise English vocabulary using slips of paper” published in December where I suggest  nine activities for revising English vocabulary using simple slips of paper.

Thanks for reading!

An Engaging Activity to Work with Modals in the Past

Games, Grammar and Exercises, , , , ,

Dear readers,

Let me start thanking you for all your comments, likes and shares on my posts. That’s really encouraging!

In today’s post I want to share with you an activity I did with my B2 students that worked really well. It’s the kind of activity that I like because it includes movement and it encourages interaction between students. The focus is on grammar but, at the same time this activity gets them out of their seats and moving. They  will need to interact with other classmates and use English to discuss English grammar while having fun at the same time. So, what else could one wish for?

Aim: The focus of this lesson is on students integrating grammar, speaking and writing using modals of certainty and possibility in the past.

Level: B2 (upper intermediate)

Time: 20-30 minutes

Materials: post-it notes and pictures to display (see mine here)

Although this is an activity to reinforce learning and the grammar should have been explained beforehand, it might be a good idea to revise orally or on the board the targeted grammar.

Warming-up

Remind students of the use of the structure modal+have+past participle to make suppositions about actions that did or did not take place in the past.

Explain that for this activity they will be working with the modal “must” to speculate about the past and with the modals could/may/ might in the past to discuss different possibilities. Drill pronunciation of must/might…+have+past participle

  • Must have been | ‘ mʌstəv ‘biːn |
  • might have gone | ‘maɪtəv ‘ɡɒn |

The Task

On the walls of the class display the pictures you want to use. See the ones I used here. Ask students to try to guess the answers to the questions in the pictures and then, write them down on the post-it notes provided using the modal must in the past to speculate about what must have happened. Tell them that on the back of each picture you have written the answer to the question. They’ll win one point if their answer is the same as the one written on the back of the picture.

Procedure

  • On the walls of the class display the pictures you want to use.
  • Ask students to work in threes.
  • Give each group a different number and some post-it notes. You will need to give them as many post-it notes as pictures on the walls. They will need a post-it note for each picture.
  • Now, ask students to stand up and have a look at the different pictures.
  • In their groups they will have to discuss the different possibilities using the structure may/might/could +have+ past participle.
  • Then when they reach an agreement, they will need to write their suggestion on the post-it note using the modal “must” in the past. Ask students to write their assigned number on the post-it note. Ex. He must have saved someone or he must have discovered a bomb
  • Ask students to sit down. Take the first picture and turn it around. Read the sentence explaining the picture. Read the post-it notes to see which group guessed correctly. Award them one point. Needless to say, the winner is the group that gets more points.

Thanks for reading!

Giving Students a Well-Deserved Break- 13 Addictive Word Games

Games, Vocabulary, , , ,

Ever thought learning vocabulary or grammar was dull? I’m pretty sure this thought never ever crossed your mind, but just in case you know someone who  might need  a break from the traditional  grammar and vocabulary  exercises, let me share with you a nice alternative.

Whether you have two minutes or two hours, spend your break testing your knowledge with these amazing vocabulary and grammar games, some of them from well-known dictionaries. Have fun and learn some new words along the way. You don’t have to register for any of them, although some of these sites offer this possibility for those students who want to track their progress.

My favourite? Yes, I do have a favourite. I am hooked on Fluent (nº 12) from a website called Road to Grammar. Addictive!!! Trust me!

Blog de Cristina is also on Facebook. Don’t miss any posts and follow us!

VOCABULARY GAMES

1. Learner’s Vocabulary Quiz (intermediate and higher)

A 10-question quiz you can try  as often as you would  like as they have  many different versions.

2. Vocabulary Quiz ( advanced and higher)

Take this quiz from Encyclopedia Britannica to test your knowledge of English words and their definitions. You have 10 seconds to answer each question.The faster you answer, the higher your score.

 

3. Topic Vocabulary Quiz (upper Intermediate and higher)

Select a topic -from the Animal Kingdom to Religion and Philosophy-, select a level ( 1 or 2), a timer (30 or 60 seconds) and the number of questions (10 or 25).

4. Knoword  (Proficient)

A challenging vocabulary game for the most advanced students. When you start a new game you’ll be given a definition, the first letter of the word it’s referring to and 1 minute to solve the problem. Guess the correct word and you’ll move on to the next puzzle. If you don’t know the answer, simply press the “X”-shaped skip button.

5. Challenge (upper Intermediate and higher)

This vocabulary game presents successively harder words. Read the sentence or phrase at the top and choose the most appropriate answer. You have 20 seconds per word. Play as many times as you want to obtain a more accurate score which will be calculated by the number of correct words and the speed at which you complete the challenge.

6. Wordbuster   (upper Intermediate and higher)

Type a word that begins with the given 3 letters, and press enter. Press space to delete the letters. Find as many words as you can, that begin with the three-letter seed. The longer the word, the higher the score.

7. Wordshake (intermediate and higher)

How many words can you make from the random assortment of 16 letters in a time limit of 3 minutes? Spell the words correctly and remember, the longer the words, the more points you will score.

VISUAL VOCABULARY GAMES

8. Name that thing  (intermediate and higher)

A visual vocabulary quiz you will get addicted to. You are given an image, four options and 15 seconds.

9. Name that Thing  (Proficient)

With the same name as the previous one but sponsored by Encyclopedia Britannica, this visual game will test the most proficient students. You have 10 seconds to answer each question. The faster you answer, the higher your score. When you’re done, try again to beat your best score!

SPELLING WITH AUDIO

10 .Spell It (intermediate)

A 10-word spelling quiz you can do as often as you’d like as it has different versions. Hear the word, and then spell it.  You’ll have 15 seconds to answer each question. The faster you answer, the higher your score.The harder the question, the higher your score.

11. Spelling Challenge  (Upper-Intermediate and higher)

Select difficulty level : Tricky/Difficult/Fiendish and whether you want  British English or American English spelling. Click to hear the word and have fun.

A BIT OF EVERYTHING

12. Road To Grammar.  (upper intermediate and higher)
My favourite. I am addicted to this game. It tests many areas of your knowledge of English grammar and vocabulary and it allows two students to play . Be careful if you choose this game. It’s kind of addictive!

APOSTROPHES

13. The Apostrophe Challenge  (intermediate)

Do you have problems with apostrophes in English? Then, this quiz is for you. Choose the level of difficulty and improve quickly.