Tag Archives: fun

Predicting the Future : another game

Games, , , , , , , ,

To play this game you don’t need any preparation, which, to be honest, sometimes it’s just what  we -busy teachers- ask for. But if you are like me, you’ll find yourself doing just the same as your students, ie, having lots of fun.

For this game you need to make an origami fortune teller, also called “cootie catcher”( see picture). Instruction on how to make one and how to play here.

Ask students to write 8 fortunes inside the flaps. Encourage them to use their imagination and make sure they use the future simple: will.

Once this task is completed, ask students to stand up and mingle. Time to be a fortune teller!

Ask a student to choose one of the four colors. Spell that color out, while moving the fortune teller in and out. Then ask this student to choose one of the numbers that is showing. Move the fortune teller in and out the right number of times.

When you finish, have the person choose one of the four visible numbers. Open up the flap they choose, and read their fortune.

Have fun! Who said English was boring???? ;-))

Dear Mum

Funny Stuff, ,

Oh My dear Mommy!

When I found this piece of writing I could  hardly believe what I was reading. I had always thought my mother was unique, especially when nagging  or pestering me but after reading this, it suddenly dawned on me that mothers have been using the same  pet words, warnings and threats all over the world .

Useful vocabulary:

♥ To Straighten up= to reform  or become reformed

I used to get into a lot of trouble, but after I had my daughter I straightened up for her.”

“If Derek doesn’t straighten up, his girlfriend is going to leave him.”

♥Osmosis=

1. It means the diffusion of fluids through a membrane

2. A gradual, often unconscious process of assimilation or absorption: learned French by osmosis while residing in Paris for 15 years.

♥ESP means ExtraSensory Perception

♥Barn =A covered building used chiefly for storing grain, hay, and other productions of a farm

Do you have the same impression ?Does your mum tell you some of these things?

OMG! I’m a mother now! I’ll have to pay close attention to what I say to my kids.

Having Fun while Revising Vocabulary

Games, , , ,

Some time ago I took a methodology course in London and I’ve been using this game to revise vocabulary ever since. It’s the kind of game I love playing in class for two reasons: it requires no preparation and it’s lots and lots of fun. Students love it!

♥How to Play: the class is divided into teams and one person from each team sits on a chair at the front of the classroom facing their team. I normally put myself behind the person playing and show the rest of the team a card with the word I want to revise. The team has to give hints about this word using English only. They have 1 minute to guess as many words as possible and I give them as many points as words they have guessed. Then, it’s the turn for the other team.

♥Post-Activity: At the end of the activity and when we have a winner I ask students to write on a piece of paper all the words, used in the revision game, they can remember so we have further opportunity to revise.

♥My humble Tip: I wouldn’t use it to revise a Vocabulary Field because it would be too predictable. It is, on the other hand, perfect to revise vocabulary at the end of a unit.

              Click to follow

A Glogster Project : My Favourite Sport!

Create your own stuff, In the Computer Room, Students' Corner, Writing, , , ,

Every year I find a reason to use Glogster in the classroom (click here to see my first article about Glogster) I think most of my students, though camera-shy, like to see their work published. I find that Glogster is the ideal tool to use with twelve or thirteen- year- old students because it ‘s very visual and students have a lot of fun deciding which frame to use for their photograph or text , which video they want to embed ( In English, of course) . Yes, they have fun but what they probably don’t realize is that they are using English from Step 1 of the project.
In fact, after finishing our Glogster, I wrote on the board  several of the words they had been using  (frame, text, wall, image, tools, gallery, upload, cartoon…etc) and they were happy when they recognised it.

Have you never tried Glogster? Give it a go! It’s a lot of fun!

Click here to see it better!

Teaching “should”: Why men shouldn’t write advice columns.

Funny Stuff, , ,

Ending a lesson with a smile on the students’s face is priceless and this is what I got after doing this activity with them.

Aim: teaching “should” to give advice.

Task: Students in pairs were given the left  column of the article where a problem is posed .  They were asked to write a sound piece of advice to help this person.

Now , once their advice  was read out and properly appraised , I wrote on the blackboard  Men shouldn’t write advice columns and then asked students to guess how this headline could relate to the problem they had  just read about.

After a juicy discussion , I handed out the right column and we had a healthy  laugh!