Wedding Role Play

Materials: paper and pen, one role for each student

Description: Type or write out a role in a wedding for each person in the classroom. Of course you will have the obvious characters- priest, bride, groom, etc. but make sure to write out a specific role for each person in the wedding party as well; some that I used that were popular were- drunk uncle, ex-boyfriend of the bride, depressed grandmother, cousin that recently escaped from prison- get creative! Put all the roles in a bag and have each student choose one. No matter what this is their role, this makes it more fun because you get a male bride, a female groomsmen, whatever. Give the students a few minutes to decide how their character will say and act. Let them act it out! Usually the kids get really into it and it can get really loud and hilarious. If you have more quiet kids you may have to prompt them by yelling out some stuff yourself, that usually gets them talking.

In order to stretch this into a whole 40 minutes you can start the class out by asking questions about why people get married, what is true love, do they believe in love at first sight, what the differences are between Bulgarian and American weddings, etc. It’s also really fun to do on a holiday or special occasion because you can bring in cake or other goodies and have a “reception” afterward, in which all the kids are still in character (I had kids kyucheking around the classroom to music from their cell-phones).

-Lauren S.

Not-What-It-Seems Auction

Materials: set of picture cards with objects,animals etc., these can be printed off a computer or drawn by hand

Description: For this you need a set of picture cards with objects,animals etc. Tell the class that you are going to auction these objects, and that each student has $100 to spend. Auction the items and keep a note of who bought what, giving the card to the buyer. After a few items have been sold, tell the students what they have really bought, eg, ‘ you bought a nice house for $90, but I’m afraid you’ll never be able to use it, it is on the edge of a volcano.’ ‘you thought you bought a butterfly for $20, but it really is a miniature robot worth thousands of dollars.’

Put students in groups and give them some picture cards (I had 4 groups and gave each group 4 cards). Tell them to think of a surprise like this for each picture, and write them down if need be. Then one person (an auctioneer) from each group gets in front of the class with the cards and auctions them to members of the other groups. (Teach some useful phrases, eg Do I hear 10? Who’ll give me 20? etc.) When the auctioneer has sold all the cards he/she tells the story behind each object.

-Lauren S. (adapted from Dave’s ESL Cafe)

Limericks Worksheet

This worksheet is full-sized, and is meant to help students write their own limericks in English. Besides giving examples at the top, the bottom half of the worksheet gives lists of rhyming words for students to use in their own poems. Students do not actually write on this worksheet, and two to three students can share each sheet.

limerick

-Abeth S.

Free Write

Materials: an egg timer/stopwatch/clock, paper and pens

Description: This is based on the idea suggested by research which states that the number of words a student can write in 5 minutes is an indication of fluency and ability in a foreign language. The generally accepted number is 100 words in 5 minutes.

At the beginning of the year, give students 10 minutes to write a story or essay. Lower level students, particularly at the beginning, might benefit from being given a specific topic to write about, or a certain character. At the end of the time limit, have students count the number of English words they have written in their story. When 80-90% of your students have written 100 words or more, cut down the time, usually by 15-45 seconds. If a student has more than 75 words in English, that’s pretty good. 50? Halfway there! When 100% of your students can write a 100-word story in 5 minutes or less, treat them to something special!

Suggestions:
1. Tell your students that if they don’t know a word in English, it’s okay to write that one word in Bulgarian and the rest of the words in the sentence in English.
2. Spelling and grammar don’t count. You’re measuring fluency with this exercise, not accuracy. Knowing this will help alleviate some student stress.
3. Remind students that writing 1 word one hundred times doesn’t count.
4. I allow students to count names and other proper nouns, because they are part of natural language use, as long as they are written in English.
5. It’s interesting to hang on to these for the year to look at how students have progressed. If you work closely with the teacher who teaches the next level/grade, pass them along so he or she has an idea of your students’ ability. If you do this, make sure the students write the time limit at the top in addition to the number of words they have written.

-Chantelle K.

Greatest Bad Ideas

Materials: about 30 index cards, or cut up pieces of paper about the same size.

Description: First take the cards or pieces of paper and write hypothetical “problems” on them (eg. “My winter coat is not warm enough”, “I can’t afford to pay my rent”, “My cat makes me sneeze”, or something more absurd like “My doctor scares me”).

Explain to your students that you need their advice, but that they should avoid giving you obvious advice, and try instead to give you strange or stupid advice. Provide examples like: “If your winter coat is not warm enough, you should pour hot coffee in the pockets”; “If your pants are too big you should gain 50 pounds by only eating cake”; If your nose is too big you should have surgery to make the rest of your face bigger”, etc.

Even if your students have to struggle to express these ideas, it’s a good exercise, and is almost always solidly entertaining. Variation: Let your students read out the problems, role playing that they are their own, then solicit the advice of other students, coaching them as needed.

-Lauren M.

Egg Drop

Materials: one egg for each student/team (they can give you stotinki for this), one ziploc bag for each egg (Very important! Get these sent from home if you want to do this!) packing materials like old newspapers, towels, plastic grocery bags, scotch tape, etc.

Description: First of all, don’t panic. Letting students drop eggs out a window does not have to be as chaotic as it sounds. But it can be a lot of fun, and as long as you do the whole thing in English, they won’t even know they’re learning anything.

First, tell them about the egg drop months in advance. Use this as a motivation tool. Tell them things like “Oh, I hope we do good on this test so that we can drop eggs out the window.” Don’t elaborate on this statement until much closer to the actual event. It peaks their curiosity, and gets them excited for this mysterious “egg dropping thing.” They’ll also probably think you’re crazy, but that’s ok.

About two weeks before the egg drop, tell the class what you’ll be doing. The objective is to package your egg and protect it in such a way, that when you drop it out the window, it doesn’t break.  It’s your choice if they are going to work in teams or individually. As a class, brainstorm different things you can use to protect your egg, such as newspapers, pillows, or whatever. Encourage them to think creatively – I’ve had students use baba slippers! They can also think of other ways to help their egg land safely, such as parachutes. Help students with any words they don’t know the English for. Tell each student/group that they have one week to write a short plan to protect their egg, (in English!) and it must get approved by you if they are going to participate.

After you have checked their plans, remind them of the egg drop day that they will have to bring their materials in (in fact, remind them several times, and explain that their eggs are going out the window, protected or not). Collect money for the eggs if you like. On the day of the egg drop, bring the eggs, extra tape and scissors, and the ziploc bags. If your room is on the first floor, see if you can borrow a room on the 2nd or 3rd floor for the hour.

Here’s why you need the ziploc bags: before you give students the eggs to wrap up in whatever they’ve brought, put each egg in a ziploc baggie and tape it shut first. This way, when eggs break, they won’t make a mess all over the pillows/towels/whatevers, or make a mess on your school’s sidewalk. If you can’t get ziploc baggies, think of some other way to contain the egg mess, or I would not advise doing this activity!!!

Anyway, the rest is simple – students have a time limit to package their eggs, and then they go outside under the window and you drop them. (Then they’re no accusations of students “throwing” another team’s egg.) As soon as eggs land, they can start unwrapping them to see whose survived. Then students clean up the sidewalk (send a garbage bag down with them if you like) and come back upstairs to write their final report, which they turn in for a grade. They’ll ask you to grade them on whether their egg broke or not, but maybe just give out bonus points for eggs that survived instead of bad marks for eggs that broke.

-Abeth S.

Cell Phone Scavenger Hunt

Materials: One cell phone camera for each group of kids (I usually tell the kids their groups can be anywhere from two to five people – as long as one person in the group has a camera).

Description: This has to be done as a homework assignment (unless you want to let your little dears run loose during class time). Create a list of 15-20 things in English and distribute the list to the class (or write it on the board and make each group copy it down). The groups then have to go and take pictures of everything on the list. Items should for the most part be clear and easy to understand – like a horse, a broken window, someone eating cake, a building with a sign written in English, a yellow car that’s not a taxi, etc. – but I’ve used some vague descriptions with interesting results – like “a picture of a person that’s not alive” I meant a mannequin, but I got photos of everything from statues of Hristo Botev to magazine covers to (I kid you not) a small skull. Not sure where they found it, and I don’t want to know.

To insure that all group members participate, the rule is that every team member must appear individually in at least one of the photos on the list, and all team members must be together in one of the starred items on the list – usually something like “students playing basketball” or “people sleeping on something that’s not a bed, or my favorrite: “students doing their homework.” This way, even those students whose English isn’t as good have to participate and don’t get a free ride from their friends.

The kids love the chance to play with their phones, and find interesting things to take pictures of!

-Abeth S.

Team Scattegories

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Materials: None

Description: Yes, it’s Scattegories, the party game that we all remember! If you have a smaller group of students, adapting this game to the classroom is easy. A round of Scattegories works like this: You have the students take out a sheet of paper. Give the class 5 categories (such as food, adjectives, jobs, etc.), and ask them to write them down in 5 columns on their paper. Then choose a letter, and give the class 5 minutes to write down ONE word for each category that starts with that letter. When the time runs out it’s time for scoring. If a student has a word written that no one else has, then that student has a point. If they have the same word written as someone else, then neither of them get a point. The person with the most points wins the round. Also, if they come up with a double-word item for a category, then they get two points. For example, if the category is “Bulgarian City” with “G”, and the student writes “Golyamo Gradishte”, they get two points, provided no one else writes it down. The point of the game is to come up with your most exotic vocabulary to win the round. If you have a small class of 6 students or less then game works just as above, with all students working individually.

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For the team version: Divide the class into 3-4 groups. In my school most classrooms are arranged into 3 rows, so I divide them into 3 groups. The round works just like above, with each student writing their own answer individually. For scoring each category, have the entire class stand up. Go around the class and have each student read their answer for the category. If their answer matches anyone else, then all students with that answer sit down. After you count the last person, count the number of students standing in each row. Then move to the next category and have all the students stand up again.

-Tony S.

Madlibs

Materials: a madlib (there are tons of madlib sites on the internet. I found a madlib, and copied it because I didn’t have access to a printer at the time), 2 or 3 pieces of paper and scissors
If you can get a piece of flip-chart paper, that works well, but you can do this with just a whiteboard and markers.

Preparation: If you have the flip chart paper, write the madlib on the paper big enough for the class to see. Number the blanks on the madlib. With the pieces of paper, cut them up like flash cards. On each card, write a number from the madlib and the type of word its asking for. For example…blank 1 is asking for an adjective, so write on the card ” (1) Adjective.”

Description: Explain the activity, pass out the cards to students. Tell them the more creative their words are, the funnier it will be. Give them a few minutes to come up with the words. This is where the flip chart is handy, you can keep the madlib a secret and call on the numbers and tell them to shout out their words. Then once the madlib is finished you can hold it up in front of the class and have a student read it. But if you don’t have the flip chart, you could write the madlib on the board as you go. This activity will not fill in a whole class period, it usually takes 15 to 20 minutes.

-Laura H.

Pictionary on the Board

Materials: writing surface, marker/chalk, eraser, and self-made pictionary cards (about 60).

Time: 10-20 minutes (good warm-up activity)

Preparation: Cut scrap paper into small (inch x inch) squares. Write one word on each square. The words can be taken from your textbooks to test new vocabulary, or you can make up any words you would like. For more advanced classes, try thinking of more abstract or action words like happy, dancing, hungry, racecar, etc.

Description: The students can play in teams or it can be a group effort. If you play in teams, split the class physically down the center and give each team a side of the chalk board where they can draw for their own team. Both teams can draw the same word simultaneously while both teams guess. The first team to shout the answer, wins that point.

-Nancy W.

Taboo – A Game of Oral Descriptions

Materials: pre-made taboo cards.

Time: 10-30 minutes

Preparation: Prepare the taboo cards. If you have played this game at home, you know that the word on the top of the card is the word the group needs to guess. The other 5 words below it are “taboo” – they are the first 5 words that come to mind when you think about the first word. Therefore, these cards are easy to make on your own. If “snow” is the word you want the class to guess, think of the first 5 associations: winter, blizzard, frozen, ice, cold (for example). The student can’t say any of those words while he/she is trying to elicit the word “snow” from his/her peers. He/she also can’t say “snowman”, “snow ball”, etc.

The cards should look like this:

SNOW: winter/blizzard/frozen/ice/cold

Description: Explain the instructions and give a few examples. You might have to help the students along or get them started. Sometimes my students only throw out one word, but that makes it hard for their peers to guess. Encourage them to explain using full sentences: It’s something white that falls from the sky and is beautiful but dangerous. Play for team points or play as a whole class just for fun.

-Nancy W.

Infomercials

Materials: items found in the classroom

Description: Students will create a clever, short infomercial. What is an infomercial? They have them in Bulgaria. Discuss what makes them successful (limited time offer, extra bonus, phone number to call, unique features of bland item, cheerful voices, looks of amazement, etc.) Students should work in pairs, choose something to sell – a used watch, a shoelace, a pencil, a candy bar, one shoe, etc. They will need about 15 minutes to prepare their commercial which should be no longer than 1 minute in length. Students perform for each other. Students can write their infomercials and teacher can monitor/help. Teacher can ask who is willing to buy the product. Usually gets some laughs out of the students.

 

-Nancy W.