Could you whisper that again, please?

Photo from Flickr by Ricky Thakrar under CC BY -NC-ND 2.0

Here is an exciting and dynamic game I used in class the other day to review vocabulary. It is similar to the Chinese Whispers classic but with a competitive twist to it. 🙂

RULES: 

– Divide your students into two teams and your board into two halves. The teams will line up facing the board perpendicularly.

– Shout out a vocabulary topic you’d like to review.

– Starting from the last student in line, they will whisper a word along the team members and the first student in line will write it on the board. Once he/she has finished writing it, they must move to the end of the line and keep it going to write as many words as possible.

– If a member of the group considers there is a spelling error, they are allowed to correct it when it’s their turn to be at the board.

– To increase the excitement, after a couple of minutes, change the vocabulary topic. 🙂

VARIATIONS: 

– This game could also be used as a warm up task to brainstorm vocabulary on a topic that is about to be covered.

– Pronunciation focus: Ask students to come up with vocabulary that includes certain phonemes.

– Grammar focus: Shout out a prepositions and students will write down matching verbs. HAVE FUN 🙂

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STOP!!!

A classic vocabulary game that suits any day 🙂

Photo from Flickr by Daniel Kulinski under CC BY NC-SA 2.O

Today I had to substitute in a 2nd grade primary class, last hour on Friday … you can imagine 😉

As I entered the class, I knew exactly what we were going to do. I asked, “Have you ever played STOP??” 🙂

I remember playing this game when I was younger myself, not in the classroom though but on a rainy day, during long flights or on Christmas Eve with the whole family.

HOW TO PLAY: 

1. Draw the table on the board so that students can copy it on a sheet of paper.
2. Decide the categories for each column. ( I use 2 different sets like the ones below depending on my aims).
3. When everyone is ready, choose a letter and at the count of 1… 2 … 3… write it on the board.
4. Students have to fill in the table with words that start by that letter. (like the example below)
5. As soon as someone completes ALL the categories they must shout STOP! and everyone must put their pens down.
6. Ask students randomly for their answers. They must listen to everyone else’s answers to keep track of their points.
7. Points for each answer :

1 = if two or more Ss have the same word

2 = if no one else has the same word

3 = if he/she is the only one to have filled that column

 

VERSION 1 :

I specially enjoy the fantastic answers given for books and films as students tend to translate the names literally when they can’t come up with one that fits for sure 🙂 🙂 🙂

 

VERSION 2: 

As a teacher, I have used this activity with all my students, regardless the age and the language level. It always works out to be a great revision game and an exciting brain teaser. 🙂

 

 

TABOO ( UPGRADED )

                   image from Flickr by Aaron Lanrdy 
                 used under CC Attribution Non-Comercial license 
               https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/

HAVE YOU EVER PLAYED TABOO?

I’m quite sure most of you are familiar with this wonderful game. Just in case, I will briefly describe how it is played under its usual rules and later, how I have upgraded it to get the most out of it.

Taboo is a classic board game which I love to use with my students to revise vocabulary. From the very start of each school year, I start creating a new set of taboo cards with the vocabulary that derives from the syllabus and many of those other words that naturally come up during a class.

You can find printable sets online, but I prefer creating them myself to make sure it does cover the vocabulary we have worked on as a class.

HOW TO PLAY TABOO

This game can be played with the whole class and whoever guesses the word is up next, or even more exciting, create teams so they can compete against each other.

Teams of 2 or 3 students each is ideal, this way different members of the opposing team can watch over to make sure the rules aren’t broken and keep track of the time limit.

Rules:

• Explain to your team the word at the top of the card, without mentioning any of the taboo words below, within a certain time.
• No miming or making gestures/sounds related to the word.

TABOO UPGRADED

Keeping to the game element  and excitng energy of competing against fellow classmates, one thing about this version is that the pace is slowed down a bit, which gives students the time to reflect more on each of the words that come up.

This is because more information about each word will be demanded from students.

Points are awarded for:

1. Guessing the word
2. Marking the stress in the word
3. Guessing the/some taboo words ( they can be asked to say a maximum of 2 or 3 related words that come to mind)
4. Use it in a sentence.

They won’t need any help for the first three since all the information will be on the card. I usually mark the stress placing a little green box below the syllable or typing it in bold. (Whatever you normally use to mark the stress when you write words on the board).

As for the sentences, they must write them down and wait for feedback once they have finished playing. Go over them with the whole class. Give the students the opportunity to correct each other. Only once it has been corrected will they be able to assign a point for it. This keeps the possible winners in suspense until the end of the lesson. 🙂

A record sheet is given to each team so they can keep track of all this.

Answer	Where is the stress?	Taboo words	Example sentence

Have fun!