A Collection of Reading Games and Activities for Intermediate to Advanced Students of English Jill and Charles Hadfield v.longman.comList of games ii Introduction v Teacher's notes 8 Games material a Index 144 __List of games Level Function 1 Parlour games intermediate giving instructions 2 Successful failures intermediate narrating past events 3 Heroic failures intermediate narration 4 Punch lines intermediate narration 5 Myfirst valentine intermediate narrating past events 6 Postcards from John intermediate describing scenes and past events 7 Evacuees intermediate narrating past experiences 8 Urban myths intermediate narration 9 Famous last words intermediate reporting what other people said 10 Body language upper intermediate describing customs 11 Time warp upper intermediate talking about life in past times 12 Curious customs upper intermediate describing habits and customs 13 village gossip upper intermediate narrating past events 14 Alife in the day upper intermediate describing daily routines 15 Guilty secrets upper intermediate narrating past experiences 16 — Loose morals upper intermediate narrating a story 17 Roots upper intermediate talking about past events 18 Ghost stories upper intermediate narrating a story 19 Murder in the library upper intermediate narration, hypothesis 20 Believe it or not upper intermediate defining and explaining, justifying, giving reasons 21 Trouble with men, frogs, shoes and sisters upper intermediate narrating a fairy story 22 Horoscope exchange advanced talking about character and emotions 23 Dream merchants advanced narrating past events, predicting the future 24 Politically correct advanced finding euphemisms‘The activities in this book all require the reading of a text and the communication of the information it contains, sometimes in order to solve a puzzle or complete a task, sometimes in order to do a role play. All the activities consist of two main phases: 1. READ ~ EXTRACT INFORMATION, | | 2. COMMUNICATE - SHARE INFORMATION These phases may be organised in different ways. For example, in the first phase, students may be divided into groups and each group given a different text to read. They complete a worksheet and/or discuss the text in their groups. Phase 1 AA BoB AA BB Text A Text 8 Text C In the second phase students are regrouped to share their information, in order to act out roles or to complete a task or solve a puzzle, Phase 2 The above diagrams show groupings for an activity involving three texts, but activities may involve from two to six texts Alternatively, every student in the class may have a different, short text to read: Phase 1 ABCDEFGHIJKLMNO Pete In phase 2 the students mingle freely and communicate their information in randomly constituted small groups. This activity may have a time limit set by the teacher, and the aim isto listen to as many people's stories as possible (ce. to obtain as much information as possible) in the time allowed. Phase 2 229 0°8- In this type of activity a worksheet or questionnaire is handed out after phase 2 and the students try to complete {as much as possible using the information they picked up in the second phase ‘Although not an integral part of the ‘read and retell” activity, lead-in’ and ‘follow-up’ activities have been suggested in most cases to provide further integration of, skills. The ‘lead-in’ activities are based on discussion or listening to an anecdote told by the teacher; the ‘follow- up’ activities are suggestions for written work, A\list of ‘problem vocabulary’ - words that may be unfamiliar to the students - is provided in the Teacher's Notes for each game, to enable the teacher to be prepared for queries. Students should be encouraged to read as fluently and selfreliantly as possible, trying to guess or deduce meaning where possible, using English-English dictionaries where this fails, and turning to the teacher for guidance if either of these resources fal The Teacher's Notes also give indications of level - the majority of texts are intermediate/upper intermediate level, but where texts are easier or more difficult than average, this is indicated. The time required is also indicated. Most activities will last an average lesson. Shorter activities can be extended to fill a lesson by doing the followup activity in class. Longer ones can fill a double lesson, or a single one if the texts is given to the students, in advance, or the information ‘share phase’ allowed to run on into homework The activities provide practice both in reading skills and in oral expression, training students in the ability to extract, essential information from a text and to give an oral summary of its contents. They provide a stimulus for natural and meaningful communication: giving both a reason and a motivating and enjoyable context for sharing information. When integrating skills in this way, the reading skill feeds directly into the speaking skill: new words and expressions are often absorbed almost effortlessly from the text by a kind of osmosis and students’ fluency and confidence in speaking are improved Although the activities are quite simple to set up, classroom management needs to be detailed and precise, and you will need to be very clear in your own mind about who is going to do what when - and where! Some points, to bear in mind: © Arrange desks and tables into groups in advance if possible for the first phase. Ifit is not possible to move the furniture in your classroom, give the same texts to students at adjacent desks, and work out how they can turn their chairs round to talk to those sitting near or behind them, if group discussion is required in the first phase.