Warm-up

Warm-up activities are good ways to start any club meeting. They help
people relax and prepare them to start speaking English. Here are a few
warm-up activities that can be used with any age or skill level.

 Two truths and a lie

The first is called Two Truths and a Lie. This activity can be done in pairs,
small groups, or the whole English club. One person comes up with three
facts about themselves. Two of the facts are true, and one is a lie. They tell
the group the three facts, and the group must decide which one is the lie.
Each participant takes a turn with this activity.

 Salad bowl
Another warm-up activity is Salad Bowl. For this activity, tell everyone to
think of a person, place or thing and write it down on a piece of paper.
Collect the pieces of paper and mix them around in a big bowl. Then, divide
the club into two teams. Each team then takes turns having one person go
to the front of the room to take a piece of paper. The person must then
describe the word to other team members. As soon as a team member
correctly guesses the word, the person then selects another word from the
bowl. Each team has 30 seconds to guess as many words as possible.

 Discussion questions
Finally, for groups that do not like activities, you can simply start a club
meeting with a warm-up discussion question, or by sharing a word or quote
of the day.

Primary Meeting Activities

After a warm-up activity, it is time to begin the main meeting activities.

These may be organized activities or less formal ones.

 Debates and discussion

Club debates or discussions are the most popular type of English club
activity. They let people use English in a more natural way than in a
classroom.
 It helps to have a new discussion topic for each meeting. This helps keep
conversations from being too repetitive. It also encourages club members to
learn new vocabulary words.

Debates are good ways to keep participants interested. They create

excitement, and make the speaker practice using new words. If your club
has many members, it is a good idea to divide the group into several smaller
groups. If possible, each of the small groups should be given a different
discussion or debate subject.

Every 15 to 30 minutes, people can move on to the next subject.

You can encourage club members to come up with debate subjects for
future meetings.

 Guest speakers and presentations

You can also invite people to give presentations in English. They may be
politicians, non-profit workers, teachers, police, and so on. Participants can
ask the presenter questions. Your participants can also take turns giving
presentations on subjects that are important to them, as well.

 English-language songs and readings

Another fun club activity is to listen to popular songs in English. To make
this more effective, you can provide the words of the song to the club
members. Participants can then use the song’s message as a discussion
topic. You can also select a section from an English-language book to read
and discuss as a group.

 Skits
Or, if your participants enjoy acting, creating short skits or plays in English
are fun language exercises.

Special Activities

While having interesting club meetings is important for keeping

participants motivated, you should avoid too much repetition. Doing
special activities with your club from time to time gives participants
something to look forward to, builds friendships, and provides new ways to
learn.
 Group trips
You can organize a short trip. Your club can see an English-language movie
together at a theater, go on a hike, or attend a concert to watch an English-
language band. Another idea is to visit a museum with an English-speaking
guide.

 Newsletter
If club members enjoy writing, collect English-language essays, stories, or
poetry that they write. You can publish their work together in a newsletter.

 Competition
Another idea is to create friendly competitions with your club’s participants
or between other English clubs. Poetry, speech, or debate competitions are
especially effective.

 Scavenger Hunts
For a scavenger hunt, you can create a list of items that club members must
find or photograph around their city or neighborhood. But instead of
directly saying what the items are, give them hints about what they are.

 Film Viewings
Another idea is to host English-language film viewings during a club
meeting or at other locations.

 Club Party
Finally, have a party to celebrate a holiday or just for fun. This is a way to
help create a friendly, informal environment for club members. Remember
to encourage English-only conversations at such events, however.

The 'Amazing Race'

We did this a couple of years ago. We divided teachers and students into several teams.
The teams would have to look for envelopes containing clues hidden everywhere around
the school. Each clue would lead the teams to different stations. The teams would have
to perform the English language task given in every station before they could have
access to the clue that would lead them to the next station. The first team to arrive at
the final station would be the winner.
 The envelopes containing all the clues.

Where do you think it leads to? ;-)

Actually, this refers to a mural painting on the pre-school classroom wall.

Yup, you're right. This one leads to the computer lab.

We hid some clues in one of the English teacher's car.

To the canteen, definitely.

 This one is referring to the school hall.

It was really funny watching the children and teachers going around saying 'hot and
spicy cuffy puffs' to everyone.

Looking for clues.

 Run!

Listening task in one of the stations.

Tongue-twisters in one of the stations. The teams needed to get this right before they
could have access to the next clue.
 The funniest, and perhaps most challenging task - eating a plate of extremely hot and
spicy curry puffs. This had little to do with English language, of course. My panel
members were very persuasive, and in the end I gave in to their suggestion to include
this in - just for fun. :-)

I was the one responsible for reading this out at the final station. I love the look on the
participants' faces as they waited (im)patiently for me to get over with all the blah blah.
All they wanted to know was whether they were the first team to arrive.

The impact of the activity was unexpectedly amazing. Everyone spoke English all
throughout the event. A couple of days after the activity I posted the pictures on
Facebook. People commented on the pictures in English. It went on for a few weeks,
teachers and students were conversing in English everywhere in the school - along the
corridor, in the staffroom, at the canteen. We'll definitely do it again this year, this time
we decided to include the parents. I think it's a good way to get everyone to use English
in a way that is fun and in an atmosphere that is not intimidating, especially for the shy
ones.

Win, Lose or Draw

This was also done in our previous English Week. Like the 'Amazing Race', this was after
the popular TV game show by the same name. We wrote down some clues for the
participants to draw. For the teachers, we gave some simple sentences like 'I like to play
football' or 'She loves sandwich.' For the students, we used words - 'ball', 'elephant',
'pencil' etc. One person from the team would draw, while the rest would try to guess the
sentence or the word. One point would be given for each correct guess. The winner was
the team with the most points.
I think the pictures say it all. It was fun! Another thing that was interesting about this
activity was that it gave the students the chance to see the 'different sides' of their
teachers. One student said to me, "I didn't know teachers can laugh that loud!" Another
student said, "The teachers' drawings were so funny, I laughed so much. I wish we could
have fun like this more often."

The Telephone Game

In this activity, we got the teams to sit in a line. Then, we would whisper a sentence or a
phrase to the first person. The person would then whisper it to the next person, and the
whispering would continue until it reached the last person in the line. The last person
would then run to the desk at the back of the room and wrote whatever that was
whispered to him/her on a piece of paper. Some of the results were hilarious!  
Karaoke Competition

I guess it's no secret how much Sabahans love karaoke. So, yeah, we have to have it in
our English Week. 

This boy is good!

I was surprised by the kids' song choices. I was expecting 'Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star,'
or probably Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber. I was wrong. The children sang Abba, Mariah
Carey and Maher Zain. The crowd's favourite was Celine Dion's 'My Heart Will Go On.'
Hmm.
 Mr Refen, the Afternoon Supervisor. He's great.

Karaoke face-off between Justyna, the ELTDP mentor and Mdm Sapiah, the ELO. I forgot
who won. I'm pretty sure it was a tie. ;-)

Action Song 

We did this with the Level 1 children.  It became quite an interesting competition, not
among the students but the English teachers. I remember how committed my colleagues
were in preparing their students for the competition. There were even some
'psychological wars' going on in the staffroom, and it was really funny, we all had a lot of
fun. The children loved it too. We could see how talented our students were in action
song, so we brought them to Lahad Datu for the Zone Level Action Song Competition.
We won! You can read all about it here. 

Last year, my school hosted the Kunak district level Action Song competition. Our
school's team got second place. It was one of the most exhausting project I've ever
handled - I stayed in school until 1 a.m. every day during the week before the event to
do all the preparation work. Yet it was also one of the most fun, and most rewarding -
both for my students as well as my English panel. I wish we could do it again. 

Here are some pictures from last year's event.

My school's team - 'In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight...'

'Mary Had A Little Lamb'

'Valderi...valdera...'
I forgot what song these little ones were singing, but I think their costumes were really
nice.