Intel................................

Spell it out Students have their books

and pens ready. Start spelling the word
letter by letter. The object of this
exercise is for them to guess the word
before you finish spelling it. A fun way
to present a spelling test!
 Describe and draw Put the students in pairs. Give
each a picture. Student A describes his picture (but
mustn’t show it) to Student B, who then has to draw
it. At the end, they compare their pictures and
discuss what is different. Then they swap roles.
Excellent for beginners – colours, prepositions and
for practising ‘has/have got’ etc as well as for
advanced students.
 Jumbled words and jumbled sentences.

You can write these straight on to the

board or...

You can get a great template for jumbling

at http://www.tinyteflteacher.co.uk/
She’s got lots of other great stuff (it’s
not me! I’m huge).
 MES-English for ready-made
resources.
Dominoes You can do this as a whole class activity,
with just one set of dominoes. Give each student one
or 2. On one box, there is a question, on the other an
answer. The first student reads out his question, then
the student with the right answer puts his hand up,
reads it out and then reads his question etc. This can
be done in pairs.

By the way, great websites for ESL resources at

advanced level – www.eslflow and www.eslbase .
Box of words Get a bag or a box and put lots of
words in it. Go round the class – each student has
to take a word, read it and either make a sentence
out of it, or give the definition. If you like, you can
write each student’s sentence on the board. Then,
the others can correct the sentences and/or make
suggestions for improvement. This can be used to
practise basic English with beginners, or with key
words or new vocabulary for more advanced classes.
Or, if you’ve been studying a novel or a play, your
words can be based on that.
Probability plane: Strategically place your bin.
Give the students a sheet of paper and ask them to
make a paper plane. Then ask them to discuss the
odds of them getting their plane in the bin. You can
bring in lots of language. ‘Likely’ ‘No chance’
‘Impossible’ ‘Certain’ ‘50-50’ ‘6:1’ etc. Move the bin
around as they get better at it!
Charades - you know the rules.
If you want to make it more interactive
– put the students into two teams and
get them to write the prompts/make
the cards.
Chinese whispers. Two teams, each forming a
circle. Whisper the key phrase into the ears of
the first student in line. They then whisper to
each other, round the circle. The winning team
is the one whose final statement most
resembles the original. Good for teaching key
pieces of knowledge.
 BIRTH --- -MARRIAGE----DEATH , ---oh
and taxes.

Main points:
After you have studied a book, make a
few slides or a worksheet with just the
main points, in picture form. Elicit a
recount by asking questions, ‘What
happened before..’ ‘Why did he go
there?’ ‘Who did he see?’ etc.
Add to the picture This is a good activity for a beginners’ group.
Use the whiteboard. Draw a line. Say, ‘This is the ground’.
Call up a student and ask, or show them, they have to add
something. They may add anything -
house/flower/tree/person/animal plane/sun/birds/car etc,
whatever they like. Then they have to say what it is, ‘This
is a ...’ Or ask the others if they can name the object.
Each student gets a turn. At the end, they then each say a
sentence to describe the picture. Good for practising
prepositions. You can make this into a longer, writing
activity by having them copy the picture and write up the
sentences. You can then have a True/false session, based
on the picture they have created.
Visualise !!!

This might be best illustrated by an

example. Teaching the Berlin Airlift.

Take a piece of flip chart paper – put it on the desk.

Gather the students round. Roughly draw the map.
Ask the students to name the countries and cities.
Have props – I use chess pieces and cotton balls.
Position the various parties. Ask what they did – move
them round. Ask – why? How did it go? When? Write
the dates in. Basically let them VISUALISE what
happened.
Place the nose Draw a blank face on
the board. Call out one student – who
has to be blindfolded. He/she has to
draw the nose in the right place and the
others have to give directions. Give
each student a different coloured pen
and see who gets the best results. Good
for practising prepositions and
directions. Just a bit of fun!
 TRUE FALSE

Kinaesthetic True or false Place two

posters at opposite ends of the classroom
- TRUE and FALSE. Read out your
statements, students have to move to the
position they think is correct. Students
who are wrong have to sit down. Continue
until there is a winner. Then, move onto
the next statement. At the end of ther
activity, ask students to recite, or write
down as many of the true statements as
they can remember.
Key words chart tally: Ask some
students to keep a tally of how many
times you say a certain word. This can
be a way of allowing a beginner to
participate in a more advanced lesson.
Differentiate by half Ask your EAL
students to work on half the number of
paragraphs that you set the rest of the
class.
Pre-highlight key words or phrases in the
passage you are studying.
 Marking idea.

Post-it marking: When marking, instead of

correcting the student’s mistakes in their
book, write them on post–it notes, then the
students have to correct their own mistakes.
This way, you know the student has taken
notice.
 TIMELINE

Draw three time zones on your line –

Past / Now / Future. Students take
turns to come out. Read out a sentence,
e.g. ‘He saw his friend last month.’ The
students have to position themselves on
the line /in the zone they think
appropriate. This is a great kinaesthetic
way to practise tenses and expressions
of time.
 ACROSTICS
At the beginning – or the end of a topic, write
down one of the key terms
e.g. E D U C A T I O N.
The students have to write down as many words
as they can beginning with each letter that is
relevant to the topic. E.g E – exam/expectations
etc. D – detention, discipline. Split the class into
groups and the winning group is the one with the
most correct words. Each group’s suggestions can
be written up and discussed.
 Question generator

Ice breaker or an activity you can use for a speaking

lesson at any time. Bring in some photos from your
personal album, or the internet. Include photos of people –
family, friends. Photos of places/big cities/countries you
have visited/food/film trailer posters/cars etc. Tell the
students ‘These are important to me’ – or ‘I have plenty to
say about each of these photos, but I need the right
questions.’ Give them some time to write as many questions
as they can. Or assign different photos to different
students. A fun way to practise making questions.
 http://www.tinyteflteacher.co.uk/teacher/acti
vities/getting-to-know-you.html

Onion skin.
Stand the students in two circles, one
inside the other, facing each other.
They ask a question, then move on. Or
you give a question, which they have to
discuss. Great at all levels.
 Messenger
Read and report back Instead of
reading from a book, pin the passages up
round the classroom. In pairs, one
student reads the passage, then reports
back to his partner, who writes it up.
Then, they go up and read the passage
to check . This makes reading and
writing fun.