Smart Planet 2 Theatre Games Units 1–3

Word association games are a great way for students Extension

to play with vocabulary. The objective of any word
It is possible to use the slap, clap, snap rhythm
association game is to say the first word that pops
to review vocabulary sets and to practise
into one’s head that is inspired by the word that is
pronunciation. Review with the class a list of words
said before.
from a vocabulary set that they need to work on
before starting the rhythm. When it’s the next
1 Simple word association circle
student’s turn, instead of associating their word
1 Students stand or sit in a circle. Ask a student
with the previous word, they simply say any word
to say any word; it doesn’t have to be important
in the vocabulary set. Even though this seems
or clever.
rather simple, sometimes students just need
2 The student to his or her left says another word, various opportunities to say a new word aloud for it
and so on, going around the circle in a clockwise to become natural for them. Likewise, this game
direction. They needn’t try to associate their could also be used to focus on saying words with
word with the word that is said just before but Get it right!
difficult-to-pronounce sounds, such as past tense
instead they should say the first word they think Make a list of regular past tense verbs with the
-ed endings.
students and make sure they know how to
of. If they can’t think of a word to say, they pronounce each word correctly before you play the
should just say the word ‘banana’ so that the game. Exaggerate the /t/, /d/ and /id/ sounds and
‘word-pulse’ keeps moving. encourage them to do so as well when playing the
3 After a while, encourage the class to increase game. Encourage them to add any other regular past
tense verbs that they may already know that are not in
the speed of the words moving around the circle
the list. After playing the game, correct any
so there are no pauses between one word and pronunciation problems or other errors that might have
the next. come up, such as saying catched instead of caught.
4 Stop them after a few minutes and point out
any patterns of related words that might have
occurred. Suggest that making associations is
not very difficult and often happens naturally.
5 Ask students if they heard any new words.
Give a clear and concise definition of each new
word and then ask the class to repeat the word
aloud together. 3 Last letter
6 Correct any pronunciation mistakes and ask This is another game that can be played by
the class to repeat the correct pronunciation. incorporating the slap, clap, snap rhythm
established in the previous game. Instead of saying
2 Slap, clap, snap the first word that comes to mind when hearing the
This game is similar to the previous game, except previous word, students say the first word they
that now the students will use a specific rhythm and think of that starts with the last letter of the previous
they should also actively try to find an association word, for example, apple – elephant – tennis –
with the words that come before. scientist, etc.
1 Teach the following four-beat rhythm:
a Slap both hands on thighs.
b Clap hands.
c Snap fingers of one hand.
d Snap fingers of the other hand.
2 Once the rhythm is established, call on one of
the students to begin by saying any word on the
2nd finger snap (d).
3 The next time through the four beats, the
student to his or her left says another word on
the second snap that is associated with the
word that was said immediately before, and so
on, going around the circle in a clockwise
direction.
4 Stop them after a few minutes and again, as in
the previous game, check for any new words
and correct pronunciation.

Theatre Games Units 1–3

Smart Planet 2 Theatre Games Units 4–6

1 One-word-at-a-time story work together to spell words. It is an adaptation of

In the language classroom, this game can be used to
help students learn simple collaborative storytelling
skills. It can also be adapted to check students’
abilities in language-specific areas, e.g. sentence
structure and word collocations.
1 Choose five to ten students and ask them to
stand in a line at the front of the classroom. They
are going to work together to tell a brand new
story.
2 The rest of the class suggest story titles. From
their suggestions, choose one that will offer the
group the best context from which to create
their story. A good title might suggest the who,
when and where of the story, e.g. The thief
and the policeman on a foggy night in London.
Alternatively, make up a few titles before class,
write them on the board and let the storytelling
group choose one.
3 To create the story, each student in turn adds
one word. When the last student in the line
has
added their word, the sequence cycles back to the
beginning of the line and continues.
4 Let them continue until the story reaches a clear
or logical ending and say The End to let the
students know that the story has finished.
Tips
• Often stories are told using past tenses but it
might be interesting to tell a story in the present
tense. Either way, it could be helpful to give
students a starting word, e.g. Yesterday … .
• There is a tendency in this game to string lots of
clauses together with words like and or however
and students will sometimes find it difficult to
know when to end a sentence. Help them out
by saying full stop, new sentence until they get
the hang of it. Also encourage them to use
voice
inflection to indicate when a sentence has ended.
• Tell them not to think too much about what they
should say nor decide on a word before it is
their turn.
• It may take a couple of tries for students to find
the ideal fluidity and for a clear narrative to
emerge naturally. Feel free to stop them and
start again.
Extension
Ask the rest of the class to transcribe the story as it
is being told then correct any mistakes and read
back the corrected version to the storytelling group.

2 One letter at a time team Spelling Bee

This is like a traditional spelling contest but instead of
individual students competing against each other they

Theatre Games Units 4–6

Smart Planet 2 Theatre Games Units 4–6
the ‘one-word-at-a-time story’ structure above, in
that each student adds in turn the next letter of the
word.
1 Prepare a list of words that students have
difficulty spelling correctly. These words can
come from the Student’s Book or they might be
words that they should already know, e.g.
beautiful and surprise.
2 Divide the class into teams of five or six
students and put each team in a line in
different parts of the classroom.
3 Starting with the first team, say the first word
on the list. All the students in that team repeat
the word together and then spell it one letter
at a time.
4 If the team spells the word correctly, they get
one point. If they misspell it, they get no points
and you move on to the next team.
5 Play several rounds until all the words have
been spelled correctly, recycling the
misspelled words too.
Tips
• Don’t allow other teammates to help if
someone gets stuck.
• Try to keep the pace of the game moving
quickly.
Extension
Teams can earn bonus points once they have
spelled a word correctly by either defining the word
or by using it correctly in a sentence, with each
student in turn saying one word.

3 Alliteration
This is a memory game, which helps students
remember words that they already know but
perhaps don’t use.
1 Students stand or sit in a circle.
2 Give a tennis ball (or other small object) to one
student and explain that once they pass it to
the student on their left, they have to try to say
as many words as possible that begin with the
letter T before the ball travels around the circle
and returns to them.
3 The student takes their turn.
4 Count the number of words they managed to
say. Repeated words and plurals don’t count.
The objective of the game is to see who can
say the most words.
5 Correct any pronunciation mistakes and ask
the class to repeat the correct pronunciation.
6 Repeat with a different student and letter of
the alphabet.
Tip
• Tell students not to watch the ball go round
when it is their turn because that may cause
them to panic and freeze.

Theatre Games Units 4–6

Smart Planet 2 Theatre Games Units 7–9

1 What are you doing? the speaking Functions language from any of the
units.
This is a very common improvisation game that
1 Choose three students. Put two of them (A
uses mime to get students moving and
and
disassociation to get students thinking creatively.
B) on one side of the room and the other
More importantly, it teaches one of the basic rules student
of improvisation: to accept whatever the other (C) on the other side of the room.
players propose.
1 Students stand in a circle. A volunteer stands
in the middle of the circle and begins to mime
a physical activity, e.g. washing the dishes.
2 A second student leaves the circle and
approaches the student in the middle and asks,
What are you doing? The first student
continues with the mime and responds by
saying anything except the activity that they are
actually doing. For example, if they were
washing dishes they might say, I’m driving a
car.
3 The second student takes on the activity that
has just been suggested and begins to mime
driving a car, while the first student rejoins the
circle.
4 A third student comes into the circle and asks
What are you doing? and so on.
Tips
• Tell the students to be as realistic as possible
with their mimes.
• Encourage the students to answer with
whatever pops into their head.
• Try to get the students to ask and answer
as quickly as possible.

2 Where are you going?

In this game, one student mimes the act of
preparing to do something and then leaves the
space in order to do it. The other students have
to guess what he or she is doing and where he
or
she is therefore going. The scene finishes when
the student opens the door to leave. For example,
a student mimes putting on football boots and shin
guards and then stretches. He is preparing to play
football and he is going onto the pitch for the start
of the match.
Tip
Ask the other students watching questions about
the mime while it is happening. What is the student
doing? How is he or she doing it? What objects is
he or she using/holding?

3 The Telephone
This is a challenging theatre improvisation game
that requires students to carry on two
conversations simultaneously. It can be used to
review and practise

Theatre Games Units 7–9

Smart Planet 2
2 Students A and B begin to act out a scene that
Theatre Games Units 7–9
practises the Functions language and context
from one of the speaking pages, e.g. they are two
friends in a clothes shop where Student B is
trying on clothes and Student A is giving their
opinion (Asking for and giving opinions, p16).
3 Student C phones Student A to ask for
instructions on how to do something (Asking for
and giving instructions, p68), e.g. how to cook a
Spanish omelette.
4 Student A must now simultaneously carry on
both conversations, switching between giving
their opinion of the clothes being tried on by
Student B and giving instructions for making a
Spanish omelette to Student C.
5 The improvisation ends when both conversations
would naturally end: Student B decides on which
item of clothing to buy and Student C
has received all of the instructions to make the
omelette.
6 Swap roles and repeat.
Tips
• Review or pre-teach the Functions language and
any other vocabulary that students will need for
the improvisation.
• Students can use real objects as props. For
example, Student B could be trying on different
jackets or coats from the other students in the
class while Students A and C are holding real
phones.
• The improvisation works best when Students B
and C alternate their input. For example, Student B
asks, What do you think of this one? (showing
Student A the coat they’ve just tried on) to which
Student A responds, It’s not bad, which is then
followed by Student C asking, How many eggs do I
need? to which Student A responds, Three.
• Student A could also make comments to the rest
of the class in the form of ‘theatrical asides’,
e.g. Ugh … that was an ugly coat! or, I definitely
wouldn’t want to try that omelette! These asides
are a lot more fun when Student A is sharing an
opinion with the audience that they wouldn’t dare
share directly with Student B or C.
• Any of the speaking contexts from the Student’s
Book can be adapted for this exercise as long as
the situation is set up with Students A and B in the
same place and Student C phoning Student A from
another place. For example, Students A and B can
be talking about what they want to do this evening
(Suggesting and responding, p100) when Student
C phones Student A to tell them that his or her cat
had an accident and is in the pet hospital (Showing
sympathy, p90).

Theatre Games Units 7–9