12.01.2010 08:21

Teaching tip: Warm-up or Round-up activities

A1.1: Word chains
One student says a word: yellow. The student next to him/her must say a word beginning with the last letter: window, and so on. The game ends when a student says a word which ends with the first letter of the first word, e.g. Wednesday.

A1.2: Memory chain
Choose a word field which has been taught recently, e.g. clothes. Round the class, the students build up a sentence, adding one item each time, e.g. I've got a pullover. - I've got a pullover and a pair of boots. - I've got a pullover and a pair of boots and a green hat. - ...

A2.1: Dates
Each student thinks of a year when something important happened to him/her. They write the year on a piece of paper and stand it on the desk in front of them. The class has 10 attempts at guessing what happened to the person in that year. 

A2.2: More famous than ...
Each student writes down the name of a famous living person on two pieces of paper. Collect the papers, shuffle them and re-distribute them so that each student again has two papers with names on them. Individuals make two sentences to compare their people, e.g. Prince William is richer than Madonna. Madonna is older than Prince William.

B1.1: Hot seats
Ask for two volunteers to sit at the front of the class with their backs to the board. Write a word on the board, e.g. passport. The class call out single words which they associate with the word on the board, e.g. holiday, travel, abroad, photo, identity, etc. The students at the front must try to guess the word on the board. When one of them guesses, they both return to their seats and two more students sit in the hot seats. (Have pairs of students in the hot seats so that weaker students aren't put on the spot.)

B1.2: Papers
Students work in pairs. Each student takes any piece of paper out of his/her bag, purse or wallet (a photo, a receipt, a ticket, etc.) and explains to his/her partner why it's there.