There's a great book called Five Minute Activities designed for this kind of situation. The author's quoted on the discussion about the Pros and Cons of games.
If you can't get it, here are some ideas off the top of my head, A-Z of (topic you're about to teach) always works if you set a time limit; giving a short sum in English is good for getting elementary students to revise their numbers on a lesson requiring dates, telephone numbers etc.; head to tail is good for generating adjectives (reD- DarK- KinD- etc) and good if you're planning something on adjectives/word order; 'Add a letter, DON'T make a word, but be able to' is challenging for intermediate and above, ( A- N 'Lose a life that's a word' B- I (big) B-I-L (bill ) B-I-L-X Other team challenges, you can't make a word -you Lose a life. Demonstrate by example); opposites is good for revision of vocab., as is 'what is it? It could be a ...' with abstract pictures/ views for modals.
Should you fill the first five minutes? If you always do, some students will be tactically late and it'll become ten minutes, then fifteen (I speak from experience), but sometimes, especially in a company, more people are late than usual, are you going to punish them or reteach it?
15 Things to do while waiting for students to show up...
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Re: Waste of time?
This is the problem...in a well-structured lesson, the later parts just won't work with students who were not there for the earlier parts.leeroy wrote:when the "real" lesson starts, with sequential stages leading towards a specific language point, new people constantly arriving affects the smoothness and general continuity of the lesson.
I teach young children, and when waiting for them to all arrive, some things I will do are:
- review one of their favorite songs (which they will beg me all class to sing in any case)
- practice writing words with wipe-off flashcards, some commercial and some which I prepared using vocabulary from past units
- free reading time with books in the classroom library, either commercial or those written by and starring my students
Opposites
Wow! 5 years since I last visited this site!
Anyway, this seems like a useful thread and one that should be added to.
I always have a bundle of envelopes with opposite words written on small pieces of paper inside. Word pairs such as: Hot cold, work play, To sleep To wake, To say To tell, up down, fruit vegetable, etc.
I also have a peice of A4 paper with certain phrases used to describe things written on it such as "They are both nouns/verbs/adjectives ..." "One of them is ... and the other one is ..."
"They are both to do with ...."
They take a piece of paper from the envelope and describe it to the class.
Always start groups new to this game by doing the first ones yourself and they tell you the answer. If they don't know the answer in English but do in their own language, no matter. Comprehension game!
Our classes tend to be theme based so I now have a number of the envelopes with vocabulary based on the chapters from the text books we are using and the subjects we are teaching vocabulary for (Medical, work, sport etc.)
I use this game at the beginning of the class while waiting for my students to all be there and sometimes at the end as a way of summing up the vocabulary we have been practising.
This game is also good for students who are just impossible to teach. You can use it as a comprehension game with them. It really boosts their self-esteem.
I can't recommend it enough.
Anyway, this seems like a useful thread and one that should be added to.
I always have a bundle of envelopes with opposite words written on small pieces of paper inside. Word pairs such as: Hot cold, work play, To sleep To wake, To say To tell, up down, fruit vegetable, etc.
I also have a peice of A4 paper with certain phrases used to describe things written on it such as "They are both nouns/verbs/adjectives ..." "One of them is ... and the other one is ..."
"They are both to do with ...."
They take a piece of paper from the envelope and describe it to the class.
Always start groups new to this game by doing the first ones yourself and they tell you the answer. If they don't know the answer in English but do in their own language, no matter. Comprehension game!
Our classes tend to be theme based so I now have a number of the envelopes with vocabulary based on the chapters from the text books we are using and the subjects we are teaching vocabulary for (Medical, work, sport etc.)
I use this game at the beginning of the class while waiting for my students to all be there and sometimes at the end as a way of summing up the vocabulary we have been practising.
This game is also good for students who are just impossible to teach. You can use it as a comprehension game with them. It really boosts their self-esteem.
I can't recommend it enough.