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Count_Fathom · Joined: 17 Apr 2003 Posts: 92

Nursery Rhymes - 1/2 period (as with toungue twisters...)

Very important to explain the value:
Many children learn the correct pace/flow of english, aswell as pronunciation, from these "simple" (?) poems.

Write on the board
I say
We say
Individuals

Work best for me in this order:

"Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep, and doesn't know where to find them.
Leave them alone and they'll come home, wagging their tails behind them."

"Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the Kings horses and all the kings men, couldn't put Humpty together again."

"Little Miss Muffet sat on her....."

"Hey Diddle Diddle....."

Difficulties: explaining some vocab is rough. "Hey Diddle" is really the best one to improve pronunciaiton and flow, but without any sense to the poem, students get itchy.. While toungue twisters can happily get you through a lesson (if you add a few more), students get tired of these.

randyj · Posted: Mon May 26, 2003 1:41 am Post subject:

Try this activity for college students, maybe high intermediate level. Divide the students into groups of four or five. Write ten English sentences on the blackboard, some of which have grammatical errors. Each group starts with an imaginary bankroll of 2,000 RMB that they must use to bid on the sentences. After each group has elected a spokesperson and used a few minutes to strategize (in English, of course), auction off the sentences one at a time. Make it clear you will only accept bids from the spokesperson of each group. The group successfully purchasing the most correct sentences wins. This activity can fill an entire fifty-minute period.

Anne-Marie Gregory · Posted: Tue May 27, 2003 2:11 pm Post subject:

Variation on the grammar auction:

Write many sentences, e.g. 2 per student, in marker pen with a mistake in each (spelling, grammar, word choice). Split your class into 2 or 3 teams and get them all to line up in front of their portion of the board (tallest first works well). You, or perhaps the weakest student, stands at the front. Give each team a slip of paper. The student at the front of each line must run up to the board and write the sentence, corrected, on the board. The other students can offer advice, but can't write on the board. The student gives you the paper, when they've finiished with it, and you give them a new slip of paper. The student gives it to the next student in the line and then goes to stand at the back of the line.
Continue til all the slips of paper have been given out. Then go over all the sentences in turn with the whole class shouting whether they think they are correct and correcting them. The winners are the team to get the most correct sentences written on their part of the board. This will take nearly a whole 50min lesson. You are use repeat mistakes from homework or e.g.s from a list of common errors made by Chinese students.
Gots cynical students so excited at my previous place that I had to stop playing it. If the teams are larger than 8 students then it won't really work though.

ESL Guru · Joined: 18 May 2003 Posts: 462

AMG -

You said the game was a smash at your last gig. What about your current one?

Let's go surfing now, everybodys learning how, come on a safari with me.....

baby predator · Posted: Wed May 28, 2003 6:22 am Post subject:

"Guru", Why don't you share one of your classroom activities with us? Go on! I know you're a very busy Hut, but I'm sure you have time to spare us a snippet of your wisdom?

Here's another warmer:

A student writes 3-5 statements about him/herself on the board. Some are true, some are false, e.g.

My father met my mother when he was 10.

My ambition is to be a concert pianist.

I believe everything George W. Bush says.

etc etc

Other students have to debate (in English) which statements are true, which are false, and why. This works well with most adult groups. If student makes any written mistakes, prompt the class to spot and correct them.

ESL Guru · Joined: 18 May 2003 Posts: 462

This week I put my 240 students through the rigors of Simon Says and thay all failed listening comprehension.

xiaoyu · Posted: Wed May 28, 2003 8:07 am Post subject:

This can be a good way to work with students who are having a hard time deciding what descriptive words or nouns to use in a situation. a variation on word association.

break the class into groups of 5-8 (unless your students do well on an individual level of participation). Write a word on the board (i usually start out with simple nouns but as the class/term progresses move up to verbs and more difficult terms). my favorite starter is "school" . quickly move from group to group having them state what they thought of first, then move to the next group. group a says "books", group b must pick a word that they think of after books. if the words are getting too monotonous i step in with a twister to shake it up.

a variation on this theme, which i feel helps the students pay attention to pronounciation and the spelling of the words (even if they haven't been introduced to the word before) : break the class up in a similar manner. again, start with one word. the first group/student must say a word that begins with the ending letter of the previous word. they are not allowed to say a word that has been said previously in the exercise.

these would not necessarily work well with advanced levels (though the first one can help to show them ways of using descriptors properly if played correctly) but have helped my students in the past with their pronounciation, spelling and given them a better understanding of how to put words together properly in a sentence to denote what they would be describing with ease in their native tongue.

xiaoyu

Buttercup · Joined: 06 Apr 2003 Posts: 54 Location: Shanghai

My variation of Chinasyndrome's writing game ("boy meets girl") - everyone can participate at the same time:

I simply have many sheets circulating at the same time - one per student. On each sheet of paper, there are 6 categories:

who?
met who? (whom, for purists)
where?
what did they do?
what was the result?
what do you think?

They write their answer to "who", fold the paper, pass it along, write their answer to "met who", fold and pass, etc.

When everyone is done, each student has a sheet (story) to read. Then i let them read them silently, we can vote for the best story, and I'll even post the funniest ones for the whole school to see! Smile

Thanks eveyone for the ideas.

arioch36 · Joined: 21 Jan 2003 Posts: 3589

Good stuff.

This week my classes have to take an old Chinese proverb and make a modern story out of it, then the rest of the class must guess what the proverb is.
What will the results be? I know you are all sitting on the edge of your seats, So I will let you know

randyj · Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2003 7:30 pm Post subject:

All Chinese seem to like proverbs and sayings. Try this as only a filler activity, like when only a few minutes of class remain. Select one student to come to the front of the class, then show him or her a proverb, written in Chinese. The student must explain the figurative meaning of the proverb, using English only, until someone in the class can guess the proverb in Chinese. The teacher must emphasize carefully that literal English translations of the proverb must not be used, because it makes the exercise too simple in the case of some proverbs.