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[Brickerage]

Nothing so important, just some random teaching ideas that I've been toiling over the past few... these are probably in different forms in other places, but I hope that these ideas can inspire or help some of you guys! Good luck in your teaching! And please, feel free to contribute!!!

A fun dialogue "game" that I whipped up yestersay... it's not entirely educational, but we all had a lot of fun:

In a dialogue format, assign a group of Ss (3-5 ppl) different phrases that they MUST say in response to anything said... for example-
I put a list of common expressions or exclamations on the board (NO WAY! THAT'S GREAT!, WHATEVER, I DON'T CARE) etc.
In the group, Student 1 must say "That sucks!" in response to student 2 saying she got a new job (or whatever), then make a follow up sentence to support why it sucks
- That sucks, because everyone at your old job just got raises!.
Another student might say "Thats great!" when his partner says his cat died... and so on. It makes for a lot of laughs, and
Near the end, we got a bit weird and starting saying phrases like
"I have to use the bathroom badly!" and "I love your dog's clothes!"
I intended it to be an introduction to words that we say that usually have no real meaning... kinda strayed.
If you guys have any idea how to improve this, please let me know

For cause and effect lessons (and I'm SURE ive seen something similar to this around here )
Take an egg and a stick to class (ok, many eggs, many sticks) and tell the Ss that they are going to conduct an experiment in Cause and Effect... leave them to their own devices (and messes) until they can create a sort of presentation Ex: I threw the egg at Greg's head, and it exploded
Or something along those lines. Also, any number of objects (I enjoy eggs and water balloons, myself) can be combined, to not only stretch the imagination but can be a good hands on lesson. Just be ready to clean

Cut up sentences into pieces, hand out 20 or 30 pieces to groups of Ss, give them 5 minutes to make the longest correct sentence they can. (or largest no., most complex, etc...) and if used as an ongoing activity, is great for introducing new vocabulary... can also be a fun "trick" to play on more advanced learners- give them all sentence pieces that are impossible to connect, and have them struggle to find the proper filling words

After teaching some sports vocab (more "commentary" vocab.) have students become the commentators for a muted soccer or B-ball game on the tube.

Have all students (groups, of course) try to sell the same product by creating their own commercial they must act out (include lingo, slogan, logo). Introduce different ad. techniques (professional opinions, brand comparison, price watching etc...) and see who can make the most appealing commercial, open to discussion after. THEEEENNNNN.... have them make a series of NEW commercials based on what they viewed of the others' examples. Can discuss how the method and style changed to meet the growing "demand" or popular advertising style for each round

In a rotating fashion, have 3 or 4 Ss come to the front of the class. Have each of these 4 students secretly give you an interesting piece of information about themselves (I have 12 toes, my left eye is glass, etc.) and put ONE of the Ss info on the board... then, the class must interview each student as they all stand there, trying to figure out which student this applies to. For example, the class might ask S 1 "How do you buy shoes if you have 12 toes?" and he would have to lie (unless it IS him, of course) and try to convince the class he really does. "Oh, I have them special made in Guang Zhou every year" etc... da da da. (Sorry for the long winded explanations...) This way, the Ss can practice "lying" and recognizing lying when they see it in English.

This is all I have time to write, and Im sure they are floating around somewhere in cyber space besides here, but just wanted to spread the love, yeah?
If ANYone has an interesting idea, experimental, ANYthing, please...
Ah, yeah, if you have tried something similar to these as well, can you post any opinion or result?
More to come, hopefully Best of luck

[ChinaMovieMagic]

For more ideas/concepts:

Check out
*http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/think.shtml
*"Promoting Change" thread