Activities/Games that would be good for Adult ESL learners
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Activities/Games that would be good for Adult ESL learners
I'm about to start a university job as an English instructor. I have been working at a hagwon for the past year and mainly with elementary students and kindies and one of the important things from this job was having a number of activities/games that could be run with students if need be. However the games that I have been doing in my previous job I feel would be a little too childish to be run with adult university students. Does anybody here know of any good activities/games that can be run in an adult esl class, or know of any good websites that provide good resources/ideas?
I struggle too, with making sure my games aren't too childish.
One game that my adult students really enjoy and get a lot out of is charades.
Another one you might want to consider would be "go fish" (good with question formation), which my lower level students have also been enjoying. When teaching action words, I've taken index cards, and made pairs of them, with one card having the action word and its pair having a picture of that action. I split the class into teams, and hide either all of the "picture" cards or all of the "word" cards, and evenly distribute the other half. Then, the students must find the matching cards. Bingo can appear childish, but my entire school loves it and requests it, though I seldom play it! The possibilities are endless, but games are a great way to get your kinesthetic learners and competitive students interested and thinking!
One game that my adult students really enjoy and get a lot out of is charades.
Another one you might want to consider would be "go fish" (good with question formation), which my lower level students have also been enjoying. When teaching action words, I've taken index cards, and made pairs of them, with one card having the action word and its pair having a picture of that action. I split the class into teams, and hide either all of the "picture" cards or all of the "word" cards, and evenly distribute the other half. Then, the students must find the matching cards. Bingo can appear childish, but my entire school loves it and requests it, though I seldom play it! The possibilities are endless, but games are a great way to get your kinesthetic learners and competitive students interested and thinking!
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longshikong
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Sally Olsen
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There are quite a few games in the co-operative learning field. They are like games but also have the content of the courses as the core.
Interaction: Two or more students talk together with no special training to do that or no attempt to influence who will be in the pair or group other than stating the number of people.
Dialogue: Teacher/Instructor/Facilitator raises open ended questions and encourages discussion among the whole class rather than lecturing about the topic.
Mingles: This term was coined by Spratt (1985) where learners move around class, perhaps joining different groups or interviewing other students.
Pair or group work: an instructional strategy in which students work actively and purposefully together in small groups to enhance both their own and their teammates' learning. This can include labels like group instruction, collaboration, co-operative learning (CL), and tribes.
Think/Pair/Share: a piece of reading is assigned and the students read by themselves. Then they get together in pairs or groups to talk about the meaning of the text or their reaction to it. The reverse process is possible as well, with students talking about a subject and then reading a text on that subject.
Write/Pair/Share: the students write, then share their writing with others. The reverse process can take place as well, students sharing ideas and then writing them down as a group product
Jigsaw: students meet in an expert group, that is, one in which they share the information each has gathered. They make sure that everyone in the group understands their piece of the information. They then move to different groups and share the information that they learned in the first group. They listen to the information that the other participants learned in their expert groups. It provides motivation to understand and learn the information in the expert group because the information has to be passed on to the next group.
Co-operative project: two or more students combine to complete a project which is then presented to the whole class.
Group Investigation: a research project is undertaken by the whole class, with each student contributing part of the information. Of course, within this structure there can be smaller groups working together to complete the research. The students report on the research at the conclusion of the class.
Teams: group work as defined above but the group stays together throughout the course of study
Classbuilding: whole class activities either in class time or outside of the class time.
Debates are like a grown up game.
Puzzles and scrabble like games are always a good way to review vocabulary.
Poster presentations are kind of like games - each group presents their information on a poster and one person from the team stays nearby to explain and they change positions every 10 minutes so all can see the other posters.
Game type shows with questions on what you want the students to learn - for example, grammar - are a lot of fun.
Interaction: Two or more students talk together with no special training to do that or no attempt to influence who will be in the pair or group other than stating the number of people.
Dialogue: Teacher/Instructor/Facilitator raises open ended questions and encourages discussion among the whole class rather than lecturing about the topic.
Mingles: This term was coined by Spratt (1985) where learners move around class, perhaps joining different groups or interviewing other students.
Pair or group work: an instructional strategy in which students work actively and purposefully together in small groups to enhance both their own and their teammates' learning. This can include labels like group instruction, collaboration, co-operative learning (CL), and tribes.
Think/Pair/Share: a piece of reading is assigned and the students read by themselves. Then they get together in pairs or groups to talk about the meaning of the text or their reaction to it. The reverse process is possible as well, with students talking about a subject and then reading a text on that subject.
Write/Pair/Share: the students write, then share their writing with others. The reverse process can take place as well, students sharing ideas and then writing them down as a group product
Jigsaw: students meet in an expert group, that is, one in which they share the information each has gathered. They make sure that everyone in the group understands their piece of the information. They then move to different groups and share the information that they learned in the first group. They listen to the information that the other participants learned in their expert groups. It provides motivation to understand and learn the information in the expert group because the information has to be passed on to the next group.
Co-operative project: two or more students combine to complete a project which is then presented to the whole class.
Group Investigation: a research project is undertaken by the whole class, with each student contributing part of the information. Of course, within this structure there can be smaller groups working together to complete the research. The students report on the research at the conclusion of the class.
Teams: group work as defined above but the group stays together throughout the course of study
Classbuilding: whole class activities either in class time or outside of the class time.
Debates are like a grown up game.
Puzzles and scrabble like games are always a good way to review vocabulary.
Poster presentations are kind of like games - each group presents their information on a poster and one person from the team stays nearby to explain and they change positions every 10 minutes so all can see the other posters.
Game type shows with questions on what you want the students to learn - for example, grammar - are a lot of fun.