Red Room Where the Writers Are

Issue/Publication: www.yungsibooks.com

Web Links

 If learning the things we don't know using a language we know is such a drag, how boring will it be to study the things we don't know in a language that isn't our first? Very boring right? Wrong! Because learning doesn't  always have to be boring. Infact learning should be the one thing that is fun since it involves so much work.

As a teacher of English As a Second Language in China for over five years now, I have come to realize that the importance of play in teaching Enlgish to my Chinese students should never be taken for granted. That is why I designed some fun games and activities to enable them not only stay awake during classes but also to make them fall in love with learning English. I hope they will come in handy in your case. Here we go!

What is number one?

This is an ideal for teaching vocabulary on all sorts of items. My personal favourite is clothes especially “a shirt”

Take a shirt with you to the classroom or if you can’t then draw a rough picture of a shirt on the blackboard ( it shouldn’t be hard)

Draw arrows pointing to different parts of the shirt, and then number the arrows without writing the names of the various parts of the shirt.

Write down a horizontal list of the parts of the shirt like collar, buttons, cuffs, sleeves, etc giving each a number that corresponds with the numbers you wrote against the arrows.

Read the words aloud so that your students can repeat them after you, paying particular attention to the pronunciation. Write down the key sentences of the game which include a question and an answer as shown below:

Question.. What is number ------------?

Answer.. Number ---------------- is the ------------ of the shirt.

Explain to the students that the question’s blank must be filled with a number while the  answer’s blanks must be filled with a number and a word that corresponds to the diagram on the blackboard and to the question just asked.

Divide the class into two teams. A member of the first team randomly picks someone from second team and asks the above question choosing any part of the shirt. “What is number 1? The second team’s member must answer correctly. Number 1 is the collar of the shirt. The teacher awards point for correct answer. Then the student who just answered the questions picks another student from the first team and asks the same question but using a different part of the shirt this time. This should go on until every one has had the chance to ask and answer a question.

In the end jumble up the numbered words so they don’t match the arrows on the shirt and play the game again.

Raise the stakes a little bit and if they get it, then your lesson has been successfully taught.

The unique feature of this game is the fact that you can use it for any item like bicycles, cars, the body, etc. 

Hide and Seek

This game can be played with a huge class as well as a small class.

    It is very useful in that it teaching the students parts of a house and the items found in each part while making them practice using verbs of position like “behind”, “under”, “Inside”, “near”, etc.

    First the teacher needs to explain the meaning of the game by defining the word “Hide” and “seek”. It is funny to demonstrate “hide” by covering your eyes with your hands like babies do when they think they are hiding (students are bound to laugh and tell you that’s not hiding).

    Then write down various parts of the house like Bedroom, living room, kitchen, etc. Under each part of the house write down sentences like. Behind the gas cooker, behind the sofa, behind the TV, inside the wardrobe, near the washing machine, etc. The number depends on the teacher.

    Give out little pieces of papers to the students and tell them to each write where they intent to hide and they must chose their hiding positions from the list on the blackboard. Tell them not to show anyone else their hiding place. Then divide the class into two groups.

    Call up the first student from the first group and ask him or her to hand you his or her paper. Then call up another student from the second group to try and guess where this student is hiding. The student has three guesses and if one is correct their team gets 2 points. But if all three are wrong the first team gets one point. The first student then sits down and the roles reverse. The student who was guessing before now hands over his or her paper to the teacher and calls on a student from an opposing team to try three guesses. It goes on like this till everyone has had a chance to guess and to present their hiding place.

    At the end the teacher totals up the points and rewards the winners any way he deems fit.

    A variation can be hiding and seek in the park, in a car, etc as long as the students can learn the different parts of the above places.