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Level – Elementary and Up

Objective – Depending on the level: Vocab. Building (Demographic Country Terms)

                    Describing a Country

                    Basic question formation

Procedure – Begin the class by drawing a big map of your country on the board.  Put some cities in, roads, mountains, etc (This should take less than a minute).  Ask the class what the country is called and what the thing you drew is (a map).  Write Country Name and Map at the top right corner of your board.  Now draw a really bad outline of your students’ country.  They should laugh.  Make a 2nd attempt.  It can be better, but should still be very flawed.  If a student hasn’t already taken the marker from you, give it to a student and have them draw the outline. 

Now the lesson begins.  You want to elicit the words Capital City, Population, Language, Religion, Geography, and Climate.  Do this by giving examples.  For example, in America we have Washingting D.C.; in Turkey it’s Ankara.  What is this?  İn America we speak English, in Turkey you speak Turkish.  This is the…?  It should take less than 5 minutes to elicit all the words.  If you have a higher level class you can include things like Type of Government, Major Industries, etc.

Now tell the class that they are going to create their own country.  Demo this on the board.  I usually draw a big beer bottle and then label it Beeristan.  My capital city is Barsville.  My language is Beerish.  The religion is Alcoholism.  It’s a magical country where beer rains from the sky every weekend.  You get the point. 

Put the students in groups of two and have each make their own country.  As an initial task give them 2 minutes to write a name and draw a map then stop.  This allows you to check for certain that they understand.  You wouldn’t believe how many students, especially at lower levels, even after the demo and CCQ’s will still start to draw their own country.  You can ensure they are making a new country. 

After about 8 minutes come back together as a class.  With lower levels you will have to elicit the questions as a class and put the structures on the board.  With higher levels you can dive right in.  Have each group show their country and have the other groups ask questions about it.  With lower levels this will be rather formulaic although you should encourage extra questions.  With higher levels they will often run with it.  If they don’t, ask a few questions as examples such as, Where do alcoholics go to pray?  How do people get to work if everyone’s drunk all the time?  Is there a lot of tourism to Beeristan? Etc. 

If this somehow doesn’t last an hour you can make some groups tourists and they have to go from group to group to hear about each country’s virtues and then decide on which one to go to for vacation.

You can also follow this up with a lesson on modals of permission and obligation by having them create the laws for their country.

- stolen lesson from Steal This Lesson post. Read about it HERE.

This post was submitted by David Deubelbeiss.

I”ll guess your birthday Magic Trick

Ask your students to do the following, calculating for their own birthday. Go slow and repeat the instructions so they follow along. Use the board to show an example.

• Enter the number 7 (7)
• Multiply by the month of your birth (7×6=63)
• Subtract 1 (63-1=62)
• Multiply by 13 (62×13=806)
• Add the day of your birth (806+8=814)
• Add 3 (814+3=817)
• Multiply by 11 (817×11=8987)
• Subtract the month of your birth (8987-9=8978)
• Subtract the day of your birth (8987-8=8970)

Now the fun! – Ask a student to tell you their result. In your head, quickly do the following

• Divide by 10 (8970/10=897)
• Add 11 (897+11=908)
• Divide by 100 (908/100 = 9.08 )

Tell the student their birthday!  (for example, using my own – Sept. 8th).

They will be amazed! Tell a few more students when their birthday is. For homework ask them to try and find out how you did it! They’ll come up with some creative answers!

There are a lot of amazing science and math tricks that teachers can learn easily and which offer very powerful engagement AND language learning activities.

This post was submitted by David Deubelbeiss.

Extensive Reading: Voice Diary

This recipe works best if you combine it with Extensive Reading. It builds confidence and teaches reading, speaking, and listening
Encourage your students to make a voice diary with their cell phones. Its listed under the “Voice Memo” Feature. First you need to provide a high interest story to your students.

1.    Have them read the story once quietly
2.    Next read the story aloud and record it on their voice diary
3.    Then have them playback and listen while they read

And the best part of it is, the students can track their progress. If they keep at it for a couple weeks they can actually hear the difference. Its worked great with Tech students

Can be adapted to anything, if they see a funny or cool sign, they can read it and save.

This post was submitted by Jason K.

1.  Put large posters of “Yes” and “No” at opposite ends of the classroom. (you might also use “Rocks! – Sucks!  or “I think so” or “I don’t think so” etc….)

2.  Students stand. Read a statement such as “I love chocolate ice cream” .  Students answer by going to the side of the classroom, the poster, that represents their opinion/answer.  Or if undecided they can go to the middle. Continue reading statements.

3.  Give students a slip of paper. They write their own statements or closed questions (Yes/No). Then each take turns reading theirs and seeing the opinions/beliefs of classmates.

….

You can use this technique in many ways and to cover/introduce many topics and language items. Really good for doing surveys interactively… A perfect example of “learning on your feet” and Active Learning.

This post was submitted by David .

This is a great way to practice the future tense and learn about each other. Adapted from Jill Hadfield’s “Communication Games”.

1. Ask students about their resolutions. Put the target language on the board – “This year, I will / I resolve to / I’m going to ……….

2.  List some of the common resolutions as you discuss.

3.  Students write down 3 resolutions and then go around the class surveying classmates. They must find as many classmates with the same resolution as them.

4. Finally, why not sing Auld Lang Syne!

Here is a handout that students can use to check off their resolutions prior to “hunting”. You might also list language of agreement like – “So am I ” / “Me too!”  / “Same here”

This post was submitted by David Deubelbeiss.

Any time students are performing an activity: dialogue, discussion, task etc… train them to “pass the pen”. After speaking, the student passes the pen to someone else. If you have the pen, you then must “add to” the activity. It’s your turn.

The simplist way to introduce this to students is to put some questions on the board or in a worksheet. Students randomly ask a question and “pass the pen”. That student replies and asks a question and “passes the pen”. You might even just use the “Spin the Question” game on EFL Classroom 2.0.

This post was submitted by David Deubelbeiss.

PASS THE CHICKEN!

The prop is the most important element to this game : ) To begin, all students sit in a circle. Select one person to be IT. That person holds the rubber chicken. The teacher or a “caller” says to the person holding the chicken, “Name five animals. Pass the chicken!” As soon as the caller says, “Pass the chicken,” the person holding the chicken passes it to the right. Students quickly pass the chicken around the circle. If it returns to the original holder before he or she can name five animals, the holder is still IT. Otherwise, the person holding the chicken when IT finishes listing five animals is the new IT.

A nice part of this game is it really doesn’t matter if the topics are easy or hard… it’s pretty random who is going to be IT next : ).

Some Easy Topics

• animals
• fruit
• famous people
• songs
• books
• clothing
• weather words
• holidays
• countries
• languages

Anything that fits your curriculum!

This post was submitted by Ellen.

Students in groups pass around a piece of paper while music plays. When it stops, whoever has the paper must answer the question or do a specific task.  In this game - finish the Christmas Carol.

Pass the paper is an excellent interactive way to review the lesson / curriculum.

Get the powerpoints and more games like this HERE.

This post was submitted by David .

First, come to class with some pictures you’ve cut out of a newspaper or magazine. Nice gift ideas. Tell the students it’s Christmas and walk around the class giving items. Stop at a student, handing them the picture and say, “Merry Christmas! Students if advanced must reply with more than “you’re welcome” and should use one of the ways to say “Thank you’ ,you’ve put on the board. Keep going around the class until students get the hang of it…..

Next, give students in groups, one of these pictures ( from Hadfields Adv. Communication Games) and put them in pairs. They must make a list of students names in the class and write down one of the gift items beside it. They may have to ask you the names of the gifts or look them up in the dictionary.

Finally, when they have decided who is getting what gift, give the signal and students will walk around the class using the target language and giving gifts.

To conclude, ask students what they got and which present they liked best (and why!). Everyone in the class will feel great. If by some chance, some students are not getting many gifts, give them some from your magazine collection. This will make them feel great.

This post was submitted by Jerry.

Simply use these templates or have them draw their own.

First, review how to write a card by doing one as a whole class on the board. This will give them an idea of the appropriate register and vocabulary.

One caution – make sure you assign or draw names. That way, everyone in the class will get a card!

The teacher can be the postman!

This post was submitted by Ellen.