Archive for the ‘TEFL games’ Category

“Sole Mates” from “The Grammar Activity Book”

Tie words that go together (such as collocations) to different students’ shoelaces. They then walk around putting their feet next to each other to try to match them up. If they make an incorrect pair, they have to take off their shoes and put them in the “lost soles” pile until (at that point I stopped reading…) Also useable (?) for dependant prepositions, verb patterns etc.

This was by far the nuttiest idea in the book, but certainly not the only one that made me go “What??” On the positive side, there are few ideas in the book that you would have seen anywhere else. On the negative side, there are at times very good reasons why no one had written those ideas down…

Backwards dialogues

Students write a dialogue and then read it out starting with the last line, then the second to last line and last line, then the last three lines etc- working their way towards the beginning of the dialogue until the other students in the class guess what the situation of the conversation is, e.g. who the telephone conversation is between or which kind of shop it is taking place in.

 ”Borrowed” from Clockwise Upper Intermediate Teacher’s Resource Pack, where it is explained much more clearly than this. Not much else to recommend that book (although the textbook is okay and the lower level teacher’s resource packs seem better), so keep reading here instead as I rip off every book in my new teacher’s room library and write up all the highlights here.

“She… reported that her self-esteem was raised when her [MA in TESOL] assignments were returned with comments that revealed, in her view, a degree of closed-mindedness on the part of the tutors who had marked them.”

From pg 72 of The Experience of Language Teaching, a book that is still highly recommended and I’m more than halfway through (in under a week!)

By complete coincidence, I’d been writing about boosting your teaching confidence just before starting the this book, and here is my effort:

15 ways to boost your teaching confidence

More articles on that coming up (as I have lots of experience of losing mine!), and in the meantime here is my other recent article::

 15 ways of starting a preschool English class

And that is it for this month, because I’ve been too busy eating kimchi to write and anyway I did loads earlier this month, which you can find here:

New TEFL articles October 2008

More making up for the fact that Dr Johnson was never lucky enough to be a TEFL teacher, this time with one of my favourite TEFL games ever, Call My Bluff. In the classroom version you get the students to make up the wrong definitions to try and fool the other student or team with, but even on my last day in my previous job I wasn’t slack enough to get my students to write my blog for me so you have to choose the real definition from Dr Johnson’s dictionary via Henry Hitchings, not being fooled by the fake definition made up very quickly by me to stop wasting any more time on the TEFL otaku topic… (answers at the bottom of the page)

1. Is an amatorcultist (a) a little insignificant lover, or (b) a lover of the art of gardening?
 
2. Is a bellygod (a) one who makes a god of his belly, or (b) a drug that calms the troubled gut?
 
3. Is deosculation (a) the art of kissing, or (b) losing an eye or part of an eye?

4. Is kissingcrust (a) a crust formed when one loaf in the oven touches another, or (b) a soreness upon the lips caused by an excess of kissing?

5. Is gazingstock (a) a person gazed at with scorn or abhorrence (related to ‘laughingstock’), or (b) cattle that stare at you as you pass?

6. Is potvaliant (a) heated with courage by a strong drink, or (b) culinary adventurousness?
 
7. Is subderisorious (a) scoffing or ridiculing with tenderness or delicacy, or (b) contemptuous of someone below you?
 
8. Is vaticide (a) a murderer of poets, or (b) a murderer of popes?
 
9. Is rhabdomancy (a) divination by a wand, or (b) Scottish witchery?
 
10. Is suppedaneous (a) placed upon the feet, (b) connected to the evening meal?
 
11. Is anatiferous (a) producing ducks, or (b) the burning of phosphor? (more…)

Even with all the things written about Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language, I think I might be the first to try adding some TEFL-style pointless elicitation. And so here goes… Try to work out which word he was defining in each case then scroll down the screen to check (it’s a bit like the classroom activities The Definition Game and Taboo):
 
1. belonging to an ass
—————
—————
————–
asinine
 
2. a hog dressed whole, in the West Indian manner
—————
—————
————–
barbecue

3. a stone in the bladder
—————
—————
————– (more…)

Candidate number one

Involves me, and Paul Lowe’s threats to sue me for never mentioning him on my blog (!?) or something, still can’t quite work it out. “Bizarro!” as TESall.com put it. I thought, what the hell if I’m going down might as well go down with a fight and show some people power and so started an I Am Spartacus campaign to tell everyone in TEFL what had happened. Messes the story up a bit that it was all bluster and he never did sue me, and that every blog he wrote to saying I shouldn’t be allowed to comment on there because I was guilty of a “hate campaign” (along with UsingEnglish.com, whose apparent crime was publishing my grammar game worksheets) just ignored him. So, not sure this one wins, although it did all take a break after online rumours (still unconfirmed) of a suicide attempt…

Candidate number two

-involves Bruce Veldhuisen’s TEFL International and their one time guarantee of academic standards IATQUO. Or not, as some kind of feud goes on to this day with them each accusing the other of being unprofessional and worse, which kind of makes you wonder about the judgement of the other side for choosing to ever doing business with them, doesn’t it? It’s got the usual recipe of anonymous blogs set up by people who slag others off for doing just that and bringing people’s family into it, but still not sure it quite takes the championship.

Candidate number three

This is more like it. TEFL Watch turns into an anti-TEFL International slag fest, with needless to say Brucey’s side not keeping out of it. Then, in a twist worthy of Dallas (or at least Neighbours), an ex-forum moderator becomes the accuser in chief of the management of the site because he suddenly decides that Bruce V and his crew and being treated unfairly, eventually driving the owner of TEFL Watch to give the whole thing up and start writing about healthy grilling with George Foreman. Nice and juicy, that one, and haven’t even mentioned the allegations of having to flee the country for their personal safety. Could still be the greatest TEFL soap opera of all time, but let’s see how the last candidate plays out-

Candidate number four

Can the anonymous blogger throwing accusations about Sandy MacManus uncover Sandy’s real identity and so stop him being an anonymous blogger throwing accusations about? And how does threatening to make him lose his job in the Middle East help with that? Or has Sandy already uncovered “Michael Flynn“? And what script writer is being paid for melodramatic twists like death threats? And why would Paul Lowe, the chief suspect, go from repeatedly claiming to the police that he has never commented on any blog let alone started one of his own to suddenly tell the police where that blog with the death threat and many of his bizarre comments is?

Votes for one of the four or other candidates below please:

As this batch is nowhere near the size of September Part One, let’s start by padding out a little with a link to an interesting newspaper article on speed dating adapted for language learning, shall we?

Right, as that was the only article of interest I could find that was even vaguely connected to TEFL, down to business with links to the more serious stuff I’ve been writing elsewhere when not distracted by attempts at humour on this blog:

15 variations on TEFL boardgames

15 ways of simplifying your classroom language

15 more ways of simplifying your classroom language

Yet another 15 ways to make sure your students understand you

Almost certainly the final 15 ways of avoiding classroom misunderstandings

15 ways to adapt a textbook with too much stuff in it

15 more ways to cope with an overloaded textbook

Yet another 15 ways of dealing with a textbook that is packed full of material

15 ways of coping with a textbook that is too easy

15 more ways of using a textbook that is too low level for your class

That’s all for September, which seems a bit slack I know when everyone else is just getting down to business. If you want more of the same, or even better stuff I was writing before I became obsessed with adapting textbooks, have a look at:

All my stuff on UsingEnglish.com

TEFL.net TEFL articles (that enough TEFL for yer?)

TEFL.net Idea Thinktank

Or if you are a glutton for punishment:

My full list of publications with links

What elements of your dreams tell you about your TEFLing future:

Suddenly realising you have no clothes on - you will realise halfway through your next improvised grammar explanation that it doesn’t make any sense
 
Water - You will desperately need to go for a pee halfway through your first lesson the next day
 
Falling and falling then waking up - you will be rescued from a difficult question by the end of lesson bell
 
Doing the same thing over and over - your school will again refuse to switch to New Headway next year, even though the rest of the world is on the Third Edition
 
A cold wind - you will walk into class with your flies open

Being chased - one of your housewife students (more…)

15 fun ways of using pre-school storybooks

15 ways of preparing for ELT management

15 variations on a grammar auction

15 common complaints about TEFL workshops (and how to respond to them)

15 things to find out about a TEFL certificate course

15 criteria of a good needs analysis

How’s that for a minimalist blog post! To make up for the lack of text, here are even more links:

157 articles and worksheets of mine on UsingEnglish.com

onestopenglish.com (the Macmillan website, where you usually have to pay to see most of my stuff but which has some kind of special offer on at the moment)

New stuff in August, for those who have recently joined us (welcome!)

And brand new worksheets etc actually on TEFLtastic:

Business English rotating revision board game

Complaints sentence expansion game

Dealing with complaints guess the situation

Dealing with complaints pairwork- Amusing and odd excuses

Email and internet abbreviations

Email language definitions game

Email rules business meeting

Formal and informal email errors

Telephone and email spot the difference pairwork

“Punishment“- Passive voice and tense review

Table manners Present Simple and Continuous mimes

Describing people workshop

English for Telephoning/ Negotiating double book review

Updated, expanded and with many more links here:

http://www.tefl.net/alexcase/worksheets/telephoning/