This one was hiding at the back of my hard disk somewhere. If I’m not mistaken, it’s one of the first articles I ever wrote. Game ideas here and full article on the pages on the right (Article- More word bag activities)
More ‘Word Bag’ Activities
(NB. A “word bag” is a bag or box that is filled with new vocabulary that comes up during classes that students want to learn, each word written on one slip of paper. The vocab can then be recylcled every lesson, but you need lots of game ideas like this to keep it interesting )
1) ‘Categories’
Groups of three of four students have to divide the vocab up into a specified number of categories. The challenge lies in grouping together seemingly unrelated vocabulary from different classes. The categories must be meaning, not grammar, based. For example, one class of mine responded to the challenge “put these 30 unconnected words into 3 different columns” with the incredibly creative categories ‘Cats like’, ‘Cats hate’ and ‘Cats don’t understand’
When the groups have sorted out their vocabulary, they can then go around the class guessing which categories the other groups have come up with by looking at their columns of vocab. You can also link this to the next activity in class by then giving them the new vocab (e.g. pre-teach for a reading) and seeing whether they can fit it into their existing categories.
2) ‘Any Which Way Matching’
In pairs, students are given a group of vocab cards. One student lays down the card, asking a question using a fixed form given by the teacher, e.g. ‘Why were you……’ and the word or expression on one of their cards e.g. ‘Why were you (hitting a chimpanzee at the zoo the other day)’. The other student must give a possible (if bizarre) answer using one of their cards, e.g. ‘Because (he had stolen my prescription from my pocket)’. Students score one point for each answer accepted by their partner. This is always great fun, and you’d be amazed at what students with ‘no imagination’ come up with.
3) ‘Strangers on the train’
Students write a sentence including one of the Word Bag words or expressions. This is then handed to someone on the other side of the room. In pairs, students have to pretend that they have just met each other on a long train journey and are trying to make conversation. During their conversation, they must try to slip the sentence they have been given naturally into the conversation. When the teacher stops the game, they have to guess what their partner’s sentence was. NB. It is worthwhile discussing strategies for starting conversations before you start the activity, e.g. asking for permission to open the window.
4) ‘Taboo’
For a class that has already played some kind of definition games and have plenty of confidence, this is a nice variation. Each student takes three or four slips of paper from the Word Bag. On a slightly larger piece of paper they write the Word Bag word and 4 words that the person defining the word will not be allowed to say when defining it, e.g. for banana the 4 words could be ‘yellow’, ‘fruit’, ’slip’ and ’skin’. As well as being more challenging, this variation also means that students are thinking about the meaning very closely as they make up the Taboo cards.
Originally published in IATEFL Issues Magazine