Fun and Games 2 - activities

I've been asked over and over again to produce a worksheet for my Fun and Games 2 workshop so instead of wasting paper, here it is! Although I believe that no explanation or description will truly show the spirit of any game, I do hope you find my ideas useful. And please, do drop me a line should you have something to add.

Those of you who have come to see me in Paris and Salamanca might have not seen all the games described below as due to time constraints I had to modify and cut out some of the activities. 

1. Paper Conversations - students work in pairs. They need a piece of paper and something to write. Tell them they need to write a question they would like to ask their friend. Next, they exchange the papers, read the question they were given, answer it in writing, and write a follow up question to continue the conversation. They exchange papers again and continue repeating all the steps i.e. read the question, answer it, write a follow up. It works really well with very noisy classes especially teenagers as the students shouldn't speak at all during the activity. Also, used at the beginning of a class it tends to have a calming effect on the students. As a follow up, you may ask your students to take their 'paper conversation' home and look for any mistakes (tenses, question formation etc) and rewrite it or expand both questions and answers.
2. The longest word - students line up in two rows facing the board. The teacher writes a long word horizontally (or vertically, which is an easier option) on the board twice (there should be one word for each group). After a signal, the students run to the board one by one and write down words beginning with one of the letters in the word written by the teacher in any order. The team that finishes first, wins. Extra point may be given to the team that writes the longest word. It works really well as a filler, ice-breaker or as a way of eliciting new lexis once you tell the students that they must write only certain types of words (e.g. personality adjectives or animals). 
3. A-Z race - students line up in two rows facing the board. The teacher writes all letters of the alphabet on the board twice, one on the left, one on the right (there should be set of letters for each group). The teacher chooses a category e.g. clothes, food, animals, sports etc. The students, after making a group decision, choose to eliminate 3-5 letters from each set of alphabets (the decision on how many depends on the teacher). Having done that, after a signal, the students run to the board one by one and write words beginning with each of the letters of alphabet in any order. The team that finishes first i.e. has a word for all the letters, wins. A variation involves having only one set of letters on a whiteboard and giving two teams two markers of different colours. In this case, the teacher decides who won by counting the words (e.g. 15 words written in green and 10 in blue means that the green marker team won). I use this game for brainstorming and eliciting ideas but it works fine as a revision acitivity as well.
4. Revision Game - prepare a set of 25 A4 cards (scrap paper in my case). Number each card (A1-A5, B1-B5, C1-C5, D1-D5, E1-E5). On each card write a question or task you want your students to answer. To do it, copy things from the revision unit in the coursebook you're using. Three of the cards should contain a Bonus point. On the board create a grid 

   

   Revision game grid

   and divide your students into teams of 3-4 people. Each team, one at a time, chooses a square from the grid e.g. B2 and gets a corresponding question which they have to answer having agreed on the correct option. If they don't know the answer or answer wrong, the question passes to the next team (and so on if necessary). In this way, all the students are focusing on getting the question right, not only the team whose turn it is. When they hit the bonus point card, a point is given to them without any task. When nobody knows the answer, the teacher supplies it as the real objective of the game is to revise, not to get points, which you may want to remind the students from time to time. At the end, the team with the biggest number of points wins.

   

   Example of question cards

   An alternative involves writing all the questions in your notebook and simply reading them out to students. It's a time-saver but in this case the students can only hear the questions and not see them which makes the activity more difficult for some and slightly tedious and monotonous. Preparation of question cards takes roughly 30 minutes.
5. Two circles game (aka Spinning Ideas) this game is based on a worksheet I found on my desk one day and which has been recently identified as Spinning Ideas ('Games for Grammar Practice' by CUP). I have also seen a similar activity in 'Working with Words' by CUP. In the original game, the students, after being put in pairs or small groups, were presented with two circles containing places and certain modal verbs (see below). The teacher or a student rolls a dice twice (one for each circle) and depending on the number moved around each circle. Next the students had to write down three sentences combining a place from one circle with a modal verb from the other e.g. 5 and 5 - what you shouldn't do on holiday. Sentences are read aloud and 2 points are given if a sentence is logical and grammatically correct, 1 point, if there are some mistakes.

   

   The original worksheet

   In my version of the game in circle one (C1) you may put question words e.g. where, how and in C2 tenses eg. past simple, present perfect or C1- question words, C2 - numbers e.g. 4,7,12 which means that students have to make a question with that particular number of words. An alternative is a phrasal verbs game with C1 containing verbs such as go, get, put, make, set, take and C2 - on, in, off, out, up, down. In this case, the students have to decide if a chosen combination of words exists and make a sentence using a particular phrasal verb accurately to show its meaning.
6. Who am I? (What am I?, Which city am I? etc)- the teacher prepares small cards with famous people’s/ film/ book character’s names – one for each student (you can use sticky labels to do that).

   

   Labels with names of film/TV characters

   The choice of characters depends on what you're currently working on. It could be animals, countries, cities, adjectives, phrasal verbs, professions etc. Each card is placed on the students’ backs. Their task is to walk around and ask questions to find out who they are. Students should start with yes/no questions only e.g. ‘Am I an actor?’, ‘Do I have long hair?’ to make the activity a bit more challenging. After a few minutes you can allow other questions too. Make sure students talk only to one person at at time, otherwise they will stick to someone for the entire activity and also have extra sets of cards prepared for fast finishers. With low levels and kids, provide some scaffolding by writing some questions on the board for them to refer to. The youngest students I've tried the activity with were around nine years old and the topic was professions.
7. Call my bluff - students are put into teams and given dictionaries, one for each team. The teams choose a few difficult, new words from the dictionary that they think other people in class may not be familiar with. Stick around closely and help them choose as teenagers tend look for offensive language and slang and adults sometimes choose specialized words which, in general, are not the most useful ones to know. Next they have to create definitions for each word, only one of which should be correct. Allow them to copy parts of the definition from the dictionary but not all of it. When each team has e.g. 3 definitions they read them out to each other, choose the correct option and are given points. It's nice to keep putting all the words on the board and use them later e.g. to play Hot Seats or to write a story as homework. Needless to say, it's one of my first choices to practise relative clauses.

 

Have fun playing the games with your students!

Fun and Games - activities

I've decided never to produce worksheets but here we are :)

After my Fun and Games workshop on Saturday, I started receiving emails from teachers who either attended or couldn't attend my session, asking for a worksheet summarizing the activities I presented. And although I believe in learning by doing and feel that no worksheet will show you how much fun you can have playing games, I felt obliged to write something. 

What you can see below is partly a collection of my older blog posts (this one and that one) plus three new ideas.

If you were there on Saturday, thank you for coming (especially if you were sitting on the floor or 'volunteering')! If you couldn't make it because the room was full, sorry! I do hope I'll get the chance to do that workshop again.

1. The Spelling Race – students line up in 2 rows facing the board. Make sure you draw a line on the floor and let students know that only the person with the marker can cross it. The teacher calls out a word. Students have to write it down letter by letter i.e. each letter is written by one student. Every student has one move – s/he can write down a letter or make one correction if a mistake has been made. The team that finishes first wins (provided that they spelt a word correctly!). You can ask the team that lost for a definition, if they are able to provide it, they might get a point as well. Perfect for a revision before an exam!

2. The Dolmuş game – a dolmuş is a shared taxi. Once you get in, you have to pay the driver which is complicated if you sit somewhere at the back. So what people in Turkey (and elsewhere, I guess) do is pat the person sitting if front of them on the shoulder and ask to pass the money forward.

During the game, students sit in rows, one student behind the other facing the board. Each student has a pen and the ones sitting at the end of the rows hold a piece of paper. The teacher then calls out a category e.g. words beginning with S, animals, past tense verb forms etc. Each student writes one word belonging to the given category and passes the paper forward. The team that hands the paper to the teacher first, wins. Extra points may be given to the team that wrote the longest/ most sophisticated word. Also, you may make it more fun by letting each group have only one pen that has to passed along with the paper.

3. Hot seats - the class is divided into two teams. A member of each team sits facing the class, with his or her back to the board. The teacher writes a word or a short phrase on the blackboard and the team must define the word or give examples of its use – without saying the actual word itself. If the student guesses, the team gets a point. I always subtract points if the students speak their mother tongue and at the beginning give each team three points for a good start!

4. Stand up if you.../ (Change your seats if you...) – students sit in a circle, the teacher stands in the middle of the circle and says: ‘Stand up if you have brushed your teeth today’. Once students stand up, the teacher sits down on the nearest chair and students quickly do the same (no need for explanation, they just get the idea!) but one is left standing. S/he must now say ‘Stand if you have...’ and ideally sit down on the nearest seat available once the students stand up wishing to change seats. There is no winner in this game and it may continue for as long as one desires. You might want to add an extra rule and forbid changing the seat for the one on the right or left as it's too easy that way.

You can play this game to practise a number of things:

- past tense e.g. ‘Stand up if you watched a film yesterday.’

- like/ hate etc +V ing e.g. ‘Stand up if you like swimming.’

- describing appearance e.g. ‘Stand up if you have blue eyes.’ (this is my Turkish students’ favourite :)

etc

5. Papers on Walls - students and the teacher write their name on the top of pieces of paper (A4 or half the size) and stick them all randomly on the walls (using blue tack or anything you wish to use). Next they have to write three questions they can ask the people in the class; when they're ready the teacher walks around and corrects if necessary. After that the students stand up and ask each other the questions on their list. However they mustn't write anything and can only ask one question at a time. They also have to try to remember what their classmates (and the teacher) told them. After 10/15 minutes (depending on your class size), the students are told to take a pen and write whatever they can remember about their classmates on the appropriate papers with students' names on the walls. When the teacher stops the activity, everyone collects the paper with their name from the wall, reads it, checks if the information is right and corrects the mistakes as homework.

This game is great for the first day but you can play it to revise and practise many structures for example by limiting the questions to present perfect only. You might as well ask the students to begin with questions words (where, when, why, what etc) or make the focus only on one topic e.g. education. 

Alternatively the questions may refer to past, present and future and each student might be focusing on a different topic (decided by you). With low levels, you could simply give them the questions or provide a simple gap fill e.g. What __ your f___ colour?, When ___ you ___ go shopping? etc.

6. Prefixes/ Suffixes race - students sit in two, three groups (depending on the size of your classroom and the board) and choose a runner-writer that will represent each team. The teacher calls out a suffix e.g. -less. The students shout out all the words containing that suffix to the runner and he/she has to write them all on the board in e.g. 1 minute. The team with more words or the team with a bigger number of words that are different, wins. Also, you may give different suffixes to each team because, as many of you can imagine, students simply love cheating while playing this game :)

Instead of suffixes and prefixes, you may want students to write e.g. words beginning with 'sp', 'br' or simply any letter if they are low level group. My students really liked writing words that contained 'oo' 'tt' etc.

7. True/ False Coin game - students stand in two lines facing each other, make sure everyone has a partner (if not, there might be one group of three). Each pair has one coin. Tell them that they will have to toss the coin and depending on what they get say something to their partner. If what they get is a head, they need to tell the truth, if it's a tail, they must lie (in a convincing way!).The teacher decides on the topic and says e.g. tell your partner about the food you used to eat as a child or tell your partner about the worst restaurant you've ever visited, if you are talking about food. Having listened, the partner then has to say if what he/she listened to was true or false (a lie). Next they coin goes to the other student in a pair (the one who was listening), he/she tosses it, the teacher reads a new sentence and the game continues. 

Have fun playing the games with your students! 

For me there's nothing better than to hear them laugh and enjoy themselves while learning English :)

It was a dark and stormy night - story writing

A few years ago I stumbled upon a wonderful activity to practise story writing - it was called ‘It was a dark and stormy night’. The main idea behind it was to have students sit in a circle and after dictating the first sentence (‘It was a dark and stormy night’) engage them in collaborative one student-one sentence type of writing.

I’ve used this activity many times and students loved it. The only problem was that I was gradually getting bored with it and felt the need to adjust and improve it. What is more, the students’ stories sometimes lacked a proper structure and were often senseless or monotonous. 

So here’s how I’ve decided to make the activity more fun!

Before writing:

Ask students for examples of traditional stories/ tales. Try to elicit stories such as Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Three Little Pigs etc.

Elicit typical features of a well written sorry:

• each story has a title
• a story has a pretty simple plot and not many main characters (show examples from the traditional tales)
• a well written story has a beginning, middle and ending – out of the three the middle part should be the longest,  the beginning should introduce the story, the ending should be short and provide a conclusion

Copy an example of a short story from any coursebook (FCE coursebooks should have some good examples), cut into pieces and let students unscramble it.

Analyze it and make students notice all the features you have discussed before.

• point to examples of direct speech (‘I love you’, Cinderella said) which often appear in stories
• look for adjectives and adverbs used for description and dramatization

Tell your students that they are going to write a story. Get ready for moaning and groaning!

Make them sit in a circle, each student with an A4 sized piece of paper.

Tell them to choose a name of the main character of their story and draw a small photo-sized picture of him/her on the top left hand corner. Next to it, the students can write: three adjectives describing that person, what she/he likes, who she/he lives with, their relationship status etc.

Dictate the following sentences:

It was a dark and stormy night and ________ (students write the name of their character) was in/on/at ________ (students write a place name e.g a church, a beach, the street).

S/he was feeling really ________ (students write an adjective). S/he really wanted to ________ (students write a verb e.g. to drink water, to pee, to call his mom).

Suddenly a phone rang. It was ________ (students write a name of a person e.g. Santa, the Queen of England, her sister).

Ask students what they have just written and elicit that it is an introduction.

Now tell them to pass the paper to the person on their right and continue with the story.

I guess that in the original version every student was supposed to write one sentence and pass the paper. As I have said before I have decided to improve it.

Imagine you have 10 students in class.

Student 1 begins the story.

Student 2 adds 1 sentence.

Student 3 adds an element of romance.

Student 4 adds 2 sentences.

Student 5 adds an element of crime.

Student 6 adds 1 sentence.

Student 7 introduces a new character.

Student 8 adds 2 sentences.

Student 9 adds an element of mystery.

Student 10 ends the story.

Obviously, all of the above suggestion can be altered and modified. You might want to add a fun/surprise element, introduce new places or change the order of what I have come up with.

Some students always finish their task earlier than others, so I have stuck to a slow countdown after a minute or two to make them all finish on time and pass the paper at the same time. Just say something like ’10-9…1. Time’s up. Pass the paper. Now add a new character.’

An alternative idea involves bringing a bag of different objects e.g. a postcard, a spoon, a scarf etc. to the classroom. Before writing, each student draws an object and later includes it in the story.

As a follow up, collect all the papers, number them and stick on the walls of the classroom.

Tell the students to walk around, read the stories and choose one they like best.

Have secret voting for the best story and read it aloud.

Ask students why they chose it and check whether it has features of a well-written story that you have discussed before.

Coming up next – samples of my students’ writing!

Do you have any interesting ideas for story writing? Would love to hear some!

Eight Enjoyable Games

The school year is coming to an end at least here in Turkey. It’s hot, some students no longer feel the need to attend classes and the rest… Let’s say, they also deserve to have some fun J

Following my successful (seventeen times tweeted!) post about simple blackboard games, I have decided to share some of my favourite non-blackboard games.

1. Drawings on the floor - Teacher puts large pieces of paper (ideally A4) on the floor (one for each student) and tells students what will be drawn (e.g. a monster). Music is played and students walk or dance around the classroom. When the teacher says stop/pauses the music students are told to draw something on one of the pieces of paper e.g. if you a drawing a monster – two eyes, seven noses etc. Students should choose a different paper each time they stop and mustn’t pick them up. Eventually you’ll have a nice collection of pictures and a class vote for the best one may be organized.

The game may be modified depending on what are working on. The students can draw, for example:

- a picnic basket ( two apples, one banana etc)

- a kitchen ( a table, two chairs, a fridge etc)

- a student’s school bag ( three books, a pencil case, two erasers etc)

- a clothes’ shop ( one dress, three pairs of shoes etc)

- on ocean ( thee sharks, one big whale, an octopus etc)

2. The Dolmuş game – a dolmuş is a shared taxi. Once you get in, you have to pay the driver which is complicated if you sit somewhere at the back. So what people in Turkey (and elsewhere, I guess) do is pat the person sitting if front of them on the shoulder and ask to pass the money forward.

During the game, students sit in rows, one student behind the other facing the board. Each student has a pen and the ones sitting at the end of the rows hold a piece of paper. The teacher then calls out a category e.g. words beginning with S, animals, past tense verb forms etc. Each student writes one word belonging to the given category and passes the paper forward. The team that hands the paper to the teacher first, wins. Extra points may be given to the team that wrote the longest/ most sophisticated word.

3. Hot seats - The class is divided into two teams. A member of each team sits facing the class, with his or her back to the board. The teacher writes a word on the blackboard and the team must define the word or give examples of its use – without saying the actual word itself. If the student guesses, the team gets a point. I always subtract points if the student speak their mother tongue.

4. Stand up if you... – students sit in a circle, the teacher stands in the middle of the circle and says: ‘Stand up if you have brushed your teeth today’. Once students stand up, teacher sits down on the nearest chair and students quickly do the same (no need for explanation, they just get the idea!) but one is left standing. S/he must now say ‘Stand if you have...’ and sit down on the nearest seat available. There is no winner in this game and it may continue for as long as one wishes.

You can play this game to practise a number of things:

- past tense e.g. ‘Stand up if you watched a film yesterday.’

- like/ hate etc +V ing e.g. ‘Stand up if you like swimming.’

- describing appearance e.g. ‘Stand up if you have blue eyes.’ (this is my Turkish students’ favourite :)

5. I went to the market and bought... - Everyone sits in a circle. One student or the teacher starts by saying ‘I went to the market and bought apples’. The next person repeats the sentence and adds another word following the pattern given e.g. ‘I went to the market and bought apples and bananas’. The game continues and everyone adds something new repeating what has been said before. The students that cannot remember all the words are out.

The game might be used for practising vocabulary as well as grammatical structures e.g.

*        like/hate (verb) + ing I like sailing, reading, dancing…

*        past simple Yesterday I went to the cinema, bought a newspaper, drank tea…

*        conditionals (e.g. If I had a lot of money) I would buy a Porsche, I would go to China…

*        there is/are In a kitchen there is a table, there are chairs, there is a lamp…

*        a/an/ some (C/U nouns) I’m having a party so I need: a list of guests, some invitations…

*        vocabulary e.g.

-         clothes In my wardrobe I have: a dress, trousers...

-         animals In a zoo there are monkeys, lions…

The game may also be played at the beginning of the year when everyone has to learn each other’s names.

6. Call my bluff - Students are put into teams and given dictionaries, one for each team. The teams choose a few difficult words from the dictionary. They have to create definitions for each word only one of which should be correct. The other teams must decide which definition is correct and which ones are wrong.

For example: A protractor is:

a. an extremely infectious disease

b. a device used for measuring and drawing angles

c. a character in a book, play, film, etc. who harms other people


The students may also use free online dictionaries, e.g. this one or that one.

7. Envelopes - On small pieces of paper the teacher writes words belonging to one category e.g. food, professions, love, S-words, T-words or words from a unit you wish to revise. The cards are put in envelopes. The class is divided into pairs. Each pair is given an envelope; the students’ task is to explain all the words from the envelope to their partners.


You may also ask the students to prepare the envelopes as homework. It's pretty useful before an exam! I've tried it once as a revision - the students brought the envelopes having chosen the categories themselves so we had e.g. T-words, Unit 6 words, Adjectives. Some students chose the same categories but it isn't an issue - the words inside the envelopes are never exactly the same!

8. Who am I? – The teacher prepares small cards with famous people’s/ film/ book character’s names – one for each student. Each card is pinned to the students’ backs. Students walk around asking questions to find out who they are e.g. ‘Am I an actor?’, ‘Do I have long hair?’.

Many thanks to all the teachers from whom I learned J

Six simple blackboard games

I like games that require little or no preparation, ones that you can always adapt and adjust.

With races to the board in large classes, experience taught me to tell students to sit instead of waiting in a line. Otherwise, the ones at the back get bored and start fidgeting, shouting and doing things they’re not supposed to. I always let the teams choose a name and give them 5 extra points for a good start. If they speak their mother tongue, misbehave or cheat, the points are subtracted.

Here are my favourite blackboard games:

1. The Spelling Race – students line up in 2 rows facing the board. The teacher calls out a word. Students have to write it down letter by letter i.e. each letter is written by one student. Every student has one move – s/he can write down a letter or make one correction if a mistake has been made. The team that finishes first wins (provided that they spelt a word correctly!). Perfect for a revision before an exam!

2. The longest word – students line up in 2 rows facing the board. The teacher writes a long word horizontally on the board twice (there should be one word for each group). The students run to the board one by one and write down words beginning with one of the letters in the word written by the teacher. It’s good as a filler or an ice-breaker. The team that finishes first, wins. Extra point may be given to the team that writes the longest word.

3. A-Z race – students line up in 2 rows facing the board. The teacher writes all (or some) letters of the alphabet on the board twice (there should be set of letters for each group). The teacher chooses a category e.g. clothes, food, animals, sports etc. The students run to the board one by one and write words beginning with one of the letters of alphabet. The tam that finishes first wins.

4. Swat the fly – students line up in 2 rows facing the board. The teacher places flashcards on the board in random order. Once a word is called out, a student from each team has to run to board and touch a corresponding picture. To avoid confusion, my students are allowed to touch one picture only. Otherwise, they may keep on touching all the pictures until they find the right one! The student that touches the right picture first wins and gains a point for his/ her team.

Variations involve writing down words in English and calling them out or calling out the words’ equivalents in the students’ mother tongue.

5. Draw the word, guess the word - students gather in 2 groups in front of the board. Two students (one from each group) approach the board with a marker/ chalk in their hand. The teacher secretly shows them a word which they have to draw on the board. Their team’s job is to guess the word. The team that guesses first wins.

6. Tick-tack-toe (Noughts and crosses) – divide the class into two groups. Draw the grid on the board and fill it in with e.g. new words you’ve taught. Each team has to make a correct sentence using a word from the grid until they get three X's or O’s in a row (horizontal, vertical, or diagonal).

You may also:

- put verbs in the grid and ask the students to make sentences in e.g. past simple tense

- put adjectives in the grid and ask the students to make sentences using the comparative /superlative

- put words (that go with a preposition e.g. ‘jealous of’) without the preposition and ask the students to make sentences using both

A more advanced version of the game involves making a bigger grid (with 5 rows for instance). Before a class, prepare a question/ task for each square in the grid e.g. What’s the opposite of ‘cold’?, ‘What do you call a person who looks after animals?’ etc.

If you have your favourites – do drop me line!

Shadow Puppet Theatre by Claire Bingham

I attended Claire’s Shadow Puppet Theatre session at the Istek conference with a bunch of misgivings. The Shadow Puppet idea was very appealing but the preparation and the amount of work involved, I thought, would be the biggest problem. I was wrong.

Over to Claire, who at my request, decided to share her brilliant ideas with you.

Shadow Puppet Theatre 

Materials required:

·       Cardboard

·       Scissors

·       Pencils

·       Sellotape

·       Thin wooden sticks

·       Light source, e.g. torches, lamps (NB: In rooms with plenty of natural light position the screen in front of the window as the sun can be used)

·       Material for the screen, e.g. thin white table cloth, white tissue paper.

·       Envelopes including job descriptions

·       Target language to be included in dialogues.

Shadow Puppet Theatre is an engaging activity that uses simple techniques to make the process of learning about new characters more enjoyable and rewarding. This hands on approach allows learners to develop their speaking and writing skills, as well as giving an opportunity to use real language in a positive student centred environment. It is suitable for use with primary students but can also be adapted to suit higher levels. Shadow puppet theatre can be used to introduce characters from readers and main course books or to support general language learning in the classroom.

The basis of this technique is very simple. Students should be in groups of 4-6 students for the duration of the project. Groups could be friendship based, teacher chosen or randomly chosen. A useful way to organize groups is to give each child a colour and then ask all the reds to group, all the blues.. etc. Once the groups are formed, students should be provided with a number of characters, ideally projected onto a whiteboard. These characters could be from material used in class or totally fictional. As a starter activity, learners should describe two characters in a set time and note down their groups ideas on a post-it. During feedback students can stick their post-its next to the characters on the board so that the teacher can share and elicit sentences from the material provided.

After feeding back to the class, the outline of the task should be shared with the group. The teacher should reveal that groups choose at least two characters and create a short shadow puppet sketch. A good way to organize this is to hand out envelopes containing a matching activity of job descriptions and roles to the groups. The learners then complete the activity before the teacher shares the answers on the board. Students can then be asked to choose a role. To ensure success, these roles should be clear and a realistic time frame should be given. The jobs should include:
•       Script writers- write the story and narrate during the performance.
•       Puppet makers- make the puppets and read the dialogue during the performance.

A group size of 4 is ideal for this activity as 2 students can be assigned to each job, so the learners feel supported by working in pairs. Larger groups can be given more characters to work with and the extra students can help by holding the screens or being responsible for the light source during the show. Groups are then assigned a target language to include in the production as a focus point. The target language should be used occasionally within the dialogue to make communication more natural. Using the target language exclusively could lead to unrealistic dialogues with limited meaning.

The script writers should write a short dialogue including the target language for the performance. It is important to remind learners to include some background information before the dialogue begins, e.g. One day Homer and Bart were in the kitchen…
The puppet makers should draw and cut out the characters on the cardboard provided- cutting holes for eyes and other features creates a great effect. They can then stick the character to a pencil or wooden stick to complete the puppet. It is a good idea to give time to experiment for both script writers and puppet makers- creating an opportunity for peer assessment within the group before the performance.

The final product can be presented either in front of the whole class or between two groups. Before the performance it is a good idea to explain where students are expected to sit or stand during each show. This will allow a smooth transition between groups. During the performances there is an opportunity for peer (audience) assessment and students should complete feedback forms accordingly. The criteria used could be discussed and agreed on with the class, or created by the teacher and shared before the performance. Alongside assessment for learning, filming is a valuable tool to be used with learners. In fact, it has a double effect, firstly learners really strive to achieve their best (and often ask for two takes!) and secondly, it gives a chance to revisit the material in the future for further analysis in the class.

When using new activities it is important to know how the strategy will benefit learners and how much time should be devoted to the process in its entirety. This technique can be extended or reduced to suit the needs of a variety of language learners and language teachers. When time is restricted it can be completed in as few as three lessons, one for set up, the second for dialogue writing and puppet making and the final for the performances. However, students can get a great deal from the sessions and a longer time period would be preferable to allow for trial and error during the developmental stages. Shadow puppet theatre can be used as an example of CLIL in the language classroom and as such be extended to include a number of subject areas, e.g.
•       Learners could research ideal screen materials in Science, learning keywords such as transparent, translucent and opaque. They could also investigate light sources alongside screen materials to produce the optimum environment for their puppets to be show cased.
•       In Design Technology, students could use the design process to make screens
•       In History traditional puppet shows could be explored- this would be of particular interest in countries such as Turkey as shadow puppet theatre was used for entertainment in the past.
•       Voice projection and intonation could be explored in the Drama class.
•       Scenes could be created in the Art class.

In fact planning time with other subject areas would be a fantastic way of incorporating a real cross curricular approach.

In conclusion, this technique is a flexible activity that can be altered to suit a variety of situations. It engages learners and allows freedom of thought in the EFL classroom. The roles and time restrictions given support learners by keeping them focused allowing the language teacher time to advise students as and when required. Therefore the teacher is facilitating the learning process while students take ownership of their projects, improving their self esteem as they strive to achieve their potential.

Claire Bingham, currently working at Özel Bodrum Marmara Koleji as a teacher of English, has taught in the United Kingdom for a number of years and recently relocated to the warmer Turkish climate. Her personal interests include cross curricular activities and task based learning. She has a background of experience in the teaching of English Language, Science and Physical Education.

Thank you Claire!

Me and my Men - a list of 10 great men in my life

‘It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single educated woman in possession of a good sense of humour must be in want of inspiration.’*

‘Me and My Men’ was supposed to be the topic of my first Pecha Kucha. Those of you who have actually seen my Pechachka at Istek know that I was eventually talking about something else ;)

I might not have the chance to do this particular PK and it might be too personal so I have decided to blog about the men of ELT who are a constant source of inspiration for me and without whom I certainly wouldn’t be here. Some of them I’ve met and some I haven’t and the selection was hard as I had to choose only 10 names.

Why 10 men and not women?

Why not!

If you are male but I haven’t included you on that list, don’t worry, I’m currently preparing more lists J 

1. Hebert Puchta (@herbertpuchta) – What a gentlemen he is – charming, super intelligent and very kind. He’s recently joined Twitter so if you haven’t started following him yet, you should! Btw, have you realized that his belt always matches his shoes or is it just me? 

2. Jeremy Harmer (@Harmerj) – Meeting him at the Istek conference was one of the most pleasant experiences as he’s such a warm and modest person J Jeremy’s responsible for introducing me to high quality teaching. Hadn’t it been for his ‘Practice of ELT’ I would probably consider Grammar Translation a very useful teaching method.

3. Ken Wilson (@kenwilsonlondon) – A volcano full of energy, wit and ideas. There’s no way you can get bored having him around. He’s the one who made me see the benefits of using drama in ELT for which I’m eternally grateful.

4. Scott Thornbury (@thornburyscott) – I have never met this gentleman but would love to do so one day. I love reading his blog as it gives me plenty of food for thought. He replies to every single comment even if it’s not written by an ELT VIP and has my full respect for that.

5. Gavin Dudeney (@dudeneyge) – An edutech guru that was very surprised with the way I look like in real life. It must have been truly shocking as he even tweeted about it. If you’re reading this by any chance Gavin – I have finally read your book and am willing to pay for everything once we meet again ;)

6. Nick Jaworski (@Turklishtefl) – I have to say I know him best of all the men here as we both live and teach in Istanbul. We tend to either totally agree or totally disagree. Nick’s also known for his love of debates of all sorts and has the rare ability to set fire to any discussion heating it up to a maximum.

7. Mike Harrison (@harrisonmike) – I’ve never met him but hope it’ll change soon. Mike seems to be one of the friendliest and most active people I’ve met on Twitter. His enthusiasm is very contagious so whenever I feel down, Mike’s there to cheer me up. Thanks for that!

8. Mark Andrews (@marekandrews) – His blog focusing on culture is one of its kind in the blogosphere. I’ve always considered it a brother of L_missbossy’s ELT playground as both blogs were born after one memorable session at the IATEFL Hungary 2009 conference.

9. Jamie Keddie (@cheimi10) – He’s young, smart and full of amazing, original ideas related usually to pictures and drawing, something that I find particularly appealing. I adore his accent as it always reminds me that I have to visit Scotland.

10. Last but not least, the Godfather of my blog, Lindsay Clandfield (@lclandfield). I could devote a whole post for expressing my thank-yous but let’s leave it for a different occasion. What I really appreciate about him is his rationality combined with immense creativity. Plus a great deal of sense of humour of course. I can listen to him for hours and there aren't many men out there who can make me do that. Lindsay, I do owe you!

*The first person to guess where the original quote comes from can claim his or her prize!

I’m terrible at cooking and have already promised a guided tour of Istanbul to Mike so please use your imagination, ask for something else and you shall be given J


On a final note, thanks again for keeping your fingers crossed during my PK at Istek! 
It wasn't that bad after all :)