ESL Playground: ESL Games, Activities and Resourceshttp://eslplayground.com/Copyright ESL Playground: ESL Games, Activities and ResourcessNewsIntroduction: A class-long activity for the practise of two verb verbs What is learnt? Compound Verbs How the game is played: Pair the students and ask them to match the verbs on the Mixed-up verb sheet you give them. Tell them to use dictionaries and to call you over. Be everywhere at once. Ask them to take a clean sheet of paper and a pen or pencil suitable for drawing. Tell them you are going to give them a few phrases to illustrate. They are to draw a situation that brings out the meaning of the phrases. Here are the phrases - do not give them more than 30 seconds per drawing (they will groan): to toilet-train a child to soft-soap a superior to force-feed an anorexic to court-martial a soldier to back-comb a person's hair to cross-examine a witness to spin-dry your clothes to cold-shoulder a friend Give them time to compare their drawings. The drawings often make misunderstandings manifest. Split the class into teams of four. Tell them you are going to show them jumbled sentences (see below) and their task will be to shout out the unjumbled sentence. The first team to shout out a correct sentence gets a point. MIXED-UP VERB SHEET Please match words from column 1 with words from column 2 to form correct compound verbs. Column 1 Column 2 back- dry cross- soap ghost- treat soft- write blow- reference double- cross ill- dry spin- comb cold- manage double- feed pooh- read spoon- pooh court- glaze dry- clean proof- shoulder stage- martial frog- march wrong- record toilet- foot tape- train short- change rubber- feed force- stamp field- test cross- question cross- examine cross- check Acknowledgments: Thanks to Graham.J.B. for submitting this game to us. Tue, 02 Jan 2007 12:40:23 +0000http://eslplayground.com/university-and-adult-esl-games/twoword-verbs/http://eslplayground.com/university-and-adult-esl-games/twoword-verbs/Introduction: Fun game involving the second conditinal and using the phrase 'if i had the chance'. What is learnt? 'Second Conditional' How the game is played: Get all the class sitting on chairs in a big circle, you sitting with them. Select a structure to practise or introduce; we've chosen 'Would you ... if you had the chance?' for an intermediate class, but many other structures are suitable. Anyone who'd go bungee-jumping if they had the chance, move two to the right. Give students the model, e.g.: Anyone who'd go bungee-jumping if they had the chance, move two to the right. All those who would, get up and move to the right and sit down on a seat or someone's lap, if the seat is occupied. (As the game proceeds, several people may end up sitting stacked up on top of each other.) Give another four or five sentences: Anyone who'd fill their house with pets if they had the chance move four to the left. Anyone who'd go to live on a small island for a couple of years if they had the chance move three to the right. Anyone who'd have more than one boy or girlfriend if they had the chance move seven to the right. Anyone who'd never read another book in their life ... etc. By now you should have various people sitting in twos or threes or fours on each other's laps and some with chairs to themselves. Hand over the calling-out of the pattern sentences to the students. Any student can chip in a sentence when they feel like it. (You correct when they stray from the structure you've introduced.) When the students have got on top of the structure, slip in fresh but similar structures: Anyone who'd jump at the chance of ..., move ... Anyone who does ... if they have the chance, move ... Acknowledgments: Thanks to Graham.J.B. for submitting this game to us. Tue, 02 Jan 2007 12:27:12 +0000http://eslplayground.com/university-and-adult-esl-games/chance/http://eslplayground.com/university-and-adult-esl-games/chance/Introduction: In this activity students practise asking permission and making requests. What is learnt? Polite Requests, -ing particle. Only if + target verb structure of your choice. How the game is played: Make or find as much space in you room as possible and ask the class to stand at one end of it. Explain that their end is one river bank and the opposite end of the room is the other bank. Between is the 'golden river' and you are the 'keeper' of the golden river. Before crossing the river the students have to say the following sentence: Can we cross your golden river, sitting in your golden boat? They need to be able to say this sentence reasonably fluently. Get the students to say the sentence. You answer: Only if you're wearing ... Only if you've got... Only if you've got... on you. Supposing you say 'Only if you've got your keys on you'. All the students who have their keys can 'boat' across the 'river' without hindrance. The others have to try to sneak across without being tagged by you. The first person who is tagged, changes places with you and becomes 'it' (the keeper who tags the others in the next round). Continue with students saying 'Can we cross your golden river, sitting in your golden boat?' 'It' might say, 'Only if you're not wearing earrings.' etc. Acknowledgments: Thanks to Graham.J.B. for submitting this game to us. Tue, 02 Jan 2007 12:24:57 +0000http://eslplayground.com/lower/only-if/http://eslplayground.com/lower/only-if/Introduction: A fun game that will get your students active. What is learnt? Irregular Verbs How the game is played: Face the students and ask them to stand up. Tell them to mirror what you do with body and voice: you now roar like a lion, clawing the air you blow a kiss with a gracious hand movement you wave goodbye. Ask them to pair off and stand back to back. Tell them you will count to three and on three they are to spin round and do one of the three gestures. They must not agree beforehand on which one. Their aim is to spontaneously choose the same one as their partner does. Count to three - they spin round. Do this three or four times. Ask the students to change partners. Write on the board: go / infinitive went / past gone / past participle Wipe the first column from the board and ask them to agree with their partners on a mime to capture the idea of the infinitive, a mime to represent the past and one they like for the past participle. Make clear that the mimes are to represent the grammar ideas, not the meaning of this particular verb. You may have to use mother tongue with elementary students to get the idea across clearly. Give the class enough time to create good mimes. Tell them they are going to play the spinning round game again but this time to practise the parts of some irregular verbs. You write up another verb on the board and explain the meaning, or give the translation if necessary. They get into the back-to-back position and you give them 'one, two, tbreeV They spin round and do the mime as well as say the correct part of the verb, hoping to have chosen the same word and mime as their partner. Run through a dozen hard irregular verbs this way. Acknowledgments: Thanks to Graham.J.B. for submitting this game to us. Tue, 02 Jan 2007 12:14:59 +0000http://eslplayground.com/university-and-adult-esl-games/turn-around/http://eslplayground.com/university-and-adult-esl-games/turn-around/Introduction: A game that practises the time, telling the time and the simple past tense. What is learnt? Who + simple past interrogative and telling the time. How the game is played: Ask everybody to stand up. Tell them you are going to shout out bedtimes. When they hear the time they went to bed yesterday, they shout 'I did' and sit down. You start like this: Who went to bed at two a.m.?/ Who went to bed at quarter to two? Who went to bed at ten to two? / Who went to bed at half past one? Continue until all the students have sat down. (You may want to introduce your students to the different ways the time is told on either side of the Atlantic.) Get people back on their feet. Ask one of the better students to come out and run the same exercise but this time about when people got up, e.g.: Who woke up at four thirty this morning? Who woke up at twenty to five? Repeat with a new question master but asking about shopping, e.g.: Who went shopping yesterday? Who went shopping on ... (day of the week) Acknowledgments: Thanks to Graham.J.B. for submitting this game to us. Tue, 02 Jan 2007 12:07:47 +0000http://eslplayground.com/lower/sit-down-then/http://eslplayground.com/lower/sit-down-then/