Activities That Can Be Used For Any Grammar Point

Find Someone Who

* Students have to walk around the room and find people who match various descriptions

* This is already used as a first day of class ice-breaker, but it can also be used to emphasise certain grammar points, e.g. “Have you...?”, “Can you...?”, “Had you...?”,

Variations:

* Find Someone Who Can Say Yes

*Instead of having students transform the indirect questions into direct questions, the question forms are written out directly.  E.g., instead of "Find someone who has a dog," the prompt is written as "Do you have a dog."  I use this for lower levels and young learners.

* Have students write their own questions using the target language

* Classroom survey

--Students have a list of questions (using target grammar) and have to survey several people in the class

*Human Bingo

--Similar to find someone who, but instead of completing a linear list of questions, the questions are arranged in a bingo grid, and students have to get five in a row

* Human Bingo: Same and Different

--Instead of asking yes or no questions, students fill in the gaps to make sentences that are true for them, and then find other students who are the same or different.  The goal is to get either five sames or five differents in a row.

Hangman (Wheel of Fortune) For Whole Sentences

        Prepare several secret sentences using the target language.  Write the blanks (but not the letters) up on the board.  Students are divided into teams, and attempt to guess the letters in the sentence.  If they guess a letter, they get one point for each time that letter appears in the sentence.  If they can guess the whole sentence, they get 10 points.  (But I sometimes add a penalty for incorrect guesses, e.g. they can lose 10 points if they attempt to guess the sentence, but guess incorrectly.)  Some classes get into this, and some classes don't, but if they get into the game it's a good way to encourage them to try to seek out the patterns in the target language.

Around the Room Memory Game

        Start at the beginning of the room.  One student says a sentence containing the target language.  The next student has to remember the previous sentence, and then add their own sentence.  Each successive student has to remember all the sentences that came previously, plus add their own sentence.

Guess Your Partner's Answers

* Students are given a list of questions containing the target language.  They have to guess how their partner will answer each question.  They get one point for each correct answer.

Dictation

* The teacher reads several sentences containing the target language.  The students write the sentences down.  They get one point for each sentence perfectly transcribed.

Variations:

* Group writing

        Have students work in groups to write down the correct answers

* Running Dictation

        Sentences containing the target language are posted around the room (or just outside of the room).  One partner looks at the sentences, remembers the sentence in their head, and then dictates the sentence to another partner who writes them down.  The partner who looks at the sentences cannot write, and the partner who writes cannot look at the sentences.

* Telephone Dictation

        Students are arranged in rows.  The person in the first row looks at sentences containing the target grammar, and must say these sentences to the person behind them, who passes them onto the next person behind them.  The student in the back of the row has to write the sentences down.

Scrambled Sentences

        Students are put into groups and given word cards, and must arrange them into sentences.  They glue the word cards onto a board in sentence form, and groups are given one point for each correct sentence.

Find Your Partner

        Students are given one half of a sentence and must find the other student with the matching half.  (Or complimentary sentence--e.g. active passive).

Variation:

divide the sentence into three parts, and have the students find two partners.

Memory Card Game

        As with Find Your Partner, sentences are divided into two halves (or there are two complimentary sentences).  Sentence halves are put onto cards.  The cards are put face down and, just like the classic game of memory, students have to turn over the cards to try to find a match.

Variations:  For a whole class memory game, the teacher writes the numbers on the board, and keeps a secret answer key for which numbers correspond with which sentences.  When a student chooses a number, the teacher reads out the corresponding sentence.

Or a combination of cards and board work--e.g. half of the target language is given to the students on cards, and they have to try to match the cards to the numbers on the board, which correspond to various sentences in the teacher's answer key.

Brainstorming

        Students are put into groups, and given a prompt containing the target language.  The students have to come up with as many sentences as possible responding to the prompt within a given time limit.  At the end of the time limit, the group with the most acceptable sentences is the winner.  The prompt could also take the form of a picture, which students have to describe using the target language.

Hot Potato Sentences

        Students are given a prompt, and must respond to it using the target language.  Then the next student must respond to the same prompt using the same target language, but with a new sentence.  If a student cannot think of a new sentence, or repeats a previously mentioned sentence, they are out.  (Or lose a point.  Or have to sit in the middle.  Or something, et cetera).  Can be played as a whole class or in small groups--I usually set it up by playing as a whole class first, and then move into small groups.

Guess My Sentence

        Students are put into small groups.  They are given a sentence on a card, and they must come up with hints to help the other people in their group guess the sentence.

Variations:

 It is possible to vary the focus of the game by having either the mystery sentence be in the target language (and the students are given a fair degree of freedom in creating the hints), or the mystery sentence is more free, and the students have to create the hints in the target language.

Karuta (Japanese Game)

        The students are put into small groups, and given a list of cards with the target language (which they spread out among themselves).  The teacher reads prompts, and the students try to grab the card matching the prompt.  Whichever student grabs the card first gets to keep that card.  At the end, the student with the most cards is the winner.  (You may have to introduce penalties for students who grab wrong cards--e.g. lose one point, miss a turn, et cetera).

Sorting Activity

         Used for when you have two grammar points--e.g. past simple versus present perfect.

        Students are given a list of sentences, and have to sort them into different categories.

3 Sentences: 2 Truths and a lie

        Students are put into small groups, and have to write 3 sentences containing the target language.  Two of these sentences must be true, one of them must be a lie.  Their group has to guess which of the 3 sentences is a lie.

        Variation:

         Two sentences contain a certain grammar point, the 3rd sentence another grammar point.  Students read only part of the sentence, and the group guesses which sentences are which grammar point--e.g. "things I may do versus things I will do", "things I must do versus things I should do," et cetera.

Grammar Auction

        Students are given a list of sentences containing the target language.  They have to place bets on which sentences are correct, and which sentences are incorrect.  (Or alternatively, try to buy the correct sentences in an auction).

Scrambled Story

        Write up a story (or dialogue) containing the target language.  Cut up the story into different parts.  Put students into small groups, and have the students try to put the story into the correct order.

Board Game

        Create a board in which each square contains a speaking prompt containing the target language.  Students roll a dice, and move their marker around the board, responding to the speaking prompt on each square.

        Variation:

        Each square contains a command in the target language, that the students have to respond to.

Songs

         Bring in a song containing the target language.  Have students listen to it for comprehension, or alternatively have them fill in the gaps at points containing the target language.

        Of course, this assumes you can think of a song repeating the target language enough times to justify using it.  This may not work for all grammar points, but the Internet is a big help with this.  A lot of TESOL song sheets are already made up if you just Google your target grammar point plus "ESL" plus "song", or something.

Crosswords

        Make a crossword puzzle containing the target grammar point.  

        There are various online resources for this, but I like: http://www.armoredpenguin.com/crossword/ since it allows you to save the crossword as a PDF file, so you can save it in your folder and keep it for future use.