50 READY TO GO

STARTERS/
SHORT
ACTIVITIES

Guess who/what? You need post-it notes. Put the students in
pairs. Write the target words on the post-it notes. Stick one on
each of the students foreheads without letting the student
see it. The task is for each partner to guess what is on their own
forehead, by asking questions of their partner... Is it an animal?
Is it green? Etc. The answer can only be yes or no.

A princess
Am I a
monster?






Draw a 3 x 3 grid on the board. Elicit one
vowel from your students put it in the
middle box. Then, get 8 consonants from
them. Now, they have to make as many words
as they can, using the letters. On this example
day, say, mat, lad, sad stay, play, lady etc...
Vary it 2 vowels, 7 consonants.

D M B
S
A
P
T Y L
Draw two columns on
the board, headed
adjectives and nouns.
Elicit some noun
phrases from the pupils
e.g. An interesting
game and write them
up. Then, ask the
students to make more
combinations. The
stranger, the better!
Ask them to justify
their choices. What
about a jubilant chair
leg(!)

Adjectives
Beautiful
Strange
Ferocious
Diabolical
Delicious
Interesting
Exciting
Daunting
Terrifying
Jubilant
Ancient
atrocious
Nouns
Teacher
Boy
Dog
Sausage
Frog
Spider
Iceberg
Witch
School
Chair leg
Classroom
computer
Compare and contrast. Give two pictures and ask the students
to make comparisons between them. E.g. Harry Potter and
Gandalf, Mona Lisa and Medusa, 2 famous sportsmen or women,
someone from the distant past and someone contemporary. Or
cats and dogs etc...
Compare and Contrast:
1) Apples and oranges.
2) Cats and dogs
3) A beach holiday and a skiing
holiday.
4)School and home.
5) English and Maths.
6) Books and magazines.
7) Boys and girls.
8) Meat eating and vegetarianism
Chinese drawing.

Divide your students into teams. Line them up, facing
the board. Give a new or a key word to the students
at the back. They must use their finger to write the
word on the next students back. This continues along
the lines. The winning team is the first to reach the
board and write the word correctly. They gain an
extra point if they can use the word in a sentence, or
give the definition. For beginners, work with letters
of the alphabet upper and lower case, or number
spellings.
Guess the object.

Take or draw a picture. Dont let the students see.
Then take 5 pieces of paper - all the same size as
the original picture. Cut various sized holes in them.
Blutac them all on the picture. Take one off at a
time can they guess what the object is, or where
street scene etc. Each time, they are allowed 5
questions to help them guess. You can do this as a
whole class activity, or put them in teams.
GROUP STORY WRITING
1) Give each student a piece of paper and ask them to draw a face at the
top.
2) Ask them to write five adjectives to describe the persons character.
3) Ask them to write five biographical details about the person, including a
name.
4) Then dictate this: It was a dark rainy night when (name) reluctantly
stepped out into the dark....
5) They write that, then add a sentence of their own then swap papers.
After adding a sentence, swap again. Keep going.... Great fun!



There are many variations on this activity. Put one
student in role she has to be a character in a
book/film youve studied and the rest of the class
prepare questions to ask. You could: Make question
cards with the wh- question words and give them out.
The students have to make questions with the word
they are given. Or, for EAL students, allot tense
cards past simple questions with did, present with
do or does and future with will.

Matchup: Tried and trusted; always works.
Picture-word or word-definition match ups.
Make it kinaesthetic by giving the cards out
and asking students to match them up.
Get great resources from MES-English.

Splat! Or Wipeout!
Draw/write a number or items on the board.
Two students come out you give the clue.
The first student to touch the relevant word
or picture is the winner. In teams. Good for
revision.

The next slide is one I prepared after watching
Mr Bean at the Swimming Pool with my EAL
class. The clues: This is where he got changed. This is what the
guard blew. He went to the top one and then got scared....etc....

Beat the clock Students love this!!! They take turns in the hotseat. The rest of the
class prepare questions the hotseater must not to say yes or no. So the
students need to write questions which are the most likely to elicit a yes or a
no. This can be general questions, Have you got any sisters? etc, or it could be
based on a topic you have studied Do plants need light to photosynthesise? etc.
This is an excellent way to practise tag questions, as these are the most likely to
get a yes or no. Mr Bean went to the dentists, didnt he?
Rules
1) Students cannot prevaricate maybe I dont know obviously etc are not allowed.
I sometimes insist on a full sentence. Mr Bean did go to the dentists. Plants
need light for photosynthesis.
2) No nodding or shaking of the head.
3) If the hotseater answers the questions for more than 90 seconds, then he or she
has beaten the clock!
4)If he says yes or no, then he is out. I use my metal bin and a boardmarker at this
point, but if you can get hold of a drum or a bell or something, that is great. I
ask a student to do this and there are always plenty of volunteers. This is a
great revision tool!

Eleven. Students stand in a circle. They
count around. The student who says 11 is
out and has to sit down. Each student
can say up to 3 numbers, so when there
are just a few left, they can calculate
how to get each other out.
Or twenty one...

Little light ball Throw this to the student
you want to give the answer. They
return the ball as they answer. Makes
for a good, fast question and answer
session.




Hangman Dont forget this old favourite! It makes a
great starter activity and can be used at any level
e.g. for beginners, classroom objects. For more
advanced students, key words in any subject area.
Just write on the board, with students taking a turn,
or use a generator. Heard of TaskMagic?
http://www.mdlsoft.co.uk/
Get their free trial, you will never regret it.

V_r_ y_ _ r cl_z_ _x_rc_s_s.
Vary your cloze exercises. Cloze exercises are
a great way of testing comprehension but
also, spelling. Try leaving all the vowels and y
out . Students do enjoy this exercise.
You can write your sentences directly on the
board no need for preparation if you are
rushed.

I spy with my little eye, something
beginning with ....

Another old favourite that is a great
activity for beginners or at the end of a
long day.

CATEGORIES
Draw your grid on the board, using as many boxes as
you think. (I think no more than 6 categories.)
Choose your categories. There is more than one way
to do this! A) Have two students stand by the
board, shout out an item and the first one to point to
the right group is the winner. The winning student
writes in the word. Or play this in teams.
B) Write down the letters of the alphabet and ask
the students to think of at least one item per letter,
working across the board. Students take turns coming
to the board and writing them up. Rub them out, then,
have them write up the objects as a memory game.
GRID ON NEXT SLIDE

Furniture Clothes Foods Drinks Methods of
transport
Electrical
appliances.









ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
Count round/Count down
The students have to count round the
class in 3s, (or 4s, 5s etc). Then, start
from a high number and they have to
count down in threes.

BIG CATS
Big cats take the time to read this, its brilliant.

The students sit in a circle, on chairs. You need at least 12
students. Go round and allot each a cat tiger, lion,
panther, etc (3, 4, or 5 types of cat, depending on group
size.) Stand in the middle. Explain: When I say lion, all
the lions have to get up and swap seats. When I say tiger
all the tigers have to swap seats. Etc. When I say Big
cats!, everybody has to get up and swap seats. Then, do
this twice. By now, the students are wondering what the
big deal is. Third time round, take away a chair! Play the
game again someone is left without a seat. They must
give a forfeit, or answer a question. Be careful! This can
be very lively, particularly on a Big Cat round.I only play
this at the end of term. The students love it.

Correct the myssteak
This is a variation on true and false.
Instead of a straightforward T or F,
put a mistake, or a piece of false
information in each sentence which the
students must find and correct. Or
produce a report on something the class
has studied, with mistakes in it. Very
adaptable and can be used at every
level.

ODD ONE OUT
This can be used at any level this can
actually be quite demanding
conceptually. I occasionally give four or
five for them to be thinking about while
I do the register.

1) Professor teacher learner social worker
2) Book magazine internet radio TV



Make a Cryptogram - use a generator.
Puzzlemakers is great and takes only a
minute. There is an example on the next
slide. It starts the Titanic sank with
massive loss of life..

http://puzzlemaker.discoveryeducation.com
/code/BuildCryptogram.asp
S STORY BOARD
You have been teaching, now its time for
the students to show they have
learned!They have to divide a sheet of
plain A4 into 4 or 6 squares. They need
to recount, in sequential order, with
diagrams, the story you have studied, or
the topic. As well as narrative, they may
include speech bubbles, or fact file
boxes.

Bingo/Lotto
- a great, fun revision activity.

MES-English has many ready-made and a
template.

Hidden Letter
This is a true or false activity. Prepare a grid with
five boxes by five boxes. Write in some true
statements/correct spellings or sums, to spell out a
letter. Then fill the other boxes with false
statements or wrong spellings/sums. The students
have to shade in the true items and correct the false
ones. Check they are right does their shading spell
out the letter? Here is an example, on the next
slide based on common spelling mistakes. If they
get it right, the shaded boxes will show letter X.
Its easy to show most letters of the alphabet. Do
this as whole class and explain the spelling rules as
you correct them.


separate

definate

truthfull

usefull

excellent

excelent

definite

hopeing

hopeful

babeys

ladeys

belive

believe

sence

sensable

greatfuk

beautiful

decieve

receive

reachible

grateful

absense

cieling

nonsence

ladies
Noughts and crosses You draw 9
boxes on the board and use some blutac
to stick your flashcards/key vocabulary
face down on the boxes. Split the class
into two teams. They take turns to turn
a card over. If its a picture and they
know the word, or if its a word and they
can give the definition, they get their
nought or their cross.
Noughts and crosses
team game
Divide the class into two teams. Noughts
and crosses board on the screen. Toss a
coin for heads and tails.
Ask the questions.
Not so good for a large class.
X
Back to the board. One student
comes out and stands with his back to
the board. You then get the rest of
the class to check that he doesnt take
a peek write a word or draw a simple
diagram. The rest of the class must
describe it, or give clues, but they
cannot say the word. Split them into
teams to make it a competion. Great for
students at all levels.

Intel................................
Spell it out Students have their books
and pens ready. Start spelling the word
letter by letter. The object of this
exercise is for them to guess the word
before you finish spelling it. A fun way
to present a spelling test!

Describe and draw Put the students in pairs. Give
each a picture. Student A describes his picture (but
mustnt show it) to Student B, who then has to draw
it. At the end, they compare their pictures and
discuss what is different. Then they swap roles.
Excellent for beginners colours, prepositions and
for practising has/have got etc as well as for
advanced students.

Jumbled words and jumbled sentences.

You can write these straight on to the
board or...

You can get a great template for jumbling
at http://www.tinyteflteacher.co.uk/
Shes got lots of other great stuff (its
not me! Im huge).


MES-English for ready-made
resources.
Dominoes You can do this as a whole class activity,
with just one set of dominoes. Give each student one
or 2. On one box, there is a question, on the other an
answer. The first student reads out his question, then
the student with the right answer puts his hand up,
reads it out and then reads his question etc. This can
be done in pairs.

By the way, great websites for ESL resources at
advanced level www.eslflow and www.eslbase .



Box of words Get a bag or a box and put lots of
words in it. Go round the class each student has
to take a word, read it and either make a sentence
out of it, or give the definition. If you like, you can
write each students sentence on the board. Then,
the others can correct the sentences and/or make
suggestions for improvement. This can be used to
practise basic English with beginners, or with key
words or new vocabulary for more advanced classes.
Or, if youve been studying a novel or a play, your
words can be based on that.

Probability plane: Strategically place your bin.
Give the students a sheet of paper and ask them to
make a paper plane. Then ask them to discuss the
odds of them getting their plane in the bin. You can
bring in lots of language. Likely No chance
Impossible Certain 50-50 6:1 etc. Move the bin
around as they get better at it!

Charades - you know the rules.
If you want to make it more interactive
put the students into two teams and
get them to write the prompts/make
the cards.

Chinese whispers. Two teams, each forming a
circle. Whisper the key phrase into the ears of
the first student in line. They then whisper to
each other, round the circle. The winning team
is the one whose final statement most
resembles the original. Good for teaching key
pieces of knowledge.
Main points:
After you have studied a book, make a
few slides or a worksheet with just the
main points, in picture form. Elicit a
recount by asking questions, What
happened before.. Why did he go
there? Who did he see? etc.

BIRTH --- -MARRIAGE----DEATH , ---oh
and taxes.
Add to the picture This is a good activity for a beginners group.
Use the whiteboard. Draw a line. Say, This is the ground.
Call up a student and ask, or show them, they have to add
something. They may add anything -
house/flower/tree/person/animal plane/sun/birds/car etc,
whatever they like. Then they have to say what it is, This
is a ... Or ask the others if they can name the object.
Each student gets a turn. At the end, they then each say a
sentence to describe the picture. Good for practising
prepositions. You can make this into a longer, writing
activity by having them copy the picture and write up the
sentences. You can then have a True/false session, based
on the picture they have created.

Visualise !!!
This might be best illustrated by an
example. Teaching the Berlin Airlift.

Take a piece of flip chart paper put it on the desk.
Gather the students round. Roughly draw the map.
Ask the students to name the countries and cities.
Have props I use chess pieces and cotton balls.
Position the various parties. Ask what they did move
them round. Ask why? How did it go? When? Write
the dates in. Basically let them VISUALISE what
happened.
Place the nose Draw a blank face on
the board. Call out one student who
has to be blindfolded. He/she has to
draw the nose in the right place and the
others have to give directions. Give
each student a different coloured pen
and see who gets the best results. Good
for practising prepositions and
directions. Just a bit of fun!

Kinaesthetic True or false Place two
posters at opposite ends of the classroom
- TRUE and FALSE. Read out your
statements, students have to move to the
position they think is correct. Students
who are wrong have to sit down. Continue
until there is a winner. Then, move onto
the next statement. At the end of ther
activity, ask students to recite, or write
down as many of the true statements as
they can remember.

TRUE
FALSE
Key words chart tally: Ask some
students to keep a tally of how many
times you say a certain word. This can
be a way of allowing a beginner to
participate in a more advanced lesson.

Differentiate by half Ask your EAL
students to work on half the number of
paragraphs that you set the rest of the
class.

Pre-highlight key words or phrases in the
passage you are studying.

Marking idea.
Post-it marking: When marking, instead of
correcting the students mistakes in their
book, write them on postit notes, then the
students have to correct their own mistakes.
This way, you know the student has taken
notice.


TIMELINE
Draw three time zones on your line
Past / Now / Future. Students take
turns to come out. Read out a sentence,
e.g. He saw his friend last month. The
students have to position themselves on
the line /in the zone they think
appropriate. This is a great kinaesthetic
way to practise tenses and expressions
of time.


ACROSTICS
At the beginning or the end of a topic, write
down one of the key terms
e.g. E D U C A T I O N.
The students have to write down as many words
as they can beginning with each letter that is
relevant to the topic. E.g E exam/expectations
etc. D detention, discipline. Split the class into
groups and the winning group is the one with the
most correct words. Each groups suggestions can
be written up and discussed.

Question generator
Ice breaker or an activity you can use for a speaking
lesson at any time. Bring in some photos from your
personal album, or the internet. Include photos of people
family, friends. Photos of places/big cities/countries you
have visited/food/film trailer posters/cars etc. Tell the
students These are important to me or I have plenty to
say about each of these photos, but I need the right
questions. Give them some time to write as many questions
as they can. Or assign different photos to different
students. A fun way to practise making questions.

Onion skin.
Stand the students in two circles, one
inside the other, facing each other.
They ask a question, then move on. Or
you give a question, which they have to
discuss. Great at all levels.

http://www.tinyteflteacher.co.uk/teacher/acti
vities/getting-to-know-you.html
Messenger
Read and report back Instead of
reading from a book, pin the passages up
round the classroom. In pairs, one
student reads the passage, then reports
back to his partner, who writes it up.
Then, they go up and read the passage
to check . This makes reading and
writing fun.