TIME FILLERS - HEADWAY
Memory Game
Aims: to practise asking questions revision of descriptions, colours, etc., e.g. after New Headway Elementary Unit 11 Describing People
Procedure
Put the students in pairs and arrange them so they are sitting back to back.
Tell them they are going to ask their partner questions about their clothes and appearance to test their memory and observation.
Remind them of the kind of questions they could ask, e.g.
What colour are my eyes (or socks etc.)?
What kind of shoes (or sweater etc.) am I wearing?
Am I wearing glasses (or earrings etc.)?
Students take it in turns to ask and answer the questions. You should move around the classroom to make sure they don't look behind and cheat!
Notes
This can be a good warmer at the beginning of a lesson, or a filler if you just have a few minutes left at the end.
As it can be quite a noisy activity, it is better to do it with a smaller group, or to move the students so they are not sitting too near to each other.
If you like, you could give students a few minutes to observe each other before they are put into pairs for the activity.
As an alternative, you could get students to answer questions about the classroom. In this case, one student in the pair (or small group, if you prefer) shuts his / her eyes, while the other asks questions like What colour is the carpet? Where is the fire alarm? etc.
Revision Noughts and Crosses
Aim: to revise recently learned vocabulary
Procedure
Draw a noughts and crosses outline on the board and check students know the rules. At the top of each of the spaces, write a category corresponding to areas of vocabulary learned recently, e.g. Jobs (New Headway Pre-Intermediate Unit 8) / Words that go together (New Headway Pre-Intermediate Unit 8) / At the doctor's (New Headway Pre-Intermediate Unit 8).
Divide the class into two halves (noughts and crosses) and appoint a captain for each team. Toss a coin to see which team will start.
Each team in turn chooses a category. Give them a definition or explanation of a word, and ask them to remember the word (and to spell it, if you like). For example, At the doctor's - the part of your body between your foot and your leg (ankle), or Words that go together - the time of day when there's a lot of traffic on the roads (rush hour). Class members can call out the word but the captain must make the final decision on the answer to give.
If the team gets the word right, write a nought or cross in the relevant space. The other team then has a turn to choose a category.
The play continues with alternate turns until one team has a complete line of noughts or crosses.
Notes
Choose a confident but not bossy student as team leader or you may like to keep changing the leader.
With more advanced groups, you could get the students to prepare and give the definitions themselves.
Survival Game
Aim:
to practise speaking freely
e.g. after New Headway Pre-Intermediate Unit 10
Procedure
Ask the students to suggest a letter (e.g. S, P, B). Write it on the board.
Ask students to call out the names of different objects beginning with that letter (e.g. sandwich, suitcase, scissors). Write the first ten on the board.
Put the students in small groups and explain that they have to choose the three items that would be most useful for a survival situation. (You can choose the situation - it could be in a jungle, in a desert, up a mountain etc.) Tell them they will have to justify their choice to the rest of the class.
Allow students time to talk together and reach a decision.
Each group then reports back to the rest of the class.
Notes
The interest of this activity is that students don't know the purpose of naming the objects before the discussion. They may have to use their imagination to think of uses for unlikely objects. If you like, you can give them examples of unusual ways to use a different item before they start.
Remember that you don't always have to write words on the board yourself. You can appoint different students as board-writers and get the rest of the class to help them with the spelling.
Story Building
Aims:
to practise narrative building
to encourage fluency in writing e.g. after New Headway Pre-Intermediate Unit 3 and New Headway Intermediate Unit 3
Procedure
Tell students to get a blank piece of paper from their notebook. Explain they are going to write stories by passing pieces of paper around the class. Each student has to add a new sentence to the story he / she receives, then pass the paper on.
Write the first line of the story on the board, e.g. It was a dark and stormy evening, and I was sitting at home watching television. Suddenly, …Tell students to copy down the first line, then finish the next sentence.
When they have finished the sentence, they should pass the paper to the person on their left, who has to read the story and add the next line.
This process continues for a fixed number of sentences, or until you run out of time.
When all the stories are finished, you could put them up on the classroom wall and get students to move around reading them.
Notes
This is an engaging activity since it uses students' imagination, and passing round papers adds to the fun. It also encourages students to write and read carefully, since they have to add to what has been written before.
The activity provides a good way of practising narrative tenses or other story telling devices. If you like, you could put words and phrases like Just then / while / To my surprise on the board, or on pieces of card distributed to the students, and tell them they have to incorporate these into the story.
You can give different first sentences to different students if you prepare these in advance.
Go round helping students who are slow or run out of ideas, to keep the papers moving round at an even speed. Don't inhibit the students' output by checking or correcting, but help them if they are stuck for a word.
As an alternative to putting the stories up on the wall, you can get students to read them out and vote on the best story.
My bedroom
Aims:
to practise speaking and listening accurately and to revise the use of prepositions of place, e.g. with New Headway Pre-Intermediate Unit 6
Procedure
Tell the class that you are going to describe your bedroom (or kitchen, or living room), and they have to draw it by following your description. When you have finished, students can compare their drawings in pairs, and if you like you could hold up a large copy of your own.
At this stage, you might like to revise with the students the language they need for the activity, e.g. names of furniture, prepositions of place (e.g. next to, opposite), expressions of place (e.g. in the right hand corner).
Put students in pairs facing each other, and tell them they have to do the same; one describes their bedroom while the other draws.
When they have finished, they show their drawing to their partner, who comments on how accurate it is. They may then discuss the room, e.g. what they like/dislike about it, what they would like to change, etc.
Notes
One of the many advantages of an information gap activity like this one is that students have to speak and listen carefully in order to complete the final product. If something is not clear, the listener may need to ask for clarification, encouraging the speaker to express him/herself more accurately. You could teach or revise expressions such as 'Can you repeat that, please?' or 'Sorry, where's the X?'
It is up to you whether the students can see their partner's drawing as it is done. The advantage is that they have to rely on language rather than pointing. But lower levels or weaker students may find this too difficult.
Instead of drawing their bedroom, students may like to draw their ideal bedroom (this will require some initial planning), or a map of their house, or another place they know (e.g. a sports club or restaurant).
Younger learners who have coloured pencils may like to colour in the drawing in the correct colour scheme or pattern.
Revision boxes
Aim:
to consolidate work done in class at the end of the lesson
Procedure
Allow about five minutes at the end of the class for this activity. Tell students to close their books and to get a blank piece of paper. They have to draw three boxes on the paper and fill them with three things they have learned from the lesson.
Demonstrate the activity by putting some boxes on the board and filling them in using language learned from a previous lesson, for example:
In a hotel
I'd like to make a reservation.
Can you tell me how much it is?
Can I have a credit card number, please?
Modals - other uses
May I go now? Can you ski?
You don't have to come.
Collocations university town
vegetarian food
elderly people
Set a time limit and allow students to fill in their boxes.
If time permits, students can compare what they have written in twos or threes.
Notes
Just a few minutes at the end of a lesson spent remembering and consolidating what has been done allows students time to absorb the language and make it their own. It also gives a visual record of what students have learned. Note that each student is free to choose what they have found memorable - which may be different form the teacher's agenda!
Younger learners may enjoy doing this in different colours and adding drawings.
You may prefer to allow this to be a private activity, and not to monitor what students have written. Alternatively, you could get students to put their boxes on the wall, thus consolidating the lesson further.
An alternative to the blank sheets of paper is an ongoing vocabulary notebook at the end of each lesson.
Words in context
Aims:
to practise words recently learned and to focus on using words accurately in a sentence
Procedure
Write on the board a number of words that you have recently learned in class.
Put the class in to small teams and ask each team to appoint a spokesperson. Tell them that, as a team, they have to choose one of the words and use it in a sentence. They will get one point if they get the meaning of the word right, and an extra point if they use the word correctly in the sentence.
Go round the class asking each team in turn to choose a word and prepare their sentence. Give them a time limit, e.g. a maximum of thirty seconds per word, during which time they should collaborate on making up the sentence. When the spokesperson has suggested their team's sentence, write the score on the board, and erase that word from the list.
The game continues until all the words have been erased, and the team with the most points wins.
Notes
This is a simple but effective activity which can fill a spare five minutes at the end of a lesson, or which can be used as a revision warmer at the beginning of a lesson. The blank board gives a satisfying feeling of completion.
The task encourages students not only to remember the meaning of a word, but also to focus on its correct use. So it is a good activity to remind students of the importance of collocation, or to focus on how words operate grammatically in a sentence.
It is probably better not to penalise students for mistakes unrelated to the word they are using, e.g. if they say 'On Saturday I have had a haircut, you may ignore the tense mistake because they have correctly used the collocation have a haircut. Alternatively, you may want to insist on complete accuracy. Whatever you do, be consistent, because students can easily get upset if they feel the teacher is not being fair with the rules!
If the team does not get their word right, you may want to elicit ideas from other groups (without scoring) before erasing it and taking it out of the game.
Find your partner
Pre-intermediate and Intermediate
Aims: to consolidate language learned in class
to change the pace of the lesson
e.g. after New Headway Pre-Intermediate Unit 5 Everyday English
Procedure
Direct students' attention to a Headway matching exercise that you have recently done in class, or that you are about to do.
Give each student a small slip of paper, with the number or letter of one of the matching items on it. Ask them to copy out their item on the other side of their piece of paper. So, for example, if there are ten sentences, you will have twenty different pieces of paper.
Tell students to get up and move around the classroom until they have found the person whose half sentence matches their own. They should then sit down with their partner.
When everyone has finished, each pair read their sentence aloud to the rest of the class.
Notes:
This is a good way of bringing a matching exercise to life by turning it into a game. It also adds pace to a lesson.
If there are more than twenty students in the class, you can repeat some sentences - but you need to make sure that the two halves match.
You can also use this activity as a way of changing the class seating arrangements, since at the end of it students can sit down to work with a new partner.