Childhood games that really teach Foreign Language

Old games can make help with those tremendous keys to learning: input and review. Remember that students have to hear it or read it to learn it, and they need to understand it to truly hear it (“comprehensible input”). Here are a couple that have worked well with my middle- and high-school classes at all levels:

Accordion story – Students write a line of the story, fold the paper over accordion style, swap, write the next line. Repeat until the page is full. Rules: no English, and no swapping with the same person twice. While things can get pretty wild during this game, with students flying around the room to swap papers, I like to keep the writing very structured by posting the sentence stems on the board for each line – one at a time. A Power Point does nicely for this, but typing it on the spot works, too. For example:

• My name is ____. (Encourage some silliness here by supplying examples like Miley Cyrus, Beyonce, Big Bird)
• I am from ____.
• I am ___ years old.
• My favorite food is ___.
• I like to ___ on the weekends.
• I have _____ siblings and ___ children.
• I am married to ____.
• Last week I was in the news for Tweeting a picture of ___.
• etc.

Mad-lib style story – Write a story full of numbered blanks that allows you to meet whatever teaching goals you have at the moment, remembering to review previous units. It doesn’t hurt if the story is tied to some recent event (Grammy’s, Super Bowl, election). Don’t worry about whether the story is creative or funny enough. The students’ words will supply that element. Give students the list of vocabulary to fill in, but don’t let them see the story yet. It’s best to work in pairs so they can tap one another’s memories for forgotten vocabulary. As they finish ,allow them to see the fill-in-the-blank version — you can print out some copies to put in plastic sheeting, so they are reused from class to class. Students read the story aloud filling in the blanks with their list of words. Tell them to swap stories with another pair of students and reread it. Ask for the silliest submissions to be read to the whole class.

Example: My name is [1] and I am from [2]. I hope you will vote for me to become President of [3]. You should vote for me because I am very [4] and [5]. …etc.. A name

1. A name
2. A place
3. A country
4. & 5. personality adjectives

Pass the whiteboard

White boards – the key to just about every activity

What is it about holding a marker that makes the most tuned-out student willing to answer just about any question, even doing verb conjugations? Who knows?? But it sure works. Here’s an incredibly simply white board activity that is now one of my favorites.  It is very low prep but gets everyone working. Differentiation and review is built in. Take a look and let me know if you have tried it and how it worked and any suggestions you have:

Materials – everyone gets a white board and marker. We never have enough erasers, so these are shaired in pairs.

Seating – stick with your regular classroom seating but make sure students know ahead of time that they will be passing the boards in something like a huge circle (in my room it comes out more like a blob).

Topic – any, as long as there’s some depth of vocabulary. Examples: clothing; food; what I did over winter break; an accident; Don Quixote; a movie we watched

Rules – explain these ahead of time: students may write only one word/phrase on the board at a time. They may not repeat any word that’s already on the board. They may repeat a word they wrote on another board, but no more than twice. Also they must wait to hear you say “Pass it” (in the target language).

Instructions – tell students to write a word. Count down from five, then say “Pass it.” Scan the room to make sure everyone is getting a chance to write, and delay your countdown accordingly. As the boards go around in a circle the activity gets harder, so give students a chance to write. Excuse those who are a bit lost, telling them they can “steal” a word to use on the next board.

You will see a tremendous amount of reading. Everyone is scanning the vocabulary, looking for a word they can add.

Next – you can take this in countless directions. Try:

• flip the board over and repeat as many words as you can without peeking – solo or in pairs.
• use the words on the board to tell a story aloud. Teacher sets timer for short period of time, posting the timer on the overhead (search for “stopwatch” to find one you can post on the projector). Students can work solo, taking turns, or in pairs. If work solo, use a partner to listen, count sentences, give suggestions, praise, etc.
• use the board to write a story. Same parameters as above, giving a little more time.