Using Improvisational Exercises
to Increase Speaking and Listening in Second Language Learners
Pamila J. Florea, MA
Hankuk University of Foreign Studies
Yong-in South Korea
pamilajflorea@gmail.com
or
pamilajohufs@gmail.com
Paper Presentation
TESOL Asia – Asian EFL Conference
Cebu, Philipines
August, 2010
A few points to consider:
Teachers need to believe in the games / exercises they have their students work on. If you are excited and enjoy the game, so will your students. If you don’t believe in using games / fun exercises, neither will the students.
Most of these exercises will be useful for grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation based on how the teacher sets them up. The primary use or the best one that I’ve found is the category I’ve listed it under.
Don’t be afraid to try variations of the games. Some will work with some groups of students and some won’t. If it doesn’t work, move on!
Most importantly: HAVE FUN!
Resources:
Five-Minute Activities: A Resource Book of Short Activities, Penny Ur and Andrew Wright
Theatre Games and Beyond: A Creative Approach for Performers, Amiel Schotz
1000 Pictures for Teachers to Copy, Andrew Wright
101 Improv Games for Children and Adults, Bob Bedore
Here
http://improvencyclopedia.org/games/index.html
http://wilderdom.com/games/PsychologicalExercises.html
http://bogglesworldesl.com/prepositions.htm
http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/61105.Dr_Seuss
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Pronunciation Exercises
Pronunciation Exercises
One Sentence Survey
Students make a table with one question at the top. The teacher can give the stem based on almost any pronunciation sound that is being learned. Students go around and ask each student the answer and record it. Each student then in turn gets up and announces the results of their survey. This is a short presentation that helps students become accustomed to speaking in English in front of an audience.
Example:
“th” sounds - Do you like the theatre? Or “ch” / “j” sounds – Did you ever change jobs?
Student
Ji Yong - yes
Juan Carlos - no
Yerim - yes
Zip Zap Zop
"z" sound
Students make a circle, and the teacher teaches the “z” sound compared to the “s” sound (voiced and unvoiced respectively). The teacher shows the students the imaginary ball. The exercise is played by “throwing” the ball to another person and saying “zip”. That person then throws the ball to another person and says “zap”. The next person throws the ball saying “zop” and then back to “zip” again. Continue with this until the students understand and then instruct them to throw faster. Make sure to instruct students to make eye contact. When someone makes a mistake, everyone puts there hands in the center, looks at the floor and says “moooooo”. This allows for the game to continue easily.
Variation: You can use this for anything once the students understand the concept. Months of the year, the periodic table, vocabulary words, etc.
Tongue Twisters
Students practice saying tongue twisters as fast as they can. Books / phrases from Dr. Seuss are often quite good for this exercise as noted below:
L / R / Th sounds: "Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try!"
P / B / F / L sounds: “When beetles fight these battles in a bottle with their paddles
and the bottle's on a poodle and the poodle's eating noodles...
...they call this a muddle puddle tweetle poodle beetle noodle
bottle paddle battle."
This is a good page for Dr. Seuss quotes: http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/61105.Dr_Seuss
Variation:
Students each are given a tongue twister on a piece of paper and then they draw the picture. They hold it up and the other students have to guess the tongue twister that has been taught.
One Sentence Survey
Students make a table with one question at the top. The teacher can give the stem based on almost any pronunciation sound that is being learned. Students go around and ask each student the answer and record it. Each student then in turn gets up and announces the results of their survey. This is a short presentation that helps students become accustomed to speaking in English in front of an audience.
Example:
“th” sounds - Do you like the theatre? Or “ch” / “j” sounds – Did you ever change jobs?
Student
Ji Yong - yes
Juan Carlos - no
Yerim - yes
Zip Zap Zop
"z" sound
Students make a circle, and the teacher teaches the “z” sound compared to the “s” sound (voiced and unvoiced respectively). The teacher shows the students the imaginary ball. The exercise is played by “throwing” the ball to another person and saying “zip”. That person then throws the ball to another person and says “zap”. The next person throws the ball saying “zop” and then back to “zip” again. Continue with this until the students understand and then instruct them to throw faster. Make sure to instruct students to make eye contact. When someone makes a mistake, everyone puts there hands in the center, looks at the floor and says “moooooo”. This allows for the game to continue easily.
Variation: You can use this for anything once the students understand the concept. Months of the year, the periodic table, vocabulary words, etc.
Tongue Twisters
Students practice saying tongue twisters as fast as they can. Books / phrases from Dr. Seuss are often quite good for this exercise as noted below:
L / R / Th sounds: "Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try!"
P / B / F / L sounds: “When beetles fight these battles in a bottle with their paddles
and the bottle's on a poodle and the poodle's eating noodles...
...they call this a muddle puddle tweetle poodle beetle noodle
bottle paddle battle."
This is a good page for Dr. Seuss quotes: http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/61105.Dr_Seuss
Variation:
Students each are given a tongue twister on a piece of paper and then they draw the picture. They hold it up and the other students have to guess the tongue twister that has been taught.
Grammar Exercises
Grammar Exercises
Damaged Property
Grammar Point– Using past tense and passives
A brief description of a an item is presented to the students. For example “My phone doesn’t work.” The teacher has written the reason on a piece of paper and instructs students to ask questions to narrow down the reason such as “Did it get hit by something?” The teacher can give hints “I was at the shore when it stopped working” to keep the game going. The person who guesses correctly gets to choose the next damaged item or ask the first question. This game is best done with true life stories.
Variation: If you have recently studied a story, you can pretend to be the character and have the reason be related to the story.
Why have you got a monkey in your bag?
Grammar Point: Why? Because…
Students are each given a list of questions or can write their own questions – the normal to the ridiculous. Each student asks a partner one of the questions and the other student has to come up with a plausible answer using the pattern S + V, because S + V.
Questioner: Why have you got a monkey in your bag?
Answerer: I have a monkey in my bag because I will take it to the vet today.
Questioner: Why have you got a bottle of aspirin in your bag?
Answerer: I have a bottle of aspirin in my bag because I have a headache.
Jumbled sentences
Grammar Point – word order / directions / prepositions of space
Choose a sentence and write it on the board in a jumbled order. For example: “us very mother nachos elegant just served my” and students must rearrange them.
"My very elegant mother just served us nachos" (mnemonic device for the planets)
Variation: Write the words separately on a piece of paper and each student holds a piece of paper. The chosen student has to give directions to the other students to move to create the correct sentence (Steve, stand between Jose and Juanita”)
Evidence
Grammar Point – Using Modals / Must be / Can’t be
The students assigned as “detectives” have their backs to the board, and the teacher writes a situation description. For example “It must be raining outside” and the other students are witnesses who give evidence. A witness might say “Her clothes are wet.
If I had a Million Dollars
Grammar Point – Conditionals
Students imagine that a large amount of money (can be the local currency) is won by the person / team who can think of the most original, altruistic, or practical use of the money. You can have this related to a recent lesson or to a local cause. The winner is the one who meets whatever criteria you have set up.
Variation: The students can also put together a plan on how to use the money, set up a foundation, start a program, etc. They can make a presentation to the class with details.
What do you see?
Grammar Point – There is / there are
Show students a picture from a magazine or a book. In groups, the students make a list of all the things they see using “there is / are”. One group presents their list while the other groups check off any repeats. The next group presents any “leftovers” from their list, and so on until all the things are listed.
Variation: The same exercise can be used for “to be + verbing” if the picture is active. The woman is dancing. The children are watching a movie. The cat is running, etc.
Prepositional Pictures
Grammar Point – prepositions of place, time, direction
After teaching prepositions, give the students some time with pictures of people / things in different places. Boggles world has some wonderful flash cards that can be used for this. Please see this website: http://bogglesworldesl.com/prepositions.htm
The class is separated into small groups of 5 or 6 people. One student draws a picture, one student writes the sentence, the other students give suggestions. Begin with a simple sentence like “The witch drives the car.” The students then continue adding prepositional phrases until the sentence is very long and the picture is quite detailed. The students then share their pictures with another group and that group tries to cite all the details.
Whose is it?
Grammar Point – Conditionals, past tense, descriptors, reported speech
Each student brings a bag in with an object that is important to them. Students are put into groups of 6-8. They put the bags in the middle of their circle and they are mixed around. Each student then draws a bag and makes sure it is not their item. If it is, everyone puts their bags back and mixes them up and draws until each student has someone else’s item. Students remove the item and decide the story behind it. Each student has one minute in their group to tell a story about why the item is important to the owner. The owner then says “It is mine,” takes the item, and then tells the real story behind the item. That person then tells the imaginary story of the item they are holding. This continues until all students have their own items. Sometimes two students will have each other’s item and then another student will be instructed to begin.
Variation: Fear in a Hat – students write something on a piece of paper they are afraid of or that they know is a phobia. They put that paper in a hat. Each student then picks a paper and talks about why someone might be afraid of that thing.
Write Your Own Eulogy
Grammar Point – Future Tense, Past Tense or Past Perfect Progressive
Students are instructed to write their own eulogy (or someone they knew) and to include the things they want to accomplish and what they were doing when they “died”. For example, “She had been scaling Mt. Everest when she fell in an avalanche.” Students can share them aloud or they can exchange them and try to guess who wrote what.
N.B. – these last two can be very serious. Please instruct students on confidentiality. Use them with discretion.
Damaged Property
Grammar Point– Using past tense and passives
A brief description of a an item is presented to the students. For example “My phone doesn’t work.” The teacher has written the reason on a piece of paper and instructs students to ask questions to narrow down the reason such as “Did it get hit by something?” The teacher can give hints “I was at the shore when it stopped working” to keep the game going. The person who guesses correctly gets to choose the next damaged item or ask the first question. This game is best done with true life stories.
Variation: If you have recently studied a story, you can pretend to be the character and have the reason be related to the story.
Why have you got a monkey in your bag?
Grammar Point: Why? Because…
Students are each given a list of questions or can write their own questions – the normal to the ridiculous. Each student asks a partner one of the questions and the other student has to come up with a plausible answer using the pattern S + V, because S + V.
Questioner: Why have you got a monkey in your bag?
Answerer: I have a monkey in my bag because I will take it to the vet today.
Questioner: Why have you got a bottle of aspirin in your bag?
Answerer: I have a bottle of aspirin in my bag because I have a headache.
Jumbled sentences
Grammar Point – word order / directions / prepositions of space
Choose a sentence and write it on the board in a jumbled order. For example: “us very mother nachos elegant just served my” and students must rearrange them.
"My very elegant mother just served us nachos" (mnemonic device for the planets)
Variation: Write the words separately on a piece of paper and each student holds a piece of paper. The chosen student has to give directions to the other students to move to create the correct sentence (Steve, stand between Jose and Juanita”)
Evidence
Grammar Point – Using Modals / Must be / Can’t be
The students assigned as “detectives” have their backs to the board, and the teacher writes a situation description. For example “It must be raining outside” and the other students are witnesses who give evidence. A witness might say “Her clothes are wet.
If I had a Million Dollars
Grammar Point – Conditionals
Students imagine that a large amount of money (can be the local currency) is won by the person / team who can think of the most original, altruistic, or practical use of the money. You can have this related to a recent lesson or to a local cause. The winner is the one who meets whatever criteria you have set up.
Variation: The students can also put together a plan on how to use the money, set up a foundation, start a program, etc. They can make a presentation to the class with details.
What do you see?
Grammar Point – There is / there are
Show students a picture from a magazine or a book. In groups, the students make a list of all the things they see using “there is / are”. One group presents their list while the other groups check off any repeats. The next group presents any “leftovers” from their list, and so on until all the things are listed.
Variation: The same exercise can be used for “to be + verbing” if the picture is active. The woman is dancing. The children are watching a movie. The cat is running, etc.
Prepositional Pictures
Grammar Point – prepositions of place, time, direction
After teaching prepositions, give the students some time with pictures of people / things in different places. Boggles world has some wonderful flash cards that can be used for this. Please see this website: http://bogglesworldesl.com/prepositions.htm
The class is separated into small groups of 5 or 6 people. One student draws a picture, one student writes the sentence, the other students give suggestions. Begin with a simple sentence like “The witch drives the car.” The students then continue adding prepositional phrases until the sentence is very long and the picture is quite detailed. The students then share their pictures with another group and that group tries to cite all the details.
Whose is it?
Grammar Point – Conditionals, past tense, descriptors, reported speech
Each student brings a bag in with an object that is important to them. Students are put into groups of 6-8. They put the bags in the middle of their circle and they are mixed around. Each student then draws a bag and makes sure it is not their item. If it is, everyone puts their bags back and mixes them up and draws until each student has someone else’s item. Students remove the item and decide the story behind it. Each student has one minute in their group to tell a story about why the item is important to the owner. The owner then says “It is mine,” takes the item, and then tells the real story behind the item. That person then tells the imaginary story of the item they are holding. This continues until all students have their own items. Sometimes two students will have each other’s item and then another student will be instructed to begin.
Variation: Fear in a Hat – students write something on a piece of paper they are afraid of or that they know is a phobia. They put that paper in a hat. Each student then picks a paper and talks about why someone might be afraid of that thing.
Write Your Own Eulogy
Grammar Point – Future Tense, Past Tense or Past Perfect Progressive
Students are instructed to write their own eulogy (or someone they knew) and to include the things they want to accomplish and what they were doing when they “died”. For example, “She had been scaling Mt. Everest when she fell in an avalanche.” Students can share them aloud or they can exchange them and try to guess who wrote what.
N.B. – these last two can be very serious. Please instruct students on confidentiality. Use them with discretion.
Vocabulary Exercises
Vocabulary Exercises:
What do they have in common? (comparisons)
Students are presented with two different concrete nouns. For example a pencil and a bag of almonds; a window and a piece of jewelry, etc. Students are then encouraged to find something these two things have in common – they both come from trees, they both are made of glass respectively.
Variation: This game can be used for comparatives also – the pencil is lighter than the bag of almonds, the window is bigger than the necklace. The window and the necklace are both clear.
Chain story (various vocabulary)
The teacher has students choose a word from the vocabulary list and write it on a piece of paper. The student will have to use that word in the game.
The teacher begins a story and then a student adds another sentence to the story using the vocabulary word they wrote down. The next student continues the story using the word they wrote down. After a short time, students can exchange words and continue the story practicing new vocabulary words.
Fashion show (descriptors, clothing)
Students get in a row and the first student comes forward as the “announcer” and describes the clothes that the next student is wearing while that student walks down the “catwalk” aisle of the classroom. The second student then turns and becomes the announcer and describes the third student and so on until all students have described the next person. The last student describes the outfit of the first announcer.
Picture dictation (various vocabulary)
The teacher describes a scene or person while students draw the picture. This can be used for even the lowest level students – three pink hearts, 2 blue diamonds, 7 green circles. The green circle is above a blue diamond.
Make 10 changes (past tense verbs)
Students pair up and one person is assigned as the “changer” the second as the “observer”. The observer turns around / closes eyes while the changer alters ten things about their appearance (turns their baseball cap around, takes off their watch, unties a shoe lace, etc.). The observer then talks about the changes made “You took off your watch, you untied your shoe,” etc. For older students having students then make ten MORE changes can be quite fun and a challenge.
Variation: Slide show
One student can move the people about and put them into different positions and then the rest of the group has to list all the changes made to the group of people.
What do they have in common? (comparisons)
Students are presented with two different concrete nouns. For example a pencil and a bag of almonds; a window and a piece of jewelry, etc. Students are then encouraged to find something these two things have in common – they both come from trees, they both are made of glass respectively.
Variation: This game can be used for comparatives also – the pencil is lighter than the bag of almonds, the window is bigger than the necklace. The window and the necklace are both clear.
Chain story (various vocabulary)
The teacher has students choose a word from the vocabulary list and write it on a piece of paper. The student will have to use that word in the game.
The teacher begins a story and then a student adds another sentence to the story using the vocabulary word they wrote down. The next student continues the story using the word they wrote down. After a short time, students can exchange words and continue the story practicing new vocabulary words.
Fashion show (descriptors, clothing)
Students get in a row and the first student comes forward as the “announcer” and describes the clothes that the next student is wearing while that student walks down the “catwalk” aisle of the classroom. The second student then turns and becomes the announcer and describes the third student and so on until all students have described the next person. The last student describes the outfit of the first announcer.
Picture dictation (various vocabulary)
The teacher describes a scene or person while students draw the picture. This can be used for even the lowest level students – three pink hearts, 2 blue diamonds, 7 green circles. The green circle is above a blue diamond.
Make 10 changes (past tense verbs)
Students pair up and one person is assigned as the “changer” the second as the “observer”. The observer turns around / closes eyes while the changer alters ten things about their appearance (turns their baseball cap around, takes off their watch, unties a shoe lace, etc.). The observer then talks about the changes made “You took off your watch, you untied your shoe,” etc. For older students having students then make ten MORE changes can be quite fun and a challenge.
Variation: Slide show
One student can move the people about and put them into different positions and then the rest of the group has to list all the changes made to the group of people.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)