om so that students have access to all the walls and ask two students to act as secretaries at the board. Steak each of your card on one of the other three walls of the room. Ask the rest of the students to gather in the middle of the space.
2. Tell the students that you re going to read out sentences with a word missing. If they think that the right word for that sentence is wide they should rush over and touch the wide card. If they think the word should be narrow or broad they touch the respective card instead. Tell them that in some cases there are two right answers (they choose either).
. Tell the secretaries at the board to write down the correct versions of the sentences in full as the game progresses.
. Read out the first gapped sentence and have the students rush to what they think is the appropriate wall. Give the correct versions and make sure it goes up in the board. Continue with the second sentence etc.
. At the end of the strenuous part ask the students to tale down the sentences in their books. A relief from running! (If the students want a challenge they should get a partner and together write down as many sentences as they remember with their backs to the board before turning round to complete their notes. Or else have their partner to dictate the sentences with a gap for them to try to complete.) can play this game with many sets of grammar exponents:
Forms of the article; a, the and zero article
Prepositions
In class
1. Pair the students and give them the two texts. Ask them to spot all the differences they can between them. Tell them that there may be more than one pair of differences per pair of parallel sentences. Tell them one item in each pair of alternatives is correct.
2. They are to choose the correct form from each pair.
. Ask them to dictate the correct text to you at the board. Write down exactly what they say so students have a chance to correct each other both in terms of grammar and in terms of their pronunciation. If a student pronounces dis voman for this woman then write up the wrong version. Only write it correctly when the student pronounces it right. Your task in this exercise is to allow the students to try out their hypotheses about sound and grammar without putting them right too soon and so reducing their energy and blocking their learning. Being too kind can be cognitively unkind.
4. Variation
5. To make this exercise more oral, pair the students and ask them to sit facing each other. Give Later-comer A to one student and Late-comer B to the other in each pair. They then have to do very detailed listening to each other s texts.
. Feeling and grammarclass
Ask the students to draw a quick sketch of a four-year-old they know well. Give them these typical questions such a person may ask, eg Mummy, does the moon go for a wee-wee? Where did I come from?. Ask each student to write half a dozen questions such a person might ask, writing them in speech bubbles on the drawing. Go round and help with the grammar.
Get the students to fill the board with their most interesting four-year-old questions.
Variationscan be used with various question situations. The following examples work well:
Ask the students to imagine a court room-the prosecution barrister is questioning a defense witness. Tell the students to write a dozen questions the prosecution might ask.
What kind of questions might a woman going to a foreign country want to ask a woman friend living in this country about the man or the woman in the country?
And what might a man want to ask a man?
What kind of questions are you shocked to be asked in an English-speaking country and what questions are you surprised not to be asked?
Ask three students to come out and help you demonstrate the exercise. Draw a picture on the board of something interesting you have done. Do not speak about it. Student A then writes a past simple sentence about it. Student B write about what had already happened before the picture action and student C about something that was going to happen, using the appropriate grammar.
I got up at eight am ve just got off the bus m going to work today
Put the students in fours. Each draws a picture of a real past action of theirs. They pass their picture silently to a neighbor in the foursome who adds a past tense sentence. Pass the picture again and each adds a past perfect sentence. They pass again and each adds a was going to sentence. All this is done in...
