english language learning games

8/9/2019 English Language Learning Games

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English Language Learning Games

Jumbled letters, jumbled words.

Choose your sentence

John quickly left just before the man woke,

Now change the letters between words. Change the first letter of eachword with the last letter of the word in front and vice versa.

Johq nuickll yefj tusb tefort ehm eaw noke

Now mix up the words

ehm tefort noke nuickll Johq yefj eaw tusb

Starting from Just students should be able to work out the order of thewords if they can recognize the spelling. So if they recognize ‘Johq’,they know they need to look for an n to replace the q. they also knowthat the next word begins with q. They know that John is the first wordbecause the first letter, j is correct. This means there is no other wordin front of it.



Mixed double sentences

Write two sentences

He plays football with his friends every Friday after school

I am cycling to Brighton this weekend with the cycle club

cycling he with his friends school after I am plays to this weekend thecycle club football every Friday Brighton with Mix all the words up an write them on the board

Divide the class two teams, A and B

Write ten spaces for each sentence.

A____ _____ ______ ______ _____ ______ _______ _____ _______ _______

B____ _____ ______ _______ _____ ______ _______ _____ _______ _______

Teams take it in turns to nominate words which they think belong totheir sentence. Each word they nominate correctly is written in itsplace. However, if they nominate a word from the other team’ssentence, it is written in the appropriate place in the other team’ssentence. The first team to finish their sentence wins. This is good for



contrasting structures e.g. simple vs. continuous, active vs. passive,present perfect vs. past.

Newspaper sentences



Here’s an activity for more advance learners. Give one newspaperbetween two students. They have to make a sentence using wordsfrom the paper as follows: The first person chooses one word from thefirst page, the next from the second page, the first from the third pageand so on. Alternatively use text books, reading passages (alternate

paragraphs)

The reckless taxi driver roleplay.



A native English speaker arrives at an airport in a non-English speakingcountry, and takes a taxi into town. During the ride, the driver starts aconversation to practise his English, asking present perfect questionssuch as: Have you ever... visited (the country),

heard of (famous place/person from the country), tried/tasted/drunk(food/drink from the country), heard (singer from the country)?

The taxi driver sits in front of and slightly to one side of the passenger,and turns round while asking the questions, and the passengeranswers while warning the driver: Look out!, Please slow down!, Watchthat bus!

Past vs present pictures.

Take a picture and look at it for a minute, then give it to a student andmake some statements as follows: There was a man, he was standingby the road. Because you have not got the picture, you are describingfrom memory, using past tense. Ask the student with the picture torepeat, using present tense. There’s a man, he is standing by the road.Include some statements that are not true, eg A dog was lying on thegrass. The student should reply: A dog is not lying on the grass. Teachthe students still, not....anymore, so they can use these in their parts:

The man is still standing by the road. The dog is not lying on the grassanymore. Give out pictures to pairs of students for further practice.

School for butlers

Explain that using past tense in an offer makes it very formal andpolite. Tell the students they are trainee butlers and that they shouldchange your sentences into past, replacing you with Sir/madam, usingappropriate intonation (slow and dignified), and body language (armsat the side, perhaps a bow).

T. Do you want anything else?

Ss. Did Sir/Madam want anything else?

T. What time do you want lunch?



Ss. What time did Sir/Madam want lunch?

T. Are you ready to have tea now?

Ss. Was Sir/Madam ready to have tea now?

Court room questions

In pairs, students roleplay a lawyer and a witness in court. The lawyergives a picture for the witness to look at for a very short time, just afew seconds, and then takes it back and asks questions, as if questioning a witness. Example:

Lawyer: How many people were there?

Witness: (hesitant) err... three?

Lawyer: Are you certain/sure/positive there were three people?

Witness: ...err not certain, no

Lawyer: What was the weather like?

Witness: (confident) Sunny

The lawyer asks a direct question first, and, if he hears any uncertaintyin the answer, he can ask a follow up, indirect question, to find outwhether the witness is really sure. Of course, the witness will guess theanswer if not sure. The focus is on intonation as well as direct andindirect questions.

Logic puzzles

Solving the following logic puzzle depend on understanding themeanings of verb tenses. The focus is especially on the perfect tenses.



The book is 240 pages long and I am half way through. I read twentypages a day. How long have I been reading? Answer 6 days

I have been reading a book for 3 days. On Monday I read 6 pages, Tuesday 14 pages, Wednesday 25 pages. I am half way through thebook and I am planning to finish the book tomorrow because I have togive it back. How many pages will I read tomorrow? How many pageswill I have read in total? Answers 45, 90

I finished a 250 page book last night,. Yesterday I read 100 because it

became very exciting. Before then, I had been reading the book ratherslowly for ten days. How many pages had I read every day, onaverage, during that time? Answer 15.

For a follow up, ask the students to write their own simple problems foreach other.

The determiners game

Write the following on the board: everyone, nearly everyone, mostpeople, many people, some people, not many people, a few people,very few people, noone. Read sentences such as: ___ think football isboring, ____ can drive, ____ have got a TV, ____ live in a hole in theground, ____ would like to be rich, ___ want to get married, ____ cansing very well, _______ live to be 100, _____ have been into space, ____ have climbed Everest.

Ask students to write the words that they think best fills the blank foreach sentence. The best answer is likely to be the one chosen by moststudents. Eliminate people who have different answers from themajority each round until only two or three are left.



Real or unreal

A real conditional, eg If we go to London we’ll have a good time, shows

that something is though possible or likely, whereas an unrealconditional means it is thought unlikely: If we went to London, wewould spend a lot of money. Three people are having a discussionabout whether to do something: The person in favour (S1) uses a realconditional, seeing it as a real possibility, and the person against (S2)uses an unreal conditonal, believing it should not happen. They try topersuade a third person (S3), who responds appropriately with will orwould, and decides at the end whether to go or not.

Put the main ideas on cards: eg A: Visit Big Ben/Go on a river trip/ SeeBuckingham Palace. B: Spend a lot of money/Not have enough time tosee everything/Get very tired. Example:

S1 If we go to London we’ll see Big Ben

S3 Yes, we will

S2 Yes but if we went, we’d spend a lot of money

S3 We would, wouldn’t we?

S1 We’ll go on a river trip, if we go.

S3 We’ll enjoy that! Etc.

Picture games

Al Do vs. Al B. Doing



Stick two pictures of 2 different men on the board and introduce themas Al B. Doing and Al Do. The more confident looking one should be AlB. Doing. Explain that we use I’ll be (doing) for something we know wewill be doing at a certain point in the future, whereas we use I’ll (do)for spontaneous predictions, which of course may not come true. Put

the students in pairs and assign one role to each.

Point to Al B. Doing on the board and say next week/ traveling toAmerica to elicit:

Al B. Doing: Next week, I’ll be travelling to America.

Al Do: Err... I’ll be here next week.

Continue with other prompts. Tomorrow/climb a mountain, nextyear/move to Canada Friday/pick up my new car september/learn

chinese

Note: Al Do does not have a cue because his predictions arespontaneous, so a hesitation is completely natural.

Similar pictures.Give out pictures with similar themes, to groups of four. Have one stand at one end of the room and the others face himat the other. The student by himself says Take a step forward if theresa bird in your picture and describes other objects in this way. At theend, the student nearest him should be the one with the most similarpicture.

Past vs present Student A describes a picture in the present. Heshould add things that are not there and say somethings that are nottrue. There’s a man riding a bike, he’s wearing a green hat. Then hegives it to student B. Student A a now describes it from memory in thepast because he can no longer see the picture. After each sentenceStudent B says the equivalent present tense sentence. Eg

A There was a man riding a bike

B He’s still riding a bike

A He was wearing a green hat

B He’s not wearing a green hat any more

(The second sentence was not true.) Thus, you not only practice pastand present tenses, but create a context for still and not... any more



An extention is ‘he must have lost it.’

Alphabetical orderGive out one picture card to each student. Tell them to call out theobject on their card. Then tell them to stand in a line (or around the

edge of the classroom) according to the first letter of their picture. Thiscould be used as pair/group formation activity, as people standingnext to eachother can work together. Eg they could talk for a minuteon the subject of their picture for one minute.

Same words different meanings. (Can also be used as a spokenexercise, for tone, modulation and difference)

Choose two pictures, one of a confident person and one who looksrather timid. Repeat these sentences in two ways, which may be saidby the people in the picture with different meaning each time. The

assertive person sounds strong the other iw wek and complaining.

I’ll never do it : refusal vs defeatism

I can do it : determination vs volunteering for a job.

I’ll do that: determination vs spur of the moment

Don’t kid me: threatening vs pleading

I don’t have to: refusal (= I’m not going to) vs someone opting out of doing something (=I don’t have to go if you’d rather I didn’t)

I’m allowed to! (strong assertion vs. question intonation= Are yougiving me permission?)

I’m always here assertion= I’m here to help vs I’m always in the sameplace complaint)

What are you going to to about it? A challenge aggressive vs a

genuine enquiry

Get out of the way or you’ll get hurt threat vs real warning eg theres acar coming

You shouldn’t have done that threat, criticism vs simplyacknowledging the wrong thing was done



Don't move threat vs warning.

Say each sentence then ask studnets to say which person is saying it.Say sentences in a neutral way and point at a picture and get studentsto say it in the way they are saying it.

Vague descriptions

Describe pictures using stuff thing, ie omitting all the nouns, studentshave to guess what the picture is, eg There’s big red thing next to agreen thing. The green thing has yellow bits on it. There's some bluestuff under the green thing.

(a red bus next to tree with green and yellow leaves, in front of a lake.)

Talking pictures, speaking activity.

Take two pictures of two different people and hold them up. Putstudents in pairs. One role plays each person. Hold one picture up as asign for the student playing that person to speak, then the other, andso on. Use contrasting people (age, appearance) for an interestingconversation.

Mnemonics

Some ways to help students remember words using rhymes,alliteration, puns and words within words.



It has been suggested that trombone has a subconscious link withbone- when we see the word trombone, it might recall the image of abone in our minds. Following this principle, we could draw students’

attention to words within words.

Manage: A man of a certain age. Sexist, perhaps, but a strongsubconscious image.

Destroy: The link here is the image of the ruined city of Troy after the Trojan war.

Restore: Having a rest, to regain health, for example.

Enterprise: Enter the market to win a prize (this is how it ispronounced), ie to earn money.

In no sense guilty: This is a play on words, because the first threewords sound like Innocence, which is the opposite of guilt. Sosomeone who is in no sense guilty is innocent.

Spelling and word structure

Sometimes the spelling and letter position give a clue to the meaning:

Parallel has two ls next to each other.

Level is a palindrome, and so well-balanced.



D comes in the middle of middle and at the end of end.

Letter is read from left to right. Letter begins with l and ends in r,which are abbreviations of left and right. This example helps studentsto remember which is side is left and which is right.

To listen, with a silent t, is an anagram of O, silent t!

Tongue and language are not exactly the same, but they havemeaning that overlaps, and they have three letters in common, too.

Associating words

Another technique is to pair words that look or sound similar, or have

some other connection, and strengthen the connection with ameaningful link:

We can link sight and sigh with a rhyme:

Sight from the eyes,

But from the mouth, sighs.

Maintain and mountain. Maintain collocates with high eg maintain highstandards /levels/quality. Hence the connection with mountain.



Note and notice, which has an extra ic (I see!) are similar in meaning.

Rob and steal can be confusing, so here is a way to remember:

You can rob Rob, and you can steal steel,

But you can’t steal Rob and you can’t rob steel.

i.e. you can rob a person (Rob) and steal something (steel), but not theother way round.

Choose and chose: write chOOse on the board, with two large Os. Sayto a student, choose one ‘O’. Then rub out the one not chosen: chO se.Point to the remaining O and say you chose that one. Get the studentsto do the same in pairs.

Two tall stories.

We could also make connections between words and images based onspelling or sound in short stories:

A hundred years ago, nobody except the very rich could buy a carbecause they were so expensive. Then Henry Ford started mass-producing cars, the prices came down, so more people started to buythem. In fact so many people could buy one, a new expression cameinto being: I can buy a car! A Ford! I can buy a Ford, a car! I can, aFord, a car! I can afford a car!



There was a lion in the jungle.‘I’m the most impoRRRtant animal!’ Heroared, with a loud roar on the R! (Write impoRtant on the board) And

all the animals were afraid of him. Then one day he lost his voice. Hecouldn’t ‘roarrr’ any more, and he lost all his power to frighten others,and all the other animals laughed at him, so he became Impotent. (Rubout R,and change a to e)

english language learning games

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