[Pearce]

I'm looking for some advice, I know there are lots of useful resources on this website and I've gathered lots of ideas already. However, I'm struggling with long term plans.

I have a class of 10 adults, late 20's to early 30's three times a week. I actually teach them on their lunch hour in a meeting room at their work, so they're not after full on hard core studying. This was set up by them as more of an opportunity for them to practice their existing skills and build upon them.

Because the lesson is in their lunch hour, it's important that it's fun. I've trialed a few things such as 20 questions, find the liar, who am I and speed dating style coversations that have all gone down well. Things that haven't gone down well are talking about current affairs or day to day topics. They just want a little fun.

I'm seriously running out of ideas as I can't just do the same games on a loop. Any ideas for activites or games I can do with them would be much appreciated.

[ssfr]

What about playing modified versions of the games taboo or catch phrase? My adult students usually enjoyed those sorts of games. They also really enjoyed learning about idioms so we would play games where they had to guess what idioms meant/what situation to use them in.

Don't know if you've already used those though! Good luck!

[Pearce]

Thank you, I've played taboo with them yes which did go down well. My problem is trying to come up with new things for each lesson. For tomorrow I'll do the idiom exercise as I think that'll go down really well.

Any ideas of how to build a long term structure for conversational classes? The students don't want books, hand outs or any kind of home work. It would be fine if they we're a talkative bunch, but they're not at all. I need to force their participation with activities but cant just keep doing the same ones on a loop.

[LouannePiccolo]

If you sit down and write up a list of grammatical points and language structures (a mini-curriculum) they need to revise and then another list that you should do with them for them to improve their English, you may get a clearer idea of the kinds of games you can play and in which order. For the moment, I get the impression that there's not much structure and that will only make you anxious and your students will end up feeling like they having learnt anything.

Here are some ideas:
- To revise closed (yes/no) questions and to teach vocabulary, I often use a game called Qui est-ce, here in France. Students play in pairs. They each have a card with lots of different pictures according to a theme (animals, children, monsters, household appliances etc.). The cards are the same for both partners. They must choose to be one of the pictures without telling their partner who they are. The aim is to ask only yes/no questions to try and find out who your partner is. For ex: you can ask "Have you got red hair? Are you a girl? Is your t-shirt pink? Have you got glasses? You can find this game on Amazon or make it yourself.
- To revise -wh questions you can always use Trivial Pursuit. Find a version that's in your students' mother tongue so that they have to translate the questions into English (to make it more difficult) or use an English version if you want it to be a little easier. This revises -wh questions, the passive voice, vocabulary, sentence order, gerund etc.
- Jeopardy is great to revise whatever you like as it's you who chooses the categories in the game. Draw up a grid on the board with 5 columns and 5 rows. Make each column a category for ex: prepositions, questions, vocabulary, passive voice etc. and make each row an amount of money, for ex: 100-500 euros/dollars. Each student has a turn to play a category for a certain amount of money. For ex: student A might choose prepositions for 200 euros. You then give him a sentence to complete with the correct preposition such as "I ran (along) the corridor". If he answers correctly he wins the 200 euros, if not someone else can play for his money. Once the question has been answered correctly, you cross it off and it cannot be replayed. The student with the most money at the end wins.

These 3 games are complex enough for you to be able to play them more than once to learn different structures or points. So, they may bore your students less. You can always stop the game to explain an element of grammar if you see that your students have not mastered it which means that they are also learning and not just playing games. In fact, I think you should! However, I must stress that if your students really want to learn English, there is no quick-fix solution. They may have to sit down and do more classical classroom work from time to time. They can't expect to just play games without any structure and get their money's worth in the end.

I hope this helps!
Louanne

[Tamara Hightower]

Louanne,

These are great ideas and just what I was looking for. Thanks!

Tamara

[MayaWins]

Love it Louanne. I'm sorry I missed it till now!