Minimal resources: Low-level activities

By Miles Craven

Level: Starter/beginner, Elementary, Pre-intermediate, Intermediate, Upper intermediate Type: Teaching notes

Starter level

Word tennis: Vocabulary

This is a good activity to review key vocabulary for a variety of starter-level word groups.

• Put students into pairs and tell them to turn their chairs to face each other.
• Choose a word group (e.g. colours or furniture) and write it on the board.
• Explain that students should take turns to say one word they can think of that belongs to the word group.
• They should continue, like a game of tennis, with the ‘rally’ lasting as long as either of them can think of an appropriate word.
• The winner is therefore the last student to say a word!
• You may wish to follow this up by telling students to write down all the words they thought of.
• Tell the pair with the longest list to write it on the board, and then review spelling and pronunciation.

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Dialogue build: writing and reading

• Put students into pairs and give each pair six strips of blank paper.
• Tell them to write a short dialogue to practise any English they know.
• Explain that they should write each line of dialogue on a separate strip of paper.
• Give students time to think of a dialogue and write the six lines of their dialogue on their strips of paper.
• Monitor and check for accuracy. When students have finished, tell them to mix their strips of paper and exchange them with another pair of students.
• Explain they should read the strips of paper and try to put the dialogue in the correct order.
• When students have completed the reordering activity, tell them to practice the dialogue with their partner.
• Tell students to continue to exchange their strips of paper with their classmates until each pair has reordered and practiced each of the dialogues.

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Elementary level

Category game: vocabulary This is one way you might wish to revise key vocabulary:

• List the following categories in a column on the board: country, sport, meat, vegetable, fruit, animal, job, colour.
• Divide the class into groups, and write one letter at the top of the board, for example S. Tell each group to think as quickly as they can of a word for each category that begins with that letter (e.g. spain, swimming, sausages, etc.)
• The first group to finish should shout ‘Stop!’
• Tell them to call out their list of words and write them on the board next to the appropriate category.
• You may wish to ask groups to spell any difficult words. If all words are correct, award the group five points. If they make a mistake, deduct five points from their total.
• Then begin the game again by writing a different letter on the board.

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One minute, please!: speaking

This is a good exercise to try top develop confidence and fluency with students at lower levels.

• Begin by writing a list of topics on the board, such as football, boys, school, parents, food, holidays, etc.
• Then divide the class into two teams and ask for a volunteer from one team to come to the front to sit in a chair facing the rest of the class.
• Explain that students from the opposing team should choose a topic from the board, and that the student must try to talk about that topic for no less than one minute.
• Add that while some pauses are allowed for thinking time, no pause should be longer than five seconds.
• If the student manages to talk for a full one minute, award five points. Give proportionally fewer points for less than one minute of talking time.
• Continue the game with students from each team taking turns to come to the ‘hot seat’ and talk about a topic for one minute.
• The team with the most number of points at the end of the game is the winner.
• You many wish to note any grammar, vocabulary or pronunciation errors and review these in a later lesson.