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Games for revision and recycling

Lying game Aim of the activity Improve fluency skills. Preparation You will need dice for this game. Procedure Write a list of general topics, numbered 1 to 6, on the board. For example, 1) love; 2) family; 3) sport and hobbies; 4) holiday; 5) ambitions; 6) food Students work in groups. One student in the group throws the dice and the number showing on the dice decides on their topic for the next part of the activity. They then have to talk for one minute on the topic, but before they do that, they choose a card, which they must keep hidden from the other members of the group. On one card is written Tell the truth and on the other is Tell a lie. While they are talking, they must follow the instruction on the card and the object of the exercise is for the rest of the group to decide whether they are telling the truth or lying.

Criss cross quiz Aim of the activity Revise a variety of language skills and structures in an engaging way. Preparation. You will have to prepare questions for each category in advance. Procedure This game is based on a game of noughts and crosses. Draw a grid on the board and in each of the nine squares write a different language category. For example, spelling, pronunciation, verbs, odd one out, etc. In two teams, the students take it in turns to choose a category and to answer the corresponding question. If they answer correctly, their team can mark a nought or cross in that square. If they do not answer correctly, the question passes to the other team. The first team to get a row of noughts or crosses is the winner.

Label game Aim of the activity To revise idioms by using them to talk about personal experiences, thus making the new language more memorable.

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Preparation Make a copy of a list of idioms to be practised for each student in the class. You will need 6 to 10 blank sticky address labels for each student in the class. Post-its can be used as an alternative. You will also need a poster-size piece of paper for each group of 3 to 4 students, dice and counters. Procedure Give a copy of the list of the idioms to be practised to each student in the class. Give each student in the class a pile of blank sticky address labels. Ask them to look at the list of idioms and to think of a time when any of them were relevant to their own experience. For each relevant idiom, they should take a sticky label and write the idiom on it, as well as the approximate time of their life the event they are thinking of happened (e.g. last year, yesterday, when I was a child, on my birthday, about three weeks ago etc). They should not write down what happened, just the idiom at this stage. When they have finished writing idioms on separate labels, ask the students to work in groups and give each group a poster-size piece of paper. Students now arrange their idioms in a line or a snake on the piece of paper in chronological order and stick them down. Give each group dice and counters and ask the students to take it in turns to throw the dice and move their counter along the idioms according to the number on the dice. Students should either talk about a time when the idiom they land on was relevant to themselves, or ask the student who wrote the idiom down to talk about their experience.

Don’t say it! (Based on the game "TABOO") Aim of the activity A game that enables students to widen their vocabulary range and use new words in context. Preparation You will need to prepare a set of cards. Each card will have a target word (i.e. the word you want the students to revise) at the top and four associated words underneath. You should choose the four associated words according to the words you would use to define the target word. For example, if the target word is library, the four associated words may be book/borrow/read/study. You will need one set of at least 50 cards for each group of six to eight students. Procedure 1) Ask the students to think of a noun and write it on the board. Then ask them to call out any words they associate with this noun and write them on the board. When you have done that, ask them to choose the four words they associate most strongly with the noun they have chosen. Finally, ask them to make a definition of the noun without using the four words they associate with it. 2) Explain that the students are going to play a game by giving definitions of words for other

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students to guess but that there will be some words they are not allowed to use. 3) Ask them to work in groups of six to eight and to divide each group into Team A and Team B. 4) Give each team a set of word cards, but tell them not to look at them yet. 5) Explain how to play the game using the instructions below: HOW TO PLAY THE GAME 1) Team A should sit facing Team B with a desk between them. 2) Put the word cards in a pile face down on the desk. 3) Decide which team is going to start. 4) Player A stands facing their team, Team A, picks up a card from the top of the pile and holds it up so that Team B can see the words on the card. One player from Team B starts timing Player A for one minute. 5) Player A describes the word at the top of the card to their team, without using the other words on the card. If they use one of the words on the card, they take another card. 6) If they do not know the word at the top of their card, they can put it back to the bottom of the pile and take another one. 7) When Team A have guessed the word, Player A takes the next card from the top of the pile and repeats the activity. 8) Player A continues to describe words for their team to guess for one minute. After one minute, count the number of words Team A have guessed and give one point for each correct guess. 9) The game continues with teams and players taking it in turns to describe and guess words until all the cards have been used. 10) The team with the highest score at the end of the game are the winners.

What would you do? (Based on the game "SCRUPLES") Aim of the activity To predict how other people would react in unlikely or imaginary situations and practise the second (and third) conditionals. Preparation You will need one set of cards for each group of three to five students in the class. On each card, write a question asking how people would react in different hypothetical situations. For example, if you found a diary that a friend had left at your house, would you read it? Procedure 1) Ask the students to work in groups of three to five. 2) Give one set of situation cards to each student in the class. 3) Ask them to put the situation cards in a pile face down in the middle of the table. 4) They should then take it in turns to pick a card and read the situation aloud. Before giving their answer to the question on the card, they should give the other members of the group time to predict their answer. They do this secretly by writing Yes or No on a piece of paper without showing it to the other members of the group or the person who is going to

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answer the question. 5) When the other members of the group have written down their predictions, they listen to the answer and score one point if they have guessed correctly. 6) The winner is the person with the highest score at the end of the game.

Board games Aim of the activity To practise using new structures or target language in a fun yet controlled way. Preparation Prepare a game board with a start, a finish and a different prompt for the target language in each box on the board. You also need dice or coins and counters. Procedure Students play in teams and move around the board according to the number they throw on the dice. For example, to practise first conditionals, put one half of an "if" sentence in each box on the game board so that the students have to complete the sentence using the correct sequence of sentences before they can move on. To practise present perfect, put a different topic in each box on the game board so that the students have to use the present perfect tense. For example, "Talk about a present you've give someone recently." "Talk about something you've given up." or "Talk about a beautiful place you've visited." To practise irregular past participles, put a different verb in each box on the game board and ask the students to ask a question or make up a sentence in the simple past each time they land on a verb. OTHER PUBLISHED GAMES: PICTIONARY OUTBURST INSPEAQUENCE

TOPIX SCRABBLE BOGGLE