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Activities In some oral classes, your teacher will ask you to lead an interactive activity with your classmates. Why?
DO be prepared: know exactly what you want to do and bring any materials you will need be brave: stand up and tell people clearly what you want them to do keep to time: know how long you have and use the time sensibly DON'T expect people to simply debate a topic you nominate without preparation General activities 1 Finish the Sentence Read the beginnings of each of the following sentences aloud (one at a time, obviously!). Once you’ve read a partial sentence out loud, each student in the class must complete it truthfully (and correctly). Sentences: My best friend… Last night… I have never… The Third World… Politicians… Parents… I once dreamt that… Christmas… I get really angry when… Some people… Going on holiday… Having my hair cut… Talking to a drunk… Hippies… A millionaire… When it rains, I… Vegetarians… Love… 2 Generalisations Trigger students’ reactions by reading out from the following list of (sometimes offensive) generalisations: Married people are boring. Footballers are not intelligent. You can’t be friends with your boss. Old people have no fun. Men are bad at languages. Young girls are brighter than young boys. Engineers and accountants are very rational people. Mathematics is for intelligent people. All politicians are corrupt. Rich people have a great life. People who talk a lot don’t say much. Top sports stars have fewer worries than most other workers. City people are more cultured than those from the country. Artists are different from most people. Poor people are happy in their own way. 3 Strip story (requires some preparation) Find or write a very brief story with an equal number of sentences to your number of students. Write each sentence on a separate piece of paper. In class, hand the bits of paper out to the students. The students are not allowed to show each other their sentences, and must memorise them and hand the bits of paper back to you. Explain the task: “These sentences put together in the right order make up a story. Work out the correct sequence without writing anything down.” The students re-create the story (without your help and speaking only English, of course) and present their sequence to you. 4 Creative careers (requires preparation) Bring two sets of note cards for the class: one set will have professions (writer, gardener, professor, etc.) written on them and one set will have workplaces (factory, hotel, stock exchange, design studio, etc.) Put the students into pairs and have them decide which of them is going to be the employer and which is going to be the potential employee, then have each pair choose (without looking) a profession and a workplace. The students have to work together to create a scenario in which the employer, no matter how outrageous the combination of profession/workplace is, hires the potential employee. Once the students decide on their answers, have some of the pairs explain why the candidate thinks he/she wants to hire the candidate. The scenarios can get quite creative if, for example, a lawyer is applying for work at a kindergarten or a pianist is applying for work in a mine. 5 Quick alphabet You need a timer. Divide the students in two groups. Time each one individually. Pick any letter of the alphabet. In each group, students have to take turns, and quickly tell you a word starting with that letter, the next student has to pick the following letter, and so on until they get to “z”. The quickest team wins. Variation: Now that they are familiar with the rules, make the game a bit harder by asking them only for verbs, or adjectives, or even food, countries, etc. 6 Topic starters Choose topics to discuss as a class. Try to get as many students talking as you can. Have a time limit for each discussion so that you are able to discuss more than one topic. Alternative: Have a different student each time introduce a topic you provide. They will talk a bit about it and provide their own personal opinions. The class will then react to what this person says. Have them lead the discussion. Here are some example topic starters: - Legalising marijuana - Studying abroad - Euthanasia - Britney Spears - American culture influence on France - Rap or Classical music? - The European Union - George W. Bush - Recent movies - Gambling - Fast Food & Health - Alcohol abuse - French administration - Teenagers today - The French Riviera - The Fac & Education system Post-presentation activities In some classes, your teacher may ask you to give a presentation followed by a post-presentation interactive activity in which you lead the students in a task related to your presentation. Here are some ideas for this kind of exercise. · Charades: The presenters prepare various words or expressions thematically linked to their topic and write them on slips of paper. Each student in the class must take a turn acting out the word or expression that appears on his or her slip of paper while the others try to guess what he or she is trying to imitate. The presenters may divide the class up into teams. · Pictionary: The presenters prepare slips of paper with vocabulary words linked to their topic. Then they divide the class into teams. The first team to go must pick someone to draw. Then the presenters show that person a word and he or she must try to draw it while his or her teammates try to call out the correct word. If they guess correctly, they win a point. At the end, the team with the most points wins. · Debates: The presenters bring up a controversial topic. They divide the class in half. **A debate needs to be organized and structured – an interactive activity that is a debate cannot simply be “now debate what you think about this topic”. That is NOT a facilitated interactive activity. The presenters need to give each team a side – for or against whatever the matter at hand is. The presenters could give them some ideas for some main points. Then the teams prepare a certain amount of points to support their argument. · Flashcards, Quizzes, Scattergories · Jeopardy: The presenters must prepare answers (not questions) based on vocabulary or anything having to do with their topic in advance. The presenters divide the class into small groups and distribute different answers written on cards to each group. Then in their groups, the students write up questions to accompany those answers. Then the groups compete with each other, each group asking the other groups the questions they have prepared. If a group answers a question correctly they win a point. If a group stumps everyone they win a point. When all of the questions are used up, the group with the most points for questions answered correctly wins. · Role Plays – Presenters create scenarios with characters and assign different “roles” to other students in groups of 3 or so. Each little group has to then improvise and act out their characters. · Games of any sort that are appropriate and adapted to their topic and a reasonable time limit. |
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