Ready to Roll

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Ready to Roll! Preface

This is a book full of simple ideas that work. They have all been tried and tested by teachers. The activities in this book are extremely light on materials and take very little time to prepare.

Teachers are encouraged to adapt the activities to their lessons and students. Each activity includes ideas on how to adapt it according to students’ abilities. Bear in mind that these are suggestions, and you will know your students and their interests best.

Above all, remember that learning is best when it’s also fun for both teacher and student.

Aileen Logan

Activity 1 Hot Potato Name Game!

Overview ❚ Type: Icebreaker

Description: In this activity students stand in a circle. One passes an object to another student saying that student’s name and that student then repeats the process.

Level: Any

Length of time: 10-15 minutes

Students: Class

Notes ❚This activity can be made more challenging and fun by adding another object so as to have two objects being passed at the same time. The game can be used on the first day of class as a way of learning names. Alternatively, it can be used as a vocabulary review for example, on catching the object the student has to make a sentence with a word from the previous day, or the student has to give a word beginning with ‘m’, or a word containing the sound /ɜ:/ and so on.

Activity 2 Find Three Things in Common

Description: In this activity, students have mini conversations to find three things they have in common.

Language focus: Yes / No questions. Me too. / Me neither. So have I. / Neither have I. Both of us ___ / neither of us ___.

Level: Any

Students: Pairs

Notes ❚This activity really gets students talking and can be used as an icebreaker with any level. It can also be used to revise the ‘Me too / Me neither’ structure for lower levels, and ‘So have I/Neither have I’ for slightly higher levels. It is important to point out to students that they should try to find out interesting things they have in common and avoid obvious things like, ‘We are both at school.’

Activity 3 Three Numbers in My Life

Description: In this activity students learn something about their classmates by asking them about three numbers in their lives.

Language focus: Asking questions

Level: Any

Length of time: 10 minutes

Students: Pairs or small groups

Notes ❚Ensure that students are actively finding out things by asking questions and not just telling each other what their numbers represent.

Activity 4 Lie Detector

Overview ❚ Type: Icebreaker or roundup

Description: In this activity students write four true sentences about themselves and one false. Other students have to guess which sentence is not true.

Language focus: Varied

Level: Any

Students: Pairs or small groups

Notes ❚ This activity can be done as an icebreaker or a roundup to practise a grammar point. It can be adapted to the level. For example, for higher levels all sentences need to be written in the past perfect, or sentences must all contain phrasal verbs with ‘look’.

Activity 5 How Well Do You Know Your Classmates?

Overview ❚ Type: Warmer or roundup

Description: In this activity students write three things about themselves on a Post-it which gets put into a hat. Post-its are randomly taken by other students who guess who the information is about.

Language focus: Any

Level: Any

Students: Class

Notes ❚This fun activity can be adapted to higher levels by telling students to use structures or vocabulary learnt during the lesson in their sentences.

Activity 6 Who am I?

Description: In this activity students have a Post-it note stuck onto their backs. They can’t see what is on their note. Each note has the name of a different famous person on it. Unaware of their secret identity, students have to mingle and find out who they are by asking others questions.

Language focus: Yes / No questions, reported speech and questions

Level: Pre-Intermediate and above

Students: Class

Notes ❚This activity is a lot of fun and gets students moving about and interacting with students they might not normally talk to. Make sure the famous people are well-known amongst students.

Activity 7 Three-picture Weekend

Overview ❚ Type: Warmer

Description: In this activity students draw simple pictures of their weekend and talk about them.

Language focus: Past simple, language of description

Level: Any

Students: Pairs

Notes ❚ This is a good activity for Monday mornings and gets students interacting without the typical “what did you do?” question.

Activity 8 What’s in My Bag?

Overview ❚ Type: Warmer or filler

Description: In this activity students describe an object in their bags for others to guess by asking questions.

Language focus: Language of description and paraphrasing skills

Level: Pre-intermediate and above

Students: Pairs or class

Notes ❚If students do not have bags they can select something in the classroom to describe without looking at it. This is a great, personalised activity which engages students’ curiosity, while also practising the useful skill of paraphrasing which they will use outside the classroom when they don’t know a word and need to describe it in order to be understood.

Activity 9 I Spy with My Little Eye Something Beginning with…

Description: In this activity students select anything in the classroom (e.g. chair, hat, somebody’s sock) and say, “I spy with my little eye something beginning with P” (for example). Others, in turn, have to guess the word.

Language focus: Vocabulary extension

Level: Lower-intermediate and above

Students: Class

Notes ❚This is a great activity to start a class while latecomers are on their way. Alternatively, it can be done by pairs who have finished an activity before others, as it isn’t too noisy.

Activity 10 Order!

Description: In this activity students arrange themselves according to instruction (e.g. oldest to youngest, alphabetical order).

Language focus: Asking questions

Level: Beginner and above

Students: Class

Notes ❚This activity can also be used if you want to change seating positions of students without appearing to be picking on anyone. The activity can be adapted to higher levels by making the question a little more complex and varied, for example, ‘How long could you get by without a mobile phone?’

Activity 11 Using What You Have

Description: In this activity students are given a word (preferably of two syllables or more) and they try to use the existing letters to make as many new words as they can.

Level: Any

Students: Pairs and class

Notes ❚This activity generates a lot of new vocabulary, but make sure the given word has a reasonable number of letters in it. Also, during the activity, make sure students are not adding letters which do not appear in the given word.

Activity 12 Board Scrabble

Description: In this activity students add words to an existing word on the board. Award one point for each letter.

Level: Any

Students: Class

Notes ❚This activity can be adapted depending on the level of the students, ranging from simple to complicated requirements. For example, words must be more than three letters long, they must be related to the topic word or they must finish in -ion.

Activity 13 Hungry Shark!

Description: In this activity students have to guess the letters that make up a word so they don’t fall off a cliff into a hungry shark’s mouth.

Language focus: Vocabulary review

Level: Any

Length of time: 10-15 minutes depending on the amount of words you choose to revise

Students: Class

Notes ❚This can be adapted into a pronunciation-type activity where students have to guess the individual sounds that make up a word, as opposed to the letters of a word.

Activity 14 Alphabet Race

Description: In this activity students think of a word beginning which each letter of the alphabet.

Level: Any

Students: Pairs, groups or class

Notes ❚ The letters provide a motivating prompt for students and having a whole alphabet of words tends to give students a great sense of achievement, whether they have come up with the words on their own or learnt new words from their classmates. This activity can be used for higher levels where students have to think of a word related to a given topic or a words of a particular part of speech (e.g. nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs).

Activity 15 Categories

Overview ❚ Description: In this activity students are given a category and they have to think

of words in this category.

Type: Warmer

Level: Any

Students: Groups or class

Notes ❚This activity can be done student by student around the class as an elimination activity or in groups with a time limit. Category types depend on level and can range from simple categories such as names of fruit to more complex categories such as three-part phrasal verbs.

Activity 16 Tick Tock

Description: In this activity an alarm (or mobile phone with a timer) is passed around the class and students answer a question while holding the alarm. They then pass it to the next student before it goes off.

Language focus: Question formation with repetition

Level: Any

Length of time: 10-15 minutes depending on the amount of questions asked

Students: Class

Notes ❚This activity can start very simply by asking, for example, ‘What can you find in a food shop?’ and can get more challenging by asking, ‘What alternatives can a match be used for?’ The activity is also good for repetition of difficult structures as students will need to repeat the question each time they pass the timer.

Activity 17 Room 101

Overview ❚ Type: Review and speaking

Description: In this activity learners share three things they would remove from their lives and put into an imaginary room never to be seen or experienced again.

Language focus: Expressing dislikes

Level: Intermediate and above

Students: Pairs

Notes ❚ This activity is based on the BBC programme and generates a great deal of speaking and sharing of opinions. Students are encouraged to justify their choices. This not only results in a complete answer but helps reinforce the valuable speaking and writing skills which will be needed throughout their language development.

Activity 18 Shapes of Preference

Description: In this activity students select their preference from a variety of choices of things. They have to justify their choices by using comparatives and superlative adjectives.

Language focus: Language of preference and comparatives and superlative adjectives.

Level: Any

Students: Class

Notes ❚This activity can be adapted to review vocabulary. For example, write four words from the previous day’s class on the board. Students select the one that was most difficult to remember, the one that most difficult to pronounce, the most useful one, and so on. For more or fewer options you can draw a triangle, pentagon or hexagon.

Activity 19 Growing Sentence

Description: In this activity students are given a basic, short sentence which they have to extend word by word and watch it grow.

Language focus: Syntax and vocabulary extension

Level: Any

Students: Class

Notes ❚This activity can be done as a class activity or in pairs, where students write the longest sentence they can, as long as it continues to make sense, in a given time limit.

Activity 20 Changing Sentence

Description: In this activity students are given a sentence and they replace words in the sentence one by one and watch the sentence change.

Language focus: Vocabulary extension and syntax

Level: Any

Students: Class

Notes ❚ This activity can be adapted according to the level of the students. For example, for lower level students use simple nouns or verbs as replacement words and for higher levels encourage adverbs, adverbial phrases and so on.

Activity 21 Secret Story

Overview ❚ Type: Warmer or writing activity

Description: In this collaborative activity students write a story where different parts are written by different students.

Language focus: Writing and practice of narrative tenses and descriptive language

Level: Any

Students: Class

Notes ❚This activity can be adapted to any level by the demand of the questions you write on the board to prompt the story.

Activity 22 Mime Charades

Description: In this activity students mime a word for their class to guess.

Language focus: Vocabulary

Level: Any

Students: Class

Notes ❚This fun activity can be used to review vocabulary in a more active, lively fashion. It can also be used with popular movie titles, TV show names and such.

Activity 23 Who and Where Are We?

Overview ❚ Type: Role-play with dialogue

Description: In this activity students are given a situation. They need to write a short dialogue without saying who or where they are. Others in the class have to guess this.

Language focus: Writing and speaking

Level: Pre-intermediate and above

Students: Pairs

Notes ❚This activity can be adapted to higher-level learners by focusing on style and register or the use of more idiomatic language. You can include more controlled practice of specific language by telling students they need to use at least three words from the previous lesson.

Activity 24 Imaginary Dinner Party

Overview ❚ Type: Discussion or roundup

Description: In this activity students think of famous people they would invite to a dinner party. The famous people can be from history or the present, cartoon characters or real people.

Language focus: Second conditional and language of justifying

Students: Small groups

Notes ❚This activity can be adapted for higher levels by reviewing inverted conditionals (e.g. Were I to invite six famous people, I would invite…)

Activity 25 Island Essentials

Overview ❚ Type: Discussion or roundup

Description: In this activity students talk about five things they would take to a desert island.

Language focus: Vocabulary of attaching importance and second conditional to talk about hypothetical situations.

Students: Class

Notes ❚This activity can be adapted to higher levels by including the third conditional and speaking retrospectively. For example, ‘If we’d taken matches, we’d have been able to light a fire more easily.’

Activity 26 Broken Telephone

Overview ❚ Type: Filler

Description: In this activity students are given a phrase and they have to whisper the phrase from student to student around the class and try not to change it.

Language focus: Clear pronunciation and listening

Level: Beginner and above

Students: Class

Notes ❚For smaller classes, this can be done as a class activity. This activity can also be used at higher levels and is especially effective for practising confusing minimal pairs and connected speech in pronunciation.

Activity 27 Just a Minute

Description: Students talk about a given topic for one minute without hesitating or deviating from the topic.

Language focus: Fluency

Students: Groups

Notes ❚This activity is more focused on fluency than accuracy so allow for mistakes. Error correction can be done after the activity itself but during speaking time allow students to focus on fluency. You may find that 60 seconds is too challenging for students. If you find that it is too much time to speak alone in front of the class reduce it. Students are often very nervous at the beginning of this activity but end up really enjoying it and feeling more comfortable speaking in front of an audience - and in English!

Steps ❚Tell students they are going to practise speaking fluently with a small audience.1.

Give each student a small piece of paper and tell them to write down a topic 2. that they would like to talk about.

Collect the pieces of paper and mix them up randomly.3.

Divide students into two teams (Team A and Team B).4.

Tell each team to choose a person who will speak first (Speaker 1).5.

Tell students they will do a practice round first. 6.

Elicit the meaning of ‘7. hesitate’ and ‘deviate’ and express that hesitating and deviating are to be avoided.

Give Speaker 1 from Team A one of the topics and tell the student that he/she is 8. going to talk about this topic in front of the class for a minute without hesitating or deviating from this topic.

Activity 28 Secret Topic

Description: In this activity you, the teacher, start talking about a topic or activity without stating what the topic is. When students have figured out what the topic is, they may join in the conversation naturally and continue talking to you and other students about the topic, also without stating what it is.

Language focus: Fluency and turn-taking in conversation

Students: Class

Notes ❚The objective here is not to describe the chosen topic or activity, but to speak as naturally as possible about it and to have as many people as possible talking about it in a natural group conversation. Topics or activities could include buying shoes, going to the dentist, downloading music and wearing contact lenses.

Activity 29 Hidden Sentence

Overview ❚ Type: Filler or roundup

Description: In this activity students are given a sentence on a Post-it note and in pairs they have a mini conversation. They need to say their sentence as naturally as possible while another team has to detect what this hidden sentence is.

Language focus: Fluency and turn-taking in conversation

Students: Pairs

Notes ❚ The given sentences can be random like ‘I love Elvis Presley’ or they can be more focused on vocabulary or grammar from previous lessons. For example, if the grammar focus was the present perfect, a sentence could be, ‘I have never ridden a bicycle.’ The idea is that the students have to have a natural conversation to make the hidden sentence not stand out.

Activity 30 What a Strange Question!

Overview ❚ Type: Warmer or filler or roundup

Description: In this role-play activity students ask their partners a seemingly random question and their partners have to change character in order to answer the question as if they were in that situation.

Language focus: Fluency

Students: Pairs

Notes ❚While a few students may at first think this activity is a little strange, they usually manage to get into character and have a lot of fun with it. The idea is that students take on a different identity and in this way feel freer to express themselves. They practise several different functional language items at one time. Explaining, justifying, narrating as well as dealing with difficult questions are a large part of this activity. Questions could include things like, ‘Why was Johnny so angry yesterday?’ or, ‘Why can’t I have a blue one?’

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