Miscellaneous ESL ActivitiesInflection/Intonation Skits

Ok, I got the idea from a book called Teaching Oral English K-8, but I've used it with my undergrad and adult learners, all to wonderful effect. 1) Explain that in English you have to give stress to certain words to deliver certain meanings: review examples like "Oh" and give emphasis to disappointment, anger, surprise, grasp idea etc...2) Model a sentence likeYou want me to give you moneyThrowing emphasis first on MONEY? and then GIVE? and YOU? etc...3)This moronically simple dialog can be committed to memory:A: Hi, how are you?B: Fine, thank you. And you?A: Just great. What have you been doing lately?B: Oh, not much. But I've been keeping busy.A: Well...it's been good to see you.B: Yes, it has...well, bye!A: Goodbye.Do group choral response till they seem to know it, then have them practice in pairs, still keeping an uninflected normal neutral tone.THEN: give each pair a situation, emphasizing that it's SECRET and they musn't show it to anyone else, that they will act it out and others will have to GUESS who they are by their inflection, gestures and body language. (I suggest writing the situations on index cards, very simply: "You are two people who have just met but don't really know each other, and feel obliged to make small talk on an elevator"....)Some situations (be creative!):1) two athletes (boxers?) who will compete in a match tomorrow2)a sick person in hospital and friend who visits3) two old people who are all but deaf4) a robot and his designer5) a divorced couple6) a couple who's love is doomed by marriage promised to others7) a teacher and a student suffering from infatuation8)two people who are angry at each other9) a landlady and her overdue tenant10) a teacher who has given a student a bad grade, they meet years later11)two people who have met before, but can't remember where12) two spies who are meeting late at night13) two old friends who run into each other on a railway platform14)?? Confucius meets Lao Tze in heaven?15) a detective and a criminal

The idea is: they don't change the dialogue of A and B, just the inflection/intonation to suit the situation...4)After each pair has practiced about 5 min or so, hopefully they'll have committed the simple dialogue to memory. Call each pair up and have them perform the dialogue. After each skit, the class tries to guess the situation.It's good to ask: "How does Shirley feel towards Joanna" in this skit? If it's not clear what's happened in the skit. Then you give positive reinforcement to the actors by at least acknowledging the emotion they were trying to convey.I found the students got into it. IT's short enough time on stage that they get a little more comfortable airing their English in public, without directing it at just the teacher....

Try These Fun ESL Vocabulary Review Games and ActivitiesCharadesCharades is a fun and lively game for your ESL class to play when reviewing vocabulary. Your students will be energized and enthusiastic when their acting skills are put to the test for their classmates. It is easy to have a charade vocabulary review ready for your class at almost any time and on a moments notice with minimal advance preparation. The easiest way to be ready at any time is to keep a collection of vocabulary cards for the words your class has studied. When you are ready to play, divide your class into two teams. Individuals will take turns acting out one of the words from the cards that you have prepared. They will choose this card randomly on their turns and will have 2 minutes to get their team to guess the word without using books or notes. The actor cannot use any sounds but must communicate only through actions. The rest of the team should shout out any answers that come to mind. If the team is able to guess the word within the designated time, they score a point. If after two minutes the team has not guessed the word correctly, the other team gets one chance to guess the word. If they are correct, they score a point and then continue with their turn. Continue playing until you run out of time or you run out of words. The team with the higher score at the end of the game wins.PictionaryPictionary is a similar and just as entertaining game to play for vocabulary review. The rules are similar to those of charades except that instead of acting out the word, the clue giver is permitted only to draw on the white board in front of the class. He cannot use any symbols, numbers or letters in his drawing. Again, give each person two minutes to try to get his team to guess the word. If he is unsuccessful, give the other team a chance to guess. Score the game the same way that you would score charades and announce the winning team at the end of the game.ClaymationHow creative are your students? How daring are they? If you think they would have fun with this activity, modify the same general idea that you used in charades and Pictionary with clay or play dough. Again, the rules are generally the same but in this version your students will not be acting or drawing. They will be molding clay to communicate the target word to their teams. Follow the same general rules, but this time you may want to give each person three to five minutes before turning it over to the opposite team for their guess. Scoring is done the same.All of the AboveIf you want to energize your students even further, add a little element of chance to the festivities. Using a six-sided die, have your students roll to see whether they will give a charade, draw a picture or form their clues out of clay. For rolls of one or four, the student will give a charade. For rolls of two or five the student will draw his clues. For rolls of three or six, your students will use clay to give their clues. In all cases, no letters, symbols or numbers are allowed when giving clues. The element of surprise will make the review even more exciting and entertaining for everyone!BingoBingo can be another good game for vocabulary review though perhaps not as lively. Give your students a blank bingo boards and ask them to put the review words into the squares randomly. You should have some strategy for choosing the words to call and then which your students will mark on the cards. You may want to choose words randomly from a list. You may, instead, write the words on cards and choose them randomly from the deck or simply put small slips of paper into a hat to draw randomly. Whatever method you think will work best for you, once you have chosen the word do not read it. Instead, give the definition of the word to your class. Each person must then determine if he has the word that corresponds to the definition on his bingo board. When anyone gets five squares in a row, he should shout, Bingo! Warn your students not to clear their boards until you have checked the winners words to make sure they did not have an incorrect answer. Give the winner of each round a prize or allow him to call the words for the next round though you may need to supply the definitions.MemoryA memory style card game can be another effective way for reviewing vocabulary, but you or your class will need to do some advanced preparation before you play. You will need a set of cards for the vocabulary you want to review. For each word, one card should have the target vocabulary word and another card should have the definition of the word. The players should then shuffle the deck and lay all the cards in a grid pattern face down on a large playing surface. Each person turns over two cards each turn trying to find a match. If the cards do not match, he turns them over again and the next person takes a turn. If they do match, he keeps the cards and gets an additional turn. The player with the highest number of cards at the end of the game wins.You can modify this game to practice matching words with their synonyms or their antonyms, too. For each, instead of using the definition card to match the vocabulary card, use a card with either a synonym or an antonym printed on it. Play continues the same as above. Just be sure you keep the sets of cards separated so you are ready to play at any time.Ready to Teach Idioms? Check Out These 5 Tips:Amount: Not Too Many At OncePlanning an idiom filled lesson may not be the best approach to introducing this topic. Idioms are complex and difficult not only to understand but also to explain so consider introducing only a small number, maybe three to five, at a time. You can do this by including them in your usual lessons (see our Idiom Worksheets section for free lesson materials on this topic). This approach will give you enough time to cover them thoroughly and allow students sufficient practice time without overwhelming them.Themes: Related To Your TopicYou can include idioms in your normal lessons by introducing them thematically. If they are related to the topic you are studying, students will have an easier time remembering them and will be familiar with the vocabulary you are using. When talking about pets, for instance, you can introduce idioms such as work like a dog and dog tired which are related to the topic and will give students something to discuss. What makes idioms so interesting is that they are a unique combination of words that have completely different meanings from the individual words themselves.Level: Intermediate+Many teachers do not introduce idioms to students who are not at the advanced level. In some ways this seems like a good approach because idioms are complex and have different meanings than their words alone suggest. However, idioms do not have to be just for advanced students, you can introduce them earlier as long as you choose ones that are appropriate for your students. Obviously beginners may not have the vocabulary and comprehension skills to learn certain idioms however, intermediate students could definitely benefit from learning about this aspect of the English language. Using the two examples above, you can even discuss how these phrases may have been created. Do your students think that dogs work really hard or get exceptionally tired? Maybe or maybe not but it is an interesting thought.Comprehension: Make Sure They Understand the Individual Words FirstStudents have to know or understand the individual words of an idiom before understanding the idiom itself. Avoid introducing idioms which use new vocabulary words and be able to simplify the meaning of idioms. You could say, for instance, that work like a dog means to work very hard. Students will have to know all the words you use in your explanation as well so use the simplest language you can. Even with advanced learners, simplifying idioms to their basic meanings make them easier to understand and learn.Practice: Ask and AnswerStudents need to practice not just using idioms in sentences but also responding to their use and understanding their meaning. For instance, students may be able to create a lot of sentences using the phrase morning, noon, and night by saying I study morning, noon, and night. and simply changing the verb to make more sentences. To give students practice hearing the idioms used, ask them questions using idioms. By asking questions, you can also prompt students to use idioms correctly. For this example say What is something you do morning, noon, and night? Students should also be asked to identify situations that best demonstrate the meaning of idioms. For this activity simply prepare two or three sentences that do not use idioms and ask students to choose the one that best matches the meaning of the idiom they are learning. Using this example again, the correct answer might be My father goes to work early in the morning and does not even get home until nine in the evening. This gives students more time to think about what the idiom means. It is important to do practice exercises that test the students ability to use idioms as well as understand them.Try These 6 Super ESL Games for Grammar ReviewShoot for PointsWe often need to review things that are no fun, things like the past simple or past participle of irregular verbs. Instead of the classic Q & A, try this. Use a large container or trash can as your basket, give your students a ball and have them shoot for points. But heres the catch: youll ask them a question in past simple, and theyll have to remember the past correctly in order to earn the chance to shoot. They can get 10 points for scoring or five if they miss (because at least they answered the question correctly). You can try any variety of this type of game, whether you use large balls or small ones, or even a wadded up piece of paper.Board GameEveryone loves a board game, and your ESL students will particularly appreciate one if its not only loads of fun, but also a helpful way to review essential grammar. You can design your own to include the tenses and structures your students have learned, or use any of the ones already available at BusyTeacher.org. This Grammar Revision Board Game is a perfect example.Tic Tac ToeTic Tac Toe is another versatile game, one that can be adapted to suit a wide variety of needs. What you need to decide first is which grammar your students need to review for the test. Then, write the topics on nine index cards or large enough pieces of paper. Arrange the cards face down on a table or stick them on the board, in the classic Tic Tac Toe 3 x 3 grid.Next, teams take turns choosing a square (you can add letters across and numbers down to make it easier to call out the squares). You turn over the card and reveal to your students the tense/structure/grammar point written on it. Students must then either provide an example or ask a question that another team member must answer correctly to get their X or O on that square. Of course, the first team that gets three Xs or Os across, down or diagonally wins.Snakes and LaddersTo play this classic game in your grammar review lesson, youll first need to prepare some cards: they may have verb tenses written on them, questions your students must answer or prompts from which to say a complete sentence.The rules are simple, but the game is so much fun! Students must first choose a token to move around the board (a different colored button for each will do nicely!) Then they take turns rolling the dice to move across the board. They must take a card and answer correctly to remain on that spot, or move back two places if they are incorrect. If they land at the bottom of a ladder, and they answer correctly, they get to move up the ladder, but if they land on a snakes head they automatically move down to where its tail is. Heres a blank template you can use or create your own.Football!This is a game Ive played with students of different ages and levels with tremendous success. First, youll need to draw a playing field like this one on the board or a large piece of paper:

Next, divide your students into two teams. Place a ball token at the center. Then, students must answer questions correctly to approach the posts and score a goal. For example, Team A answers correctly and moves right one step closer to their goal. Team B answers correctly and moves the ball left back to the center. Team A answers incorrectly and cant move the ball at all. Team B answers correctly and moves left one step closer to their goal. If Team A were to keep answering incorrectly and Team B correctly, then Team B will continue moving left to eventually score a goal. When a team scores, the ball moves back to the center, and the team that did not score last starts. The team with the most goals wins.JeopardyIve mentioned this game in several articles, and it happens to be my personal favorite. There is so much you can do with it - you can review everything theyve learned in a single fun game. Youll find it explained here. All you have to do is replace the categories at the top with tenses or structures you want them to review.How Intonation Changes Meaning

Another important thing, when it comes to learning English is, being aware of intonation. Intonation in American English is the way the voice rises and falls while you speak. Very often, it changes the main idea of what is said, going beyond the exact meaning of the words to indicate how the speaker feels.The very same sentence and the same word order might result in quite a different idea behind your words, by only shifting the stress from one word to another.Try reading this sentence by stressing the word in bold each time. 1. He isn't flying to Paris tomorrow. In this case, you mean that its not him who is traveling but someone else. As in: He isn't flying to Paris tomorrow. His brother is.

2. He isn't flying to Paris tomorrow.Here, the emphasis is on the word isnt to say that, its not true that he is flying. As in: Do you know that John is flying to Paris tomorrow? He isnt flying to Paris tomorrow. He was intending to but he changed his mind later.

3. He isn't flying to Paris tomorrow.By stressing the word flying, we intend to say that this is not what hes going to do but maybe something else. As in: He isn't flying to Paris tomorrow. He is actually driving.

4. He isn't flying to Paris tomorrow.If you say the word to louder, youre sayingthis is not the direction hes flying into. As in: He isn't flying to Paris tomorrow. He is actually flying back from Paris.

5. He isn't flying to Paris tomorrow.Stressing the word Paris, in this example, would mean thatthis is notthe actual destination of Johns flight. As in: He is not flying to Paris. Hes flying to New York.

6. He isn't flying to Paris tomorrow.Giving emphasis to the word tomorrow would mean that its not tomorrow hes flying but another day. As in: He isn't flying to Paris tomorrow. He said he would be flying the day after tomorrow.As you can see, you are saying the same words every time, just pronouncing a different word at a higher pitch. In this way, you are actually saying a different thing every time. Why should you bother to remember this? Well, being aware of the various intonation patterns is what will make you capable of conveying the intended message. That is to say, even if you pronounce each word clearly, if your intonation is non-standard, your meaning will not be clear.Also, in terms of comprehension, you will lose a great deal of information, if you are only listening for the actual words used. You get to understand people better, and people understand YOU better and can then focus on the point you are trying to make, rather than struggling to "decode" your pronunciation.Most Common Students Mistakes I am agree Peoples Search about Will/must/should to I have 17 years old I didnt like/want (to refer to the present) Misplaced pronouns (He/She) and (It) to refer to people Using More to speak about quantity Incorrect use of Prefixes. E.g. Unlegal Mixed usage of Nouns/Verbs/Adjectives From/Since 10 years ago I make an accident/interview The a lot of people Misplaced Prepositions. E.g. At the morning Hasnt/Havent Didnt went Do a mistake Focus about Saying To me when they want to express their opinion. Saying Its hard/easy to me. The correct way to say, Its hard for me. Let me give you some examples. Its difficult for me to learn another language. But if youre not going to include the word me, you, him; then you can just say, Its difficult to learn another language. You dont need for in that case. So, another example You could say, Its easy for me to drive a car. Or, Its easy to drive a car. You could say, Its easy to find a job. Or, Its easy for me to find a job. Saying Another countries. The correct way to say is Other countries. The word another goes before singular words and other goes before plural words. Adding the article A to plurals Saying Learn instead of Teach Saying Eat instead of Feed