Hot Potato

hot potato

When I look to my students and feel that they are very tired, stressed out or just too blasé (when we have all the blank faces) I usually like to shake things up with a very fun and quick game of hot potato. This goes with all levels and it's very easy to be done when you have some object to be used as the hot potato (in my classes I use a very soft ball that is a left over of the last World Cup's decoration) and some device where you can play a song.

I let them choose a song, which is very quick, and let them start passing the ball for some 20 seconds until the game really begins. They have to pass the ball until the music stops. When it does, the person who is holding the ball has to so something. Usually sts start to loosen up after the first round.

This 'something' is always related to class: the person has to give the answer to the next exercise, to spell the word given (when I'm teaching / recycling spelling). I usually do this activity when I'm correcting something or recycling something. It's a way for sts to get unstressed and to make the activity more fun.

Duration of the activity: 2-5 min