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

Improving the reading skills

Target level: A2/B1/B2/C1/C2 (CEF)

Aim of the activity: reading for gist

Duration of the activity: 15-20 min

• Introduce the subject of the text. 
• Distribute parts of the text to each student.
• Allow students some time to read by themselves.
• Group them, so they can discuss about what they just read, allow some five minutes to that. (Here you may introduce images to help them, if you have any.)
• Ask them to tell you the story and other details from the text. Add extra information about the passages, so they know they’re on the right path and keep motivated to do the task.
• Finally go over the text again, but this time you tell them the story.

You can use all sorts of texts. I recommend short stories. I have used Edgar Allan Poe's The fall of the house of Usher, Hans Christian Andersen's The Emperor's New Suit, to name a few.

Some websites already have a division of the story, such as this.

Dictionary Bluff

Target level: B2/C1 (CEF)

Aim of the activity: acquisition / recycling of vocabulary

Duration of the activity: 10-15 min

• Split the class into groups.
• Give the handout (available here) to the groups.
• Hand in the pieces of paper with the words for them to research (available here).
• The groups have to research the three (3) words given, write down the words' meanings on their papers and invent two definitions for each word (or copy from other words in the dictionary).
• Each group has to present the words they have one by one and give the 3 definitions, both real and invented ones, for the other groups have to guess the real meaning of the word.
• The winner is the one who can guess most correct definitions.
• Here's the key.

This activity was shared by Leandro Toledo, who is a very creative teacher.