TEFL DRAMA
One of the tricks to learning any language is to act it. The spoken word is only one part of all communication. If you have a dog and it comes to you to tell you that it's hungry, or in pain, what language does it use? It uses no words, yet you understand it very well. Unspoken communication is a major part of all communication, and we can use this fact to effect by getting students to enact simple sentences to convey an intended feeling. Below are twelve pairs of expressions, each with a feeling to convey. Students should say both expressions in each pair, each time conveying the relevant feeling. But it's no good doing this with students sitting round a table or in their normal positions. Let them get up, stand, walk around, sit on a table, lie down. Leave them free to use their bodies, their hands and arms, their feet and legs, their facial expressions - so that their body language matches the words they are uttering! You might even award some Oscars.
Drama activities:
A) Level: Elementary and lower-intermediate
Target Learners: Teens and adults
Language: Imperatives used for instructions; vocabulary for food and cooking; adverbs of sequence (first, then, etc.)
Authenticity: Directions from packages
Comprehensibility: Bilingual instructions
Materials: Instant noodles, canned soup, jelly or pudding powder, popcorn, pancake mixture, cocoa drink, etc; cooking utensils; home science lab
Goals
The purpose of this lesson is to teach authentic language use and provide hands-on experience, catering for learners with different intelligence profiles, namely bodily-kinesthetic and interpersonal talents. It also opens avenues to cross-discipline cooperation between EFL and home science. An added benefit is cultural awareness of western styled food and meal.
B) This activity takes very little prep work. First you just make copies of each situation for the role plays. Divide your groups up into groups of three and assign the role plays. I usually allow my students around 10 minutes to prepare to act them out in front of the class.
Role play 1
Student A:
You’ve just arrived in your first country at the beginning of your world tour. You’re worried about money and so you’d like to find a cheap hotel to stay in. Try and convince your friends that this is the best option.
Student B:
You’ve just arrived in your first country at the beginning of your world tour. You want to start your holiday in style and stay in a nice hotel. Try and convince your friends that this is the best idea.
Student C:
You’ve just arrived in your first country at the beginning of your world tour. Your friends have got different ideas about where they would like to stay. Listen to them and decide who you agree with.
Role-play 2
Student A:
You’re now in your second country but unfortunately you’ve just been mugged and have lost your bag with your passport, air tickets and money in it. You’re at the police station to report the theft.
Student B:
You’re now in your second country but unfortunately your friend’s bag’s been stolen. You’re at the police station to help your friend.
Student C:
You’re a police officer. Two westerners are in your police station to report a theft. You don’t believe their story. Ask them a lot of questions to find out if they are telling the truth.
http://www.tefl.net/esl-lesson-plans/esl-activities-drama.htm
http://www.tefl.net/esl-lesson-plans/esl-activities.htm
TEFL MIMING
Miming is used in almost every English language class, if only as a warmer or when a teacher is trying to explain or elicit language. However, the positive elements of waking people up with movement, making them aware the use of gestures for communication, an easy activity for students who have difficulty speaking etc. can be brought into all kinds of other parts of the class too.
Games which involve students miming - that is to say, using their bodies to convey the meaning of an action or an expression which the others have to guess - are extremely popular and with good reason. They are suitable for all levels since they don't always require a lot of language, they are a great way to revise or check students understanding of new language, they are inherently fun and silly (which is always a good thing!) and, if organised well, they can involve all the members of class at the same time.
When giving instructions for miming games, always try to do one or two examples yourself with the students so they are clear about what they have to do. It's also useful to ask a few questions to check that they are clear about the instructions.
1. Vocab mimes
Students mime a word they choose or are given, without speaking or using sound effects, until their partners say exactly that word. This works particularly well for adjectives, action verbs, and idiomatic phrases such as body part idioms.
2. Sentence mimes
This is similar to Vocab Mimes, but students have to mime and guess whole sentences, e.g. “The elephant jumped over the chair”. These sentences can be given by the teacher, taken from a textbook exercise or text, written by the person or group that is going to mime, or written by another group as a challenge. See below for some tenses this works particularly well for.
Mimic games
A) Level: Intermediate.
Skills Practised: Vocabulary recall and sentence construction.
Time: Flexible.
About this game: In this game players take turns eliciting compound nouns by miming each of the constituent words. To begin, a player indicates 'first word' by raising a finger and then acts in such a way as to suggest this word. Those watching call out any words they think of until someone calls out the correct one. The player miming then nods and begins miming the second constituent word. For example, if the word is 'basketball', the player tries to elicit 'basket', and then 'ball'. The player must not, however, mime the word 'basketball' itself by running around as if playing the game.
Preparation:
1. Print out the set of cards provided, or make your own set using recently acquired vocabulary.
2. Draw a scoring table on the board.
How it Works:
1. Explain the game and model if necessary (emphasize that the players must not try to mime the target word itself, but each part of the word in turn). Then divide the class into two teams and have each team choose a name. Next place the cards face down in a pile at the front of the classroom
.2. Ask for any member of the first team to come forward. This player then takes the top card and tries to elicit each part of the word as explained above. If one of those watching correctly guesses the first part, the player miming nods and then continues by trying to elicit the second part.
3. If any member of either team thinks he or she knows the complete word, he or she raises a hand. If correct, his or her team wins a point. The player stating the correct word can then earn his or her team another point by correctly using the word in a sentence.4. A player from the second team then comes forward to elicit whatever is written on the next card, and so on. Play continues until all the cards have been used, with the team earning the most points winning.
Notes:
- If no-one has guessed the word within a reasonable length of time, ask for the player miming to state it. A player from the other team then comes forward to continue play.
- To play a shorter game, either set a time limit for the game as a whole or use just a few of the cards.
http://www.teflgames.com/games.html
One of the tricks to learning any language is to act it. The spoken word is only one part of all communication. If you have a dog and it comes to you to tell you that it's hungry, or in pain, what language does it use? It uses no words, yet you understand it very well. Unspoken communication is a major part of all communication, and we can use this fact to effect by getting students to enact simple sentences to convey an intended feeling. Below are twelve pairs of expressions, each with a feeling to convey. Students should say both expressions in each pair, each time conveying the relevant feeling. But it's no good doing this with students sitting round a table or in their normal positions. Let them get up, stand, walk around, sit on a table, lie down. Leave them free to use their bodies, their hands and arms, their feet and legs, their facial expressions - so that their body language matches the words they are uttering! You might even award some Oscars.
Drama activities:
A) Level: Elementary and lower-intermediate
Target Learners: Teens and adults
Language: Imperatives used for instructions; vocabulary for food and cooking; adverbs of sequence (first, then, etc.)
Authenticity: Directions from packages
Comprehensibility: Bilingual instructions
Materials: Instant noodles, canned soup, jelly or pudding powder, popcorn, pancake mixture, cocoa drink, etc; cooking utensils; home science lab
Goals
The purpose of this lesson is to teach authentic language use and provide hands-on experience, catering for learners with different intelligence profiles, namely bodily-kinesthetic and interpersonal talents. It also opens avenues to cross-discipline cooperation between EFL and home science. An added benefit is cultural awareness of western styled food and meal.
B) This activity takes very little prep work. First you just make copies of each situation for the role plays. Divide your groups up into groups of three and assign the role plays. I usually allow my students around 10 minutes to prepare to act them out in front of the class.
Role play 1
Student A:
You’ve just arrived in your first country at the beginning of your world tour. You’re worried about money and so you’d like to find a cheap hotel to stay in. Try and convince your friends that this is the best option.
Student B:
You’ve just arrived in your first country at the beginning of your world tour. You want to start your holiday in style and stay in a nice hotel. Try and convince your friends that this is the best idea.
Student C:
You’ve just arrived in your first country at the beginning of your world tour. Your friends have got different ideas about where they would like to stay. Listen to them and decide who you agree with.
Role-play 2
Student A:
You’re now in your second country but unfortunately you’ve just been mugged and have lost your bag with your passport, air tickets and money in it. You’re at the police station to report the theft.
Student B:
You’re now in your second country but unfortunately your friend’s bag’s been stolen. You’re at the police station to help your friend.
Student C:
You’re a police officer. Two westerners are in your police station to report a theft. You don’t believe their story. Ask them a lot of questions to find out if they are telling the truth.
http://www.tefl.net/esl-lesson-plans/esl-activities-drama.htm
http://www.tefl.net/esl-lesson-plans/esl-activities.htm
TEFL MIMING
Miming is used in almost every English language class, if only as a warmer or when a teacher is trying to explain or elicit language. However, the positive elements of waking people up with movement, making them aware the use of gestures for communication, an easy activity for students who have difficulty speaking etc. can be brought into all kinds of other parts of the class too.
Games which involve students miming - that is to say, using their bodies to convey the meaning of an action or an expression which the others have to guess - are extremely popular and with good reason. They are suitable for all levels since they don't always require a lot of language, they are a great way to revise or check students understanding of new language, they are inherently fun and silly (which is always a good thing!) and, if organised well, they can involve all the members of class at the same time.
When giving instructions for miming games, always try to do one or two examples yourself with the students so they are clear about what they have to do. It's also useful to ask a few questions to check that they are clear about the instructions.
1. Vocab mimes
Students mime a word they choose or are given, without speaking or using sound effects, until their partners say exactly that word. This works particularly well for adjectives, action verbs, and idiomatic phrases such as body part idioms.
2. Sentence mimes
This is similar to Vocab Mimes, but students have to mime and guess whole sentences, e.g. “The elephant jumped over the chair”. These sentences can be given by the teacher, taken from a textbook exercise or text, written by the person or group that is going to mime, or written by another group as a challenge. See below for some tenses this works particularly well for.
Mimic games
A) Level: Intermediate.
Skills Practised: Vocabulary recall and sentence construction.
Time: Flexible.
About this game: In this game players take turns eliciting compound nouns by miming each of the constituent words. To begin, a player indicates 'first word' by raising a finger and then acts in such a way as to suggest this word. Those watching call out any words they think of until someone calls out the correct one. The player miming then nods and begins miming the second constituent word. For example, if the word is 'basketball', the player tries to elicit 'basket', and then 'ball'. The player must not, however, mime the word 'basketball' itself by running around as if playing the game.
Preparation:
1. Print out the set of cards provided, or make your own set using recently acquired vocabulary.
2. Draw a scoring table on the board.
How it Works:
1. Explain the game and model if necessary (emphasize that the players must not try to mime the target word itself, but each part of the word in turn). Then divide the class into two teams and have each team choose a name. Next place the cards face down in a pile at the front of the classroom
.2. Ask for any member of the first team to come forward. This player then takes the top card and tries to elicit each part of the word as explained above. If one of those watching correctly guesses the first part, the player miming nods and then continues by trying to elicit the second part.
3. If any member of either team thinks he or she knows the complete word, he or she raises a hand. If correct, his or her team wins a point. The player stating the correct word can then earn his or her team another point by correctly using the word in a sentence.4. A player from the second team then comes forward to elicit whatever is written on the next card, and so on. Play continues until all the cards have been used, with the team earning the most points winning.
Notes:
- If no-one has guessed the word within a reasonable length of time, ask for the player miming to state it. A player from the other team then comes forward to continue play.
- To play a shorter game, either set a time limit for the game as a whole or use just a few of the cards.
http://www.teflgames.com/games.html
