creating engaging classrooms

 Ok, here's a blog post strictly for Foreign Language teachers: possibly my favourite use of board games in the classroom - using Cluedo* to teach the passive! * Clue for US readers. It may be mildly morbid, but having students play this game (ideally in 3s or 4s) is a great way to have them practise the target language: "I think Dr Black was killed with the gun in the kitchen by Professor Plum." "I suspect Dr Black was murdered with the knife in the dining room by Ms Scarlet." Up the ante by making them mix in modals of hypothesis: "I believe Dr Black may have been killed with the rope in the living room by Reverend Green." Plus, if you want to be really gruesome, you can always introduce the weapon-specific verbs: stab, shoot, strangle, bludgeon, etc.  I like to start off the lesson in role as a police officer, miming locking the door, announcing that there has been a murder and that nobody is leaving until the culprit has been found. A game of ta...

 My PE colleagues are constantly griping at how student fitness is way down, especially since COVID, so here's a fun activity to help your students boost their cardio!  This is an old one (I got it from the legendary Gerard McLoughin at IH Barcelona) and it's great for waking your students up.  Put students into pairs (maybe threes, but big teams don't really work). Around the room (or at the end of the corridor, or outside) put up small pieces of key information you need the students to know. One partner runs to the first, memorises it, runs back, dictates it. Then they switch roles, like a relay. Spacing out the information avoids queues and crashes. Not only is this great for cardio, but you are helping students build their memorization and recall skills, both crucial for exam success (not that I'm a fan of exams as a form of assessment, but they are the reality of much of the educational landscape). More immediately, exercise creates endorphins, which is a massive m...

So you're probably familiar with the word game (not the hideous 1990's alcopop) where one player describes a word and others have to guess it. This is a fantastic game for the classroom, in any subject : it brings loads of energy to the class; practices students' communication and recall skills; embeds key terminology; and, most importantly, gets the students engaged in each other's learning. There's loads of ways to do this, but here's how I play it with large (20+) classes: - divide up the students into teams of 3 or 4; - one player from each team comes to the front; - I show them all the same word (this is important); - in silence, they return to their groups; - I count down "3,2,1,Go!" and they have to explain the word to their groups; - the first person to shout out the correct answer, wins a point for their group. It's worth you, as the teacher, standing in the middle of the room for this, as close as possible to all groups, to avoid accusa...

 Obviously, you know how to play Bingo. So, how to use it to engage your students? Well, I like it for when I either a) have to show a longer video or b) have to read a long text with the class. Playing Bingo thus motivates them to pay attention and scaffolds them to identify key information. It's really no different than giving them a list of questions to answer, except that: 1. You are making a game of it and 2. By creating different Bingo cards you can actually increase the number of questions you can ask. There's loads of variations here: you could have students create their own cards or make them for them; you could have them listen for facts, quotations or types; the possibilities and combinations are endless. Just don't forget to reward the winners...

For my first post, the ultimate time-efficient reading game: Beep! It's super simple. As you read a text out loud to the class, you make deliberate mistakes e.g. you say Calcium Oxide instead of Calcium Carbonate; you swap Chile for China; you muddle etre and avoir . The students must follow along in their own copies and shout "Beep!" if/when they spot the mistake. Keep a score (you can also deduct points for premature beeping). Any one student who dominates (e.g. that sole native speaker in a class of language learners), make them the scorer or even get them to take over the reading and mistake making. This works on many levels: for a start, it's fun in way that reading a large chunk of text often isn't. However, in order to play students must read along with you. How often do we suspect/know that half the class has drifted off while you read aloud, even if you get the students to take turns? Beep gets them reading word for word! Finally, you can of cours...