EFL: Vocabulary Brainstorming & Description

The teachers formed two teams, and each team was given 5 minutes to generate as many vocabulary words as they possibly could for a given category; for example, insects or animals.

The chalkboard was divided into two sections, and the teams had 5 minutes to write as many words as possible on their side of the board.

Then, after the 5 minutes were over, they were instructed to close their dictionaries and notebooks. The teachers were asked to draw the animals on the board, and each team received a point for a vocabulary word that a team member could describe or drawn, and a point was taken away for a vocabulary word that could not be described or drawn. The pictures drawn by the teachers facilitated their verbal descriptions, unaided by their dictionaries.


How could this activity have been more challenging? More interesting? Did this activity help to build vocabulary? Why or why not?

EFL: Tweaked cloze activity

For this activity, certain nouns, verbs, and adjectives in five sentences were replaced with blanks. These sentences were then displayed on the screen in the classroom.

The missing words were written on note cards and then passed out at random to the teachers.

The teachers were put in 5 groups, and a sentence was assigned to each group. The goal was to be the first group to complete the assigned sentence within the 5-minute time limit.

Since the cards were passed out at random, this activity required quite a bit of communication and negotiation between the teachers. For the example sentence given here, the teachers were overheard screaming, "Do you have a verb in the past? Do you have a noun?"

How could this activity have been improved? How could it have been more challenging and/or engaging?

Have you used an activity like this before? Let us know what you think!

Animoto Activity

1. First, find a picture online that you feel represents YOU at the beginning of your second/foreign language learning experience -- You may download images from Facebook, Flickr, or some other website, but remember: The photo does not necessarily have to be OF you (for example, I might choose a picture of a baby crying).

2. Next, think about where you are NOW as a language learner and find another image to represent that.

3. Finally, find a photo that represents how you plan to develop your language skills in the future.

4. If there’s time, go back through the different stages of development and find more pictures. For example, you might have one that represents your first day of class, followed by one that represents the first time you had a conversation with a native speaker or getting back the results of your first exam. You may have up to 10 photos for this activity.

5. Go to www.animoto.com and make a slide show with your photos from the previous steps.

6. Add music.

7. Watch your Animoto at least twice. Focus on any ideas, connections, or directions of thought that arise as you watch these images and listen to the music that you've selected.

8. Write a paragraph about what you notice about your development as a second/foreign language learner as it appears in the slide show.