BANK OF ACTIVITIES

AND TECHNIQUES
N.

TYPE OF ACTIVITY

NAME

THESE ACTIVITIES CAN BE USED AT DIFFERENT LEVELS AND IN

SEVERAL SUBJECTS. MOREOVER, SOME OF THEM COULD BE
DEVELOPED AT VARIOUS STAGES DEPENDING ON OUR PURPOSE.
ALL OF THEM ARE MOTIVATING AND ENGAGING ACTIVITIES THAT
WILL HELP US TO ENRICH OUR TEACHING LESSONS.

DESCRIPTION
One student has to give information to his/her partner about 4 different
tasks but one of the parts is false. The partner must guess which one is the
wrong one. Ex: Tell me 4 different things about:

Tuning in

Detecting lies

Finding out - Tunning in

Find someone who

Finding out - Tunning in

Find the mistakes in the

sentences on the board

Finding out

Tunning in

Columna2
PURPOSE OF ACTIVITY

INTERACTION

To improve sentence structure, to develop

the language, to fix the features of some
items

In pairs

To develop interaction, for kinesthaetic

learners, to change the pace of the lesson,
review/introduction

Whole group

Ex. Plants perform photosynthesis to produce their own in organic matter.

Adaptation: The students could create their own sentences.

To clarify key concepts, spelling

Whole group

Ask the right question

The students get a card with a word. They have to explain it without saying
it and the partner must guess it. Ex: they get the names of different cell
organelles and they have to explain them until the partner guesses the
name of the organelle.

To foster communication, to review previous

knowledge. Creative thinking, miming. To
develop fluency and thinking skills

In pairs

Back to the board

One student sits back to the board. The teacher writes a word on the
blackboard (a students name, a planet, a living being, a painter) and
he/she must guess it with clues from the classmates or asking questions to
them (raising hands, in order). It can be used for the review of the
previous class, just remembering some concepts from the other day.

To improve asking questions, to develop the

language, to fix the features of some items,
warming up, recalling

Whole group

Tunning in

The three YES

Ask for 3 questions whose answer is going to be YES. Eg.: Who can count to
ten in English?, who knows the name of an animal? They move their body
(raising hands) and get ready to work.

To start a lesson, to prepare students to pay

attention

Whole group

The teacher gives instructions and asks questions again about what he
ordered in order to make sure that they understood:

Finding out

Game Question How well

do you know your
classmates?

English subject and maybe with adaptation

for others

Whole group

Sorting out

Running Dictation

4 language skills: motivation, working

language, working content, group work)
CLIL activity

Teams of 4-5 students.

Tunning in

Memory warm up

They have to remember 9 of the words that we worked on yesterday. The

fastest to remember these 9 words wins.

Quick recalling, short time, starter

10

Finding out - Sorting out

TPS (Think, pair and Share)

Every student gets a word. They have to stand up and look for their partner,
who has got the other part of the collocation. Eg: global warming, solar
panels, water supply. They explain the meaning of their concept to the rest
of the class.

To work on collocations

Graph

They have to go to the blackboard and stick (blutack) their word on the
graph depending on the damage that this effect causes to the environment
and on its usefulness. There are not totally right or wrong answers. They
must explain why they put their word there and the rest of the students
must give their opinion.

To work on controversy, to generate a

debate, a discussion

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Sorting out- Reflexion

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In groups, in pairs

In pairs.

Whole group

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Sorting out

Ordering cards

Students in groups get cards with different words (types of National tests in
England) and they must stick them on the board in the correct order
(following the line of educational life).

To order ideas, concepts or contents

depending on the required organization

Groups of four

13

Reflexion

Controversial Statement

The teacher writes a sentence on the blackboard and students must debate.
It is important to tell them that they should try to do a RGT strategy,
thinking from 3 different positions: myself, another one and the observer.

Warm up, introduction, critical thinking,

finding out

Whole group

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Finding out - Tunning in

Brainstorming

Every group has to write different words in post-its. Then, stick them on the
wall while explaining them. Eg.: What elements should we include in a
lesson plan?

To sort out student's ideas or thoughts at the

time they discover their mates'

Whole group

True or false game

Students move to the music. When it stops, the teacher reads a definition
for something. If it is right, they move to one side (below the sign TRUE). If
it is wrong, they move to the other side (Below the sign FALSE). In case
there are confused students, the teacher explains asking them why they
chose that option.

To review the vocabulary, warming up

Whole group

15

Tunning in

16

Finding out

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Finding out

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Finding out

Learning about neurons

using CLIL

Scaffolding language and learning

To develop one of the four main skills when

learning a language.

Listening

Jigsaw listening

Different students have to answer to different questions high capacity

students get more complicated questions. Or different students focus on a
different character. Then, they check their answers As y Bs together.
Afterwards, they speak together and find out the questions that they do not
have. The students can create their own questions and pass them to the
others.

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To help mixed ability classes, it takes up the

pace of the lesson, listening and speaking, to
integrate listening and speaking skills, to
encourage collaborative learning

Individual

Individual or in pairs

In pairs

Finding out

Pronunciation
activity/Definitions activity

In groups, students get 10 cards with one word each. They have to order the
cards in columns depending on their first sound (j or y). When the teacher
says the corresponding word their raise it.
To review, to work on pronunciation

In groups

Bend diagram

20

Sorting out

Mind Map

21

Finding out

Preposition builder

22

Finding out

Objects speak about me

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Tunning in

True/false game in two

rows with two chairs at the
end

To organize information

Every student has a different question containing a verb with preposition.

They have to stand up and ask as many people as they can. He must ask his
first question and then another one.

Small groups or whole group

To work on prepositions, to build sentences

Whole group

It stimulates creativity, everybody gets

involved, personalizing the context,
introduction to a topic, to develop cognitive
skills, guessing, hypothesising

small groups

To change the pace, to engage, to review, to

form correct sentences

Whole group

There are two teams. Every member has a number. The teacher reads a
sentence aloud and says the number. Those students who have this number
have to run to one direction or the opposite (left or right) depending if the
sentence is true or false.

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A and B students. They just read one part of the reading. They have to trust
their mates. There is one gist question first for everyone and then some
more specific.
Cooperative learning, to summarize
information, to look for specific information

Finding out

Jigsaw reading

25

Sorting out

Marking the stress of words

with a box, beating the
stress with your hands,
humming.

Choose 4-5 words of the unit. Practice their pronunciation before the unit
starts.

To improve word stress

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Sorting out

Mix-match activity

Words on the left, definitions on the right. Match them. Review of

vocabulary (after doing a mix-max)

To control the amount of words that we are

going to work on

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In pairs

Individual

In pairs. One student asks for

one word of the list. The other
has to explain it without reading.

Every group gets a different piece of information (blue, green, red) Blue
has the information for the percentage of water used in cleaning a house,
green the percentage for cooking, red, the percentage for having showers.
Everyone memorizes his data and then the teacher mixes the groups, so
that in every group there is one person of every colour. They share the
information and with all the data, students can draw the graph on a paper
plate. They have 5 minutes to represent the best graph. In the end, they
vote (they cannot vote their own graph) for the best graph. Checking
questions:

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Finding out - Reflexion

Jigsaw competition for

drawing a graph

Cooperative learning, learning by doing

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In groups.

Students get a text with some missing words (blanks). There should be a
combination of easy and difficult words. They listen to the recording while
the fill in the blanks. To go deeper:

To work on content, to work on

language)(skills: reading, listening,
pronunciation, writing; sub-skills: spelling,
checking, understanding

Individual

Individual

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Finding out

Gap Filling Activity

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Finding out

Creating sentences

The teacher gives them some words and they have to create sentences.

Review

30

Sorting out

Connecting sentences

Memorize a sentence. Walk around. Keep saying your sentence to other

students until you find the partner who connects with your sentence.

To review content

31

Finding out

Song activity

A song will be played. Students must imagine the situation. They tell the
story that they have imagined or draw a picture.

To develop creativity

32

Sorting out

Scrambled eggs

Rearrange the instructions in the correct order. The content of the activity
are the instructions (for doing something/the steps of a process). In groups
(every group gets the same set) students order the sequence. They stand up
and can check others group. It can also consist of ordering words to build a
sentence. It is difficult if the sentences are controversial because our mind is
not prepared. Eg.: the steps of the scientific method, steps to follow to
conduct an experiment, chronological order of a fact, animals depending on
the number of legs

Thinking skills: Ordering, organizing, using

information, understanding, creating,
deciding, analysing, evaluating. It develops
logical thinking

Whole group

Individual

Individual, in pairs, in groups

Find your partner. 10 words + 10 definitions. Everyone has one word or

definition. We they find their partner they sit down together.
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TPS

To review concepts

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Whole group

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Finding out

Wordle

In groups, brainstorming about something. Example: write 5 advantages of

CLIL in every group. Put the results in common. Write them in the Wordle.
The more often they write the word, the bigger it is. Tell your partner your
favourite type of music

35

Sorting out

Rally-Robin

They write one fact they know about something. They pass the paper to the
next one and he/she writes another idea and so on.

Collaborative learning, review

36

Tunning in

Do what I say but not what I

do

The teacher says something but she does something different. Ex: she says
touch your ears while she is touching her legs

To develop concentration and listening skills

Whole group

37

Sorting out

Dancing and calling back

Students dance around the room. When the music stops they have to say
something they have learned this week and explain its meaning.

To reflect, to take a quick energy break

(brain breaks), Kinaesthetic learners

Whole group

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Sorting out- Finding out

Role plays incorporating

target language

39

Sorting out

Story about someones life

to practise two problem
sounds

40

Sorting out

Pronunciation activity

41

Tunning in

42

Sorting out

To sort out the previous information

In groups

In groups of 4.

To develop creativity

In groups

The teacher tells the students a story about someone including many words
which have the difficult sound (she has dirty skirt and does not care ).
Different lexical groups can be used: I went to the supermarket and I
bought.../ I went to the park and I saw...

To improve pronunciation, Visual learners:

illustrations, Auditory learners: recordings

Individual

Silently mouth the pronunciation of sounds to show how they are made and
then students hold up cards when they hear the correct sound.

To identify sounds mimed by the teacher, to

work individually with slow learners

Individual

Dance to music and then

elicit a word or phrase
when the music stops

To have students come up with a word on

their own; For visual learners: flashcards; For
older learners: mind maps

Whole group

Order words on a timeline

To display information in visual form, to help

students understand the chronology of
historic events. For visual learners:
illustrations.

Cooperative learning: work in

pairs

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