International House Veracruz

Authorised Centre MX 150

TKT
Warm Ups
1. Create new words:

Language vocabulary, spelling, combining

and skills letters into known words
Level beginners / intermediate / advanced
Time 2 minutes and more (depends on
teacher and learners)
Materials paper and pen (dictionary for
checking spelling)
Preparation none

Procedure
Pair, group or individual work. The learners should write as many
words as they can using letters in the words JOB ADVERTISEMENT.
They can use fewer letters but not more. Examples: men, read, red,
advent, tea, a, an, the, tear etc.

The teacher can decide on categories such as nouns, verbs,

adjectives and learners have to write words that fall into the category
or the topic is given such as PROFESSION, HOBBIES, TRAVELLING
etc. and learners should write words that would fall under the topic
label.

2. Fill in words:

Language topic related vocabulary, spelling, dictionary

and skills work
Level intermediate / advanced
Time 3 minutes and more
Materials paper, pen, dictionaries

Procedure: Individual/pair or group work.

The teacher writes words job advertisement on the blackboard like

this:

J
O
B
International House Veracruz
Authorised Centre MX 150
TKT
These letters are initial letters of words learners must write. Less
advanced learners can write any words, for advanced learners teacher
can state the topic area such as JOBS (examples given), INTERESTS,
ENVIRONMENT. In case the teacher uses this activity as a warm up
activity for the lesson that aims at making use of job advertisements in
developing language and skills, such areas as WORK, PROFESSION,
WORK PLACE are strongly recommended.

The learners can check their words with each other or in dictionaries.
This activity can be organized as a competition with a time limit.

Jobs around us:

Language thematic vocabulary, spelling,

and skills dictionary work
Level pre-intermediate /
intermediate / advanced
Time 5 minutes and more
Materials paper and pen (dictionary for
checking spelling)
Preparation none

Procedure: Individual work leading to class work. The teacher

writes the alphabet in a column on the blackboard. The learners
must use every letter as an initial letter of a job. If necessary the
teacher can deliberately omit letters which are not initial letters of
any job. Less advanced learners can use dictionaries, for
advanced learners a time limit can be set.

Example: Accountant, Businessman, Correspondent, Designer,

etc.

Who is this job for?

Language scanning / answering questions

and skills
Level pre-intermediate / intermediate
Time 10 minutes
Materials copies of several adverts
Preparation questions written on the blackboard
or transparency

Procedure: Learners work in pair and skim job adverts to find

answers to the following question:

Which job would be suitable for someone who:

International House Veracruz
Authorised Centre MX 150
TKT

- Enjoys traveling?
- Has business experience and wants responsibility?
- Can't work during the day?
- Has got telephone skills?
- Can't work in the evenings or at weekend?

In the feedback session learners justify their ideas by forming

statements such as:

Sales representative is a good job for someone who likes

traveling.

"Describing Something"
Make up a handout with pictures or names of famous
people (around 20 is good). Give some hints, such as,
"He's American," "He's black," "He's a sport player," "He
plays golf." By this time the students will have guessed
Tiger Woods. They will then cross Tiger Woods off their
list. Turn it over to the students and they will take turns
describing the people to each other.
This game would also work for almost any topic (animals/food/clothes, etc)

Shootout at the ESL Corral

Divide the class into groups of two. You can
do this on 2 sides of the class, at their desks
standing up or get the kids to make a line at
the front of the class as well.

Then, there are 2 variations. The first one is

that the first 2 students play
rock/scissor/paper. The loser has to answer
a question about what you've been studying. I used it a lot of math when I was
studying that for a couple days with the kids. I'd say what is 5x8 and give them 5
seconds to answer. If they got it, they went to the back of their line, or remain
standing. If not, they sit down and the game is over for them. The second
variation is to just ask a question to both students and the loser sits down.

It's a fun, high energy game with a lot of excitement to it. The kids seemed like
they couldn't get enough of it. And you can use pretty much any topic you want.
And it's definitely heavy on the listening and speaking skills.
International House Veracruz
Authorised Centre MX 150
TKT

Boggle
Make a grid on the board, maybe 6x6. Then fill
in the squares with common letters. Then the
students make words, with at least 3 letters.
Each word can only use each letter once and
the letters must be touching. You can go
diagonal, up, down, whatever.

The Alphabet
Put them in teams of 2 and have them write
the alphabet on a piece of paper. Then you
can give them a topic.
Example: "Words to describe a city."
B-Busy,
E-Exciting.
Give them 3 or 4 minutes, collect the
papers, check for the crazy answers,
add up the points and you have a winner!

The Toilet Paper

This is the perfect way to start your first class, if
there are less than 15 students. Bring in a roll of
toilet paper. Tell students they can choose
between 2 and 6 pieces. It's up to them how
many they take. Tell them no other details.
When everyone has some paper, tell the
students that they have to say one sentence
about themselves for each piece that they have.
Example: name/favorite food/ hobby/ members
of their family.
International House Veracruz
Authorised Centre MX 150
TKT
English as a Second Language Students
Write the vocab words on a flip chart of some sort. Divide
the class up into teams. 5-8 people/team works well. One
student from the team comes and sits at the front of the
class facing his or her teammates. Show one word at a
time to the team but not the person sitting at the front.
The team has to give hints about the word, in English
only, using no body language.
An example: EYE. Hints students give: 2, on face, I can see.
2 or 3 rounds of 1 minute each and the goal is to get as many words as possible
in that 1 minute. If the team uses body language or Spanish, discount that point.

Comic Strip Challenge

There are lots of simple comic strips that you can
find on the internet to use for this activity. Post it up
on your powerpoint and there are 2 different things
you can do:
1. Blank out the dialogue and have students
make up their own. Put them in groups of 2-4,
depending on the size of the class. Award a small prize for the most
interesting one.
2. Leave the dialogue, and give the students a few minutes to read and try to
understand what is happening. Then, take the comic off the screen and
ask a few understanding questions.

Steal the Eraser

Divide the students into 2 teams. Have 2
desks at the front of the class, facing each
other, with an eraser in the middle of the 2
desks. One student from each team comes
and sits in the hot seat. Rotate through so
that all the students get a chance to play. You
then ask a question of some sort. The first
person that grabs the eraser can try to
answer the question. The rule is that you can
take the eraser whenever you want, but I"ll only say the question once. Count 10
seconds down on my fingers. Their team can help them with the answer, but only
in English. If correct, they get 1 point. If not, the other team gets a chance to
answer the question.
International House Veracruz
Authorised Centre MX 150
TKT

This week in class, we're studying "When I _________, I ______/ I

__________when I ________.
So, I would say something like, "When I feel happy, I _________." Or "I'm late for
school when __________"

To make it even more exciting or if one team is behind by a lot of points, have a
"Bonus Round," where the teams pick their best 3 players and each question is
worth 2 or 3 points

Famous People
Put the students in groups of 2-3-4. Have them
pick 4 famous people, dead or alive that they'd
like to invite to a party they are having. Then,
they have to say the reason why they're inviting
them. Example:
Person: Michael Jackson
Reason? He can play some dance music for us.
Also, I want to know why he got so much plastic
surgery.
Give them a few minutes, depending on the level. Then, I get the student to pick 1
or 2 of the people, depending on the size of the class and tell the rest of the class
their answer.

S-O-S
If you get three "S" in a row or three "O" in a row you draw a line through it and
get a point.

Draw a grid on the board, usually 6x6. Give them numbers and letters to make it
easier for the students to pick what box they want. Then, divide the students up
into teams of 4 or 5 and give them each a symbol (triangle, square, star, heart,
etc). Then, ask review questions, going from team to team. Simple, easy
questions with a definite right or wrong answer are best to keep this game moving
quickly. A correct answer gets them a square on the board. Do 6 or 7 rounds, and
by this time the good teams will have 2 or 3 points. The top team gets a prize, this
game gets boring after 20 minutes or so, so don't plan on playing this for an entire
class. It works best as a warm-up review kind of game.
International House Veracruz
Authorised Centre MX 150
TKT

The World Cup

First, write up some questions. "What time did you
wake up this morning?" or "How long did it take you
to come to school this morning?"

Then, in class count up your students and make up

a "draw." You know, the round of 16, quarter-finals,
semis and the final. If you have an odd number and
it doesn't quite work, make up some "last-chance
spots." So all the people who lost their game in the
section of the draw can compete against each other
for the last spot. Write up student's names in the
draw, randomly. To add some more fun, and for smaller classes you can get
students to pick a country. For bigger classes, wait until the semi-finals before you
allow country picking.

Anyway, ask the students a question from your list and the person to answer the
fastest gets to move onto the next round. That's it!