Activities

Activities
A B
Split the class into groups of about seven or eight students. For each group, put one chair, or ‘hot seat’ at the front of the
class, facing away from the board. Ask for one member of each group to come up and sit in a ‘hot seat’ in front of their
group.
When they are all seated - with their backs to the board remember - the teacher writes one of the words or expressions on
the board. The other students in the teams can see the word but they can’t say it. They have to describe it, or give
examples, or opposites, or synonyms, anything they can think of to help their team mate in the ‘hot seat’ to guess it as
quickly as possible.
The first ‘hot seat’ student to say the correct word or expression wins a point for their team. Then, ask a different student
from each team to come up and then continue as before until you have completed your vocabulary list. The competitive
element of this activity really engages the students, but be warned - it can be rather noisy!
All change
All change is a physical activity that can be used to practise a wide range of structures and vocabulary. Ideally, you will be
able to put a circle of seats in your classroom. The circle should have the same number of seats as there are students.
The teacher stands in the middle of the circle and the students sit around the outside. The teacher tells them to ‘Change
seats if ...’. The way the sentence ends depends on the particular grammar or vocabulary area the teacher wants to practise.
For example, if you wanted to practise food vocabulary - ‘Change seats if you like chocolate’. Then all the students who do
like chocolate have to stand up and find a different seat as quickly as possible. While they are doing this, the teacher
quickly leaves the circle and takes away one of the chairs. Then, when everyone has tried to find a new seat there will be
one student who is left standing in the middle. This student then has to make a new ‘Change seats if ...’ sentence. And so
the activity continues.
The physical and competiti ve nature of this activity is engaging for students and can really get a class started well at the
beginning of a day. Remember though, don’t let it go on for too long. Three or four minutes should be enough.