Activities

Here you will find the activities I adjusted to adults. Under the title of objectives you will see what topic it is intended for. Come, check them out, and don't hesitate to leave your comments.

Post-it:

Objectives: This is an icebreaker activity. It could also work to practice adjectives.

Materials: one post-it per student. A Pen.

Procedures: Students will sit in a circle. They will write on the post-it their first name with an adjective that starts with the first letter of their name. Example: Cute Charles. The first student will introduce himself saying: Good afternoon. I am Cute Charles. The next one will say Good afternoon. I am Noisy Noylin and this is Cute Charles. The third one will have to say the three names and so forth.

Who am I?: With this activity students will put into practice the structure of verb to be questions, and the answers in negative and in possitive. Plus it is a way getting them to speak short sentences in public. 
Objectives: to practice short answers with verb to be.

Materials: post-it with the names they used for the icebreaker.

Procedures: The students will take turns to take one post-it without seeing it. They will put it in their foreheads and will ask key questions to guess the name they have on the post-it. Am I blond? Am I short? Am I a woman? (for example) The rest of the class will have to answer, yes you are, or, no you aren’t.

Writing our own story: This simple activity helps students to understant the difference between the each of the Wh-questions. It is fun and plus, they will see their use in context. 

Objectives: to practice wh-questions. 

Materials: pieces of paper. Power Point with the story template. Video Beam. Computer.

Procedures: The students will make up a very short story. One of them will have to write the who, and the rest the what, the when, the where and the why using the pieces of paper you gave them. Then teacher will pick up all the answers and read the story out loud filling the blanks of the story template with the answers they gave.

Tip:  Tell the student that has “the who” to pick one of the classmates, and the one that has “the what” to think about something funny and/or crazy. It will make the story very funny.

A day in the life of Barack Obama:If you want to use real texts you might like this activity. Students will understand the text and identify the present simple verbs, and taking it as an example they will produce with their own real life information.

Objectives: to practice simple present.  

Materials: Power Point, Video Beam. Computer. A Whiteboard pilot.

Procedures: Read the Barack Obama’s text, analyze what it is about.  Extract the main idea and identify the simple present forms.  Provide vocabulary.

Tip: You can give them homework using this text as a guide to write their own daily routine and present it next class.

Guess the lie:Instead of giving sentences for students to change them into negatives, you can use this activity. It makes them write and read, understand and then produce the negative sentence. Plus, it helps to know each other a little more.

Objectives: to practice negative statements with simple present.

Materials: notebook or a sheet of paper. A pen.

Procedures: Students have to write three things, two of them must be true, only of them must be a lie. Example: I have 8 dogs.  My sister speaks 3 languages. I know how to cook Italian desserts.  The group has to guess which one is the lie, and must say, you don’t know how to cook Italian desserts.  The person who guesses the most lies wins a prize.

Peer interviews: Get students talking and knowing each other with this activity. They will put into practice how to ask and answers question in many forms: to be, wh-questions, simple present. It is an integral activity in which they have to use all they know so far.

Objectives: to practice the simple present questions with all verbs already covered including verb to be. It is also useful to practice conversation and pronunciation.

Materials: sheet of paper. Pen.

Procedures: Students must interview a partner. Ask him or her all the to be and simple present questions they like. They will present their work in an interview role play in front of the class.

Tic Tac Toe: Having fun is always good for learning. Students will have to use the rules of pluralizing and make an effort to remember the irrregular plurals. This will help them to learn vocabulary also.

Objectives: Tic Tac Toe can be used to practice almost anything. This particular one is made to practice the plural form of nouns.

Materials: Video Beam. Computer. Power Point Presentation. Whiteboard Pilot.

Procedures: The group will be divided in two teams. The images of plural things will appear on the board with the name in singular as a title, and each team will have to write the plural. If they write it correctly they can put the X or the O on the tic tac toe. You can find the presentation for this game under the Material for Basic English tag.

Warm up. Stop!:

Objectives: Warm up to practice fast thinking skills and vocabulary.

Materials:  Sheet of paper. Pen.

Procedures: Student will divide a sheet of paper in 4 columns. Name, Color, Things, Brands, they will have to write one of each column with the letters B-W-P. The first one to finish must shout Stop!  The rest of the students have to stop writing and everyone will read out loud what they wrote under each column. They will do the same letter by letter. Not all of them at once.

“Always” by Bon Jovi: Students will see an example of how the structure is used in real life. They will also be practicing listenins skills and it is helpful to learn new vocabulary.

Objectives:  To practice listening, pronunciation and will structure.

Materials: Speakers. Computer. Song. One sheet with the lyrics and blank spaces per student.

Procedures: Play the song "always" by Bon Jovi give them the lyrics. Before playing it, see some difficult vocabulary. Play it once to pay attention, and play for the second time so they can fill in the blanks.  Talk about the "I will" structure in the song. Play it again so they can try to fill the blanks the have left. Then review it in the board. Play it for a final time so they can hear they words in the blank spaces.