classroom boredom and games

[Juggler]

good morning to ya'll.

sipping my morn' coffee and wondering about how many game ideas everyone must have in mind for when the classroom gets boring for both the teacher and students.

I'd like to share my ideas with anyone and hopefully we can all get a nice database of good games for our students.

Role plays are another thing i do in my classrooms. Some students love em' others loathe them

They are a good way for the students to use the days vocabulary and try to be creative. I always write down the grammar mistakes on the board so we can review it after each role play. The students that enjoy role play say that this is a great way to use their imagination and it allows them to see where they have to improve.

i would love to see a thread on all your ideas.

peace

[woza17]

Hi Juggler,
I have this amazing resource library with all kinds of books that I will photocopy and take with me> OK there is this Grammar game book. I haven't explored it fully yet but one game I liked, was auction game.
It goes like this, you give the students a sheet of sentences some are right or wrong. They have to bid for a sentence they think is right they, have a set amount of money . It gets quite heated. The best way is to put your student's sentences on the paper taking examples from their homework. Have I explained this properly? I am a terrible typist (I was hit over the head by the bitch teacher in typing class ,I have never fully recovered) so even though I am an articulate, verbose kind of person, my typing speed can not keep up with my thoughts.
In one of the books there was one of my games that I had thought of, I was so proud.
You would cream yourself if you saw the books I have here. (can I say that. cream yourself on this forum) I know boredom in the classroom is a problem, the way I stop myself from getting bored is to think of my next holiday. What do you do?

[Juggler]

sounds like an interesting game. ill try it. do some modifications and get back to you.

what do i do?

girls. they usually keep my mind free of worries.

[Newbs]

I've used the flyswatter game that was mentioned here several times and the kids loved. Even used it yesterday when the parents were observing and, ... well I don't know what they thought.

Putting a line on the board for each letter of a word or phrase and then having the kids guess a consonant is always good. eg. _ _ _ _ _'_ (space) _ _ _ (space) _ _ _ _ _ _ eventually becomes Raoul's ESL Saloon, although I don't know that I would actually use that one with the tiddly winks. I call it "Wheel of Fortune" after a show in
Australia, (Adrianna rocked) but it might be called something else.

A good one I did the other day was to write a word, say "English" on the board. They then have to find a word beginning with h, the last letter. I made it a boys versus girls game, and they get a point per letter. They get really enthusiastic, and you get a high scoring and close game. (Sort of the opposite to soccer really)

[George61]

I stuck an English map of the world up on the board. Two teams compete to be first to find a country I nominate and then spell it correctly on the board. These kids are 18-20 years old. Most of them could find China. Other places , like America were difficult for some, but at least they enjoyed it. Knowledge of the World is sadly lacking.

[Newbs]

Knowledge of the World is sadly lacking.

Correction. It is b@#&*^%$% abysmal.

[George61]

It is b@#&*^%$% abysmal.

True, but I am soooooo m'kaying polite.

[Lotus Eater]

That's a worry if you are teaching pilots Newbs! We could end up anywhere when we fly.

[Newbs]

Lotus if I teach pilots then Air China is about to have a whole lot of sweet, innocent, dreamy eyed 13 year olds driving their planes. Not saying that's a bad thing but, they'd probably do as good a job as the present lot.

I think that you've got me mixed up with Nate, which has happened before. If I can presume to speak for him, once again Nate is deeply offended.

But the average person around here wouldn't know jack beyond the borders of the middle kingdom. Compared to them, Homer is a genius.

Marge: "Homer, it took you 30 minutes to find Canada on the map the other day."
Homer: "Aww, Marge, little old Canada is so hard to find, tucked away down there."

[Lotus Eater]

Abject apologies to both Newbs and Nate (and especially the one I am sharing with).

Can one of you change your name to something without an N in it?

[George61]

Can one of you change your name to something without an N in it?

Yes, Mewbs...or Mate....please do that. Confusion reigns easily in the mind of a female.

[Newbs]

Okay Meorge

[Lotus Eater]

You are coming to Suzhou aren't you George? Good - I shall have a long and fruitful discussion with you re the mind of a female!

[Lotus Eater]

I may even wear my Xena costume and look like my avatar - be afraid, be very afraid! (Although are you still going to have a duel on my behalf to defend my honour? If so, just be a little bit afraid, not very afraid OK?)

[George61]

Oooooooo Lotus, you are starting to frighten me. No man could possibly win such a discussion. I don't think I will duel with Raoul over your honour. You can get your new roommate "Mate" to do that now. Man, talk about a swinger!!

[Mr Nobody]

Lotus said:

I may even wear my Xena costume and look like my avatar - be afraid, be very afraid!

Is someone taking pictures for publication at this event? Do the public have a right to see? Do the public want to see?

Lotus said:

(Although are you still going to have a duel on my behalf to defend my honour?

UFC numbers one through to umpty umpty eat your collective and tiny hearts out! Film at 11.

[Lotus Eater]

UFC? - wo ting bu dong.

But I can guarantee that you'd have to give their money back after the first 2 minutes!

[Mr Nobody]

UFC = ultimate fight contest, a so called no holds barred so called no-rules brutality in the name of sport. I think they are up to over 100 or something. Usanian equivalent of an emasculated "bloodsport" or a professional version of "fight club" if you like. I don't.

Bread anyone? We already have the Circus.

[Juggler]

what happened to the topic of this thread?

[Mr Nobody]

Sorry, Juggler. How about, umm, it is a stretch here, use UFC videos so the students can learn how sports broadcasters use amglish . . . .

Er, maybe not. Too farfetched. Sorry about the Hijack.

[Newbs]

Okay, classroom boredom and games. Gradually coming out of the fog/coma/whatever that teaching 7 days straight induced. Towards the end of the week I introduced the kids to the code where every letter is replaced by the one after it. I used short sentences like "Dmptf uif epps." which becomes "Close the door." A different expression for every kid, which would be a problem with a big class admittedly, and with my 13yo they were all imperatives as we've been pushing the verbs a bit lately. Once they had decoded it they had to act out the command. Kids loved it and it was a great break from the routine of the week.

[Ruth]

I can't take the credit for this one, but I'll share it anyway since it worked really well. Crippler got the idea from the internet, where the lessons are for the idealized classroom size and arrangement. He adapted it to work in our wall-to-wall elbow-to-elbow 65-70 high school kids classrooms.

Put a phrase on the board - for example 'April Showers' or 'the buds of May'. Give the students a few minutes to make up words using only the letters in the phrase. Each letter can only be used once for each time it appears in the phrase (eg. there are two s's in the first one so your word could have two s's, but not two e's). Our classrooms have 8 rows across and the kids sit in pairs, so breaks down nicely into 4 teams (the only way to do team games given our limited space). A player from team A writes a word on the board. Give a point for each letter and record above their column. Minimum of 3-letter words and of course longer words earn more points. Team B writes a word on the board (cannot be a word already written by another team). Keep rotating through the teams until you run out of time. Make sure teams have equal opportunities at the board. Highest score wins.

Glitches -1. they did really well until they started using dictionaries and palm pilot things to look up words. If the words were off the wall, like the name of a Greek god a kid came up with, I didn't allow it. If they could use the word in a sentence to show me they understood it, I allowed it.
2. the lazy kids let the others do all the work. But what else is new. More kids participated than didn't.

[Nate M]

I just found an online, crossword puzzle creator that people might find helpful if they're looking to kill some time in class.

www.varietygames.com/cw/

[Canuck]

Okay I'm going to try this.. let me see if these ingenious Nei Guo Ren youngsters can crack these.. usually they will find a way to do something without any work (i.e. learning) involvement.. so I'm printing the crossword then using whiteout to cover the "SAMPLE" icon printed all over it. I want to see if this works before I run out and buy a license for it. Has anybody used these?

[Canuck]

The kids love the crossword puzzles and it has created interest in learning vocab.. thanks muchly.