The Monster Book is a collection of over 150 activities intended to liven up the language classroom, engage students in learning, and give instructors straightforward, active options for practicing the four skills and tapping into other elements of language such as grammar, vocabulary, critical thinking, and culture. Many of these activities have been used in the field for several years and are compiled here with simple, clear instructions and variations to fit a wide range of classroom contexts. The activities are organized into 16 sections as a starting point for exploring the ideas rather than hard and fast divisions.
Interactive activities: What are you doing?
This game is good for reviewing of verb tenses
and involving kinesthetic learning.
Preparation
This activity requires little preparation, as
the students are the ones in charge of giving the clues and keeping the
activity going. Model an action to get the activity started.
Procedure
1.
Call a
pair of students to the center of the room.
Student #1 starts acting out an action (e.g., eating
an ice cream cone).
Student #2 asks, “What are you doing?”
#1 says a different action than what he/she is doing (“I’m
climbing a ladder.”).
#2
then begins miming this
action (climbing a ladder).
#1 then asks, “What are you doing?” to #2.
#2 says a different action….
2. Let action continue until it dissolves into
laughter or they get stumped. This works best after the class has been studying
a good number of these verbs for a period of time.
Variations
1. This activity can be used with different verb tenses. E.g.,
What did you do last night?; What will you do on vacation?; etc.
2.
Instead
of two students performing for the class, students can be divided into
even-numbered groups and pairs can take turns
doing the activity within the groups.
This activity could be done similar
to charades, where a learner
mimes an action and the others guess
the verb. Ideally, the students would guess using a complete
sentence, e.g., You are riding a bike. You are eating
an ice cream cone.
Pictures: Cell phone photoes
In this activity, teachers encourage their
learners to take
out their cell phones in class for language
practice! Not every
learner needs to have one in order
to do the activity; it’s pos- sible to arrange smaller
groups around one device. NOTE:
If assigning
learners particular homework in taking photos, be sure to give them
some guidance on what is culturally ap- propriate
or acceptable in taking photos
of people.
Preparation
Depending on the level of the learners, this can be a review of par-
ticular structures or vocabulary.
Procedure
1.
For homework,
have students take one or more photos based
on a theme for the class,
e.g., The Market.
2.
Put students
in pairs or small groups
depending on phone preva-
lence in class.
3.
Have students
describe their photo(s)
using specific structures or vocabulary to
their partner or group (e.g., easy: list the fruit and vegetables that are in the photo; intermediate: describe what
the people at the market
are doing; advanced:
create a story based on the photo).
Variations
1.
Instead
of assigning homework in advance, have learners select a
photo from their phone to describe or talk about. Note: The teacher may want to approve of the photo first.
photo from their phone to describe or talk about. Note: The teacher may want to approve of the photo first.
2.
Assign
any type of task to take photos that are relevant to the lesson. Photos can be
taken for review of vocabulary, grammar, or particular conversation topics.
3.
Have students
take photos of cultural representations to prompt discussion about various topics
(celebrations, community
items, food, sports attitudes, beliefs, etc.).
4.
Have students
capture English around
them. If in an English-speaking country, they can concentrate on finding particular language usage for businesses,
collocations, and language of persuasion or power.
If in a non-English-speaking country, learners can be on the lookout for
English in their community. There is often more than one expects to find!
5.
Have students
take a photo of part of something
that gives some information about the item, but does not make the item obvious, and have others guess what
the item is.
6.
For any
of these ideas, learners can also write about their photos.
Object-based storytelling
This storytelling activity
uses small, commonly
found objects to trigger stories
and get creative
language use inEmotional Choral Reading
takes a typical
language learn- ing activity such as reading a dialogue as a group
and gives it a nice twist to enliven it by adding
emotion.
Preparation
None necessary
Procedure
1. Select a dialogue from the textbook or a
reading, or write one.
2. Have learners practice reading as a group as is.
3.
Have
learners reread the dialogue as you cue different emotions, so learners change their voice to match as they are reading.
Variations
1.
Give
different emotions to different characters in the dialogue.
2. Have some learners read the dialogue as one
emotion (or mixed) and the others guess the emotion.
3. Have learners do the dialogue in smaller
groups to reduce affec- tive filter
and allow all to practice at the same time.
Example
Emotions
|
Anger
Doubt
Shame
Worry
Shock
Calm
|
Annoyance
Envy
Anxiety
Bored
Delight
Relief
|
Disgust
Frustration
Embarrassment
Hurt
Joy
Interest
|
Irritation
Guilt
Fear
Sadness
Courage
Surprise
|
tegrating
the objects spontaneously.
Preparation
Collect approximately as many small objects as you have students in your class and place them in a box or a
bag. Items such as a toy car, doll,
game pieces, spoon, comb, ring, button, bobby pin, piece of candy, bell, eraser, etc., will work well.
Procedure
1.
For the
first time, model
the activity by choosing five objects from the box of objects (e.g., a car, a spoon, a doll, a banana, a mon- key). Then tell the learners an impromptu story,
which might go like this:
“A long
time ago, a doll was walking along
a road carrying a spoon
and a banana. A fast car passed
by. She was scared.
She dropped the banana and spoon and ran into the trees. When
she came back, she
saw the monkey
eating the banana
with the spoon.
She laughed at the monkey
and took him home.” A story this simple will give the students confidence that
they can tell a story, too.
2.
Divide
learners into groups of three to five.
3.
Distribute four or five objects to each group (or have them reach in
the bag to select).
4.
Have each
group make up a story that includes all of their objects.
5.
After the
groups create stories, have each group tell its story to another group or to
the whole class.
Variations
1.
Have
learners collect small objects to donate to the class over time. They do not
need to know what they will be used for, but when there are enough and it is
appropriate, use the activity.
2.
Have each
learner write down a noun on a small piece of paper. Collect the pieces of paper, mix them up, and use them for the
activity instead of objects.
3.
Have groups
tell their story without using the name of the object, but they need to weave the description of the object
into the story. The other
students guess what the four or five objects are in the story.
4.
Give
students a theme or location under which their story should take place so it is
not so wide open.
Emotional choral reading
In this activity, the sentences of a story are cut into separate strips of paper, which students need to put into correct order to reconstruct the story. This activity requires students to pay attention to discourse features such as transition words, use of articles and pronouns, and verb tense. It appeals to ana- lytic, holistic, kinesthetic, and visual learners.
Preparation
The teacher will need to find a text with
enough discourse markers to make the ordering of sentences as unambiguous as
possible. The text should be retyped so that each sentence begins on a new line;
the sentences are cut into strips and mixed up before being distributed
to students. Enough copies need to be made so that every group can work on the story at the same time.
Procedure
1.
Students
are put into pairs or groups.
2.
Each
group is given a set of strips.
3.
Groups
are instructed to put the strips into order to create a complete story.
4.
They may
be instructed to pay attention to particular discourse markers, pronouns, or
repeated references.
5.
When
students are finished, they can call the teacher to the group to check.
6. The teacher may need to guide the students to
discover any sentences that need to be reordered.
Variations
1.
Students
can work individually.
2. Students can be given one particular strip and
tasked with one of the options below:
a.
They can
be asked to jigsaw. In the first
group, they work with other students who have the same strip to identify
relevant discourse features and make predictions about what elements in the
story likely precede and follow their par- ticular sentence. They then break
into new groups where each student has a different sentence.
b.
Students
can be asked to physically move into a line to present the correct order of the
story. Students can read aloud their version of the story, with each student reading his/her
particular sentence in turn.
3.
Instead
of sentences, students can be given drawings or comic strip frames with the
words deleted. Students decide on a good
order for the drawings and create a narrative to explain the story behind that order. This activity would not ensure that
the target discourse markers would be used without direct instruction to do so.
The final stories could be shared in writing, orally,
or visually (displayed in the classroom).
Story strip.
In this activity, the sentences of a story
are cut into
separate strips of paper, which
students need to put into
correct order to reconstruct the story. This activity
requires students to pay
attention to discourse features such as transition words, use of articles
and pronouns, and verb tense.
It appeals to ana- lytic, holistic,
kinesthetic, and visual
learners.
Preparation
The teacher will need to find a text with
enough discourse markers to make the ordering of sentences as unambiguous as
possible. The text should be retyped so that each sentence begins on a new line;
the sentences are cut into strips and mixed up before being distributed
to students. Enough copies need to be made so that every group can work on the story at the same time.
Procedure
1.
Students
are put into pairs or groups.
2.
Each
group is given a set of strips.
3.
Groups
are instructed to put the strips into order to create a complete story.
4.
They may
be instructed to pay attention to particular discourse markers, pronouns, or
repeated references.
5.
When
students are finished, they can call the teacher to the group to check.
6. The teacher may need to guide the students to
discover any sentences that need to be reordered.
Variations
1.
Students
can work individually.
2. Students can be given one particular strip and
tasked with one of the options below:
a.
They can
be asked to jigsaw. In the first
group, they work with other students who have the same strip to identify
relevant discourse features and make predictions about what elements in the
story likely precede and follow their par- ticular sentence. They then break
into new groups where each student has a different sentence.
b.
Students
can be asked to physically move into a line to present the correct order of the
story. Students can read aloud their version of the story, with each student reading his/her
particular sentence in turn.
3.
Instead
of sentences, students can be given drawings or comic strip frames with the
words deleted. Students decide on a good
order for the drawings and create a narrative to explain the story behind that order. This activity would not ensure that
the target discourse markers would be used without direct instruction to do so.
The final stories could be shared in writing, orally,
or visually (displayed in the classroom).
