TEFLChina.org > Teaching > Speaking:

Games (more), + Testing (more)

From discussions on the TEFLChina email list November/December 2001. Compiled below by Karen Stanley December 25, 2001. Titles and HTML by Roger Chrisman.

(6 from Ryan)

From: "Ryan Schreck" <schreck517@h...>
Date: Sun Dec 9, 2001 8:27 a
To: teflchina@yahoogroups.com

Mini-debates. This worked well because I have large classes which makes full class discussions difficult. I wrote six or seven "debate cards" and then split the class into groups of four or six. Each group gets a different card and has about fifteen minutes to choose sides, formulate arguments, and debate. Then the groups switch cards. There is (usually) not enough time for the topics to get boring, and by the end of class they are very aware of the time limit so they try to say as much as they can in that time frame, which is good. Some topic ideas:
- is true love possible on the internet
- is it better to live in the country or the city
- who is more important to a family, mother or father
- should Chinese marry foreigners
- which is better, married or single
- obey your parents or follow own ideas

Eternal Mingle. I found this somewhere on the net and it worked very well. Each student writes down one question. Any kind of question at all. Then they get up and mingle, asking their questions and each time exchanging questions. So they are constantly asking different people different questions. I thought this would be a 10 or 15 minute warm up, but they liked it so much, and the room was so full of English, that I let it go the whole period.

Alibi for Murder. The rules for this game can be found at Dave's ESL Cafe. It really is a lot of fun, especially if you urge them to ham it up and really get into character. If you introduce it well it should work even with lower level students.

Rocket Ship. (I'm looking for a better name for this one): The earth is going to explode but there is a rocket ship that can take ten people to the moon where they will start a new civilization. It is up to them to choose the best assortment of people. If you want, allow them to take people living or dead, but I always stress the importance of teachers! (and don't be surprised if somebody chooses Hitler or bin Laden - they usually have some pretty creative reasons.)

Warm up. A warm up activity that works well is competitive brainstorming. Get them into groups and announce a topic (things that are round, things that fly, etc.) and let them go for about three or four minutes, with one person acting as secretary. Do two or three of these at the beginning of early morning classes or after lunch and it will wake them right up.

www.weeklywebpoll.com. And finally, I just found a good website. It is www.weeklywebpoll.com I'm not sure exactly how I am going to use these, but there are plenty of possibilities. And the variety of polls is very wide, from superficial stuff about friendship and birthday celebrations to cloning and time travel.

--
I think a few of these can be put together to make an interesting and fun two hour lesson.

So, hopefully some of these ideas will come in handy as the term winds to a close. And I especially hope that many, many more of you will take the time to share just one lesson plan with the rest of us, be it oral, reading, writing, listening, or other. We (or at least I) can always use the help.

Ryan
Beijing Normal University

Surveys

From: "Jeff Kruse" <jkruse@s...>
Date: Mon Dec 10, 2001 8:55 a
To: teflchina@yahoogroups.com

Yan wrote:

I just found a good website. It is www.weeklywebpolls.com I'm not sure exactly how I am going to use these, but there are plenty of possibilities.

<snip>

A likely method to use these sorts of polls would be for each students to rank order for the responses to each question. Then they have to do this again in pairs, then groups of 4-6 each time agreeing and re-negotiating and providing reasons (in English!). Group to report to class on their findings. You might need to choose the polls and questions carefully.

Alternatively this could be a shorter activity, where each student is given a question and surveys all (or 10-15 of) the class for their responses. Report to class.

I think your idea is great and I do not wish to diminish the potential for it.

My thoughts in regard to these activities, is that it is essential to be sure that the students have internalised the language form, e.g.: they know how to form a question correctly using auxiliaries. Of course they will make errors but they must have a form to model. I don't believe it is enough to just set up the circumstance or need for L2 use and hope it will happen - especially so given the educational experiences and oral abilities of many speakers in China.

Suitable books are very rare beast in China as we know, but there are a number about with collections of activity based ("games" as a misnomer) language use that have structural and lexical indexes so that the activity can be integrated with the general syllabus (if one exists!). Other classroom texts, e.g.: Cutting Edge, Reward, have "resource banks" that can be used in a similar manner but are these are quite expensive investments.

All the best,
Jeff

Paper aeronautics

From: "john pullen" <j_pullen@h...>
Date: Mon Dec 10, 2001 3:34 p
To: teflchina@yahoogroups.com

I'm not sure that this is my best or even a good lesson. I taught it to four different classes, all on the same day. It generated so much excitement that it was difficult to maintain order and to really get the English discussion I had hoped. Maybe some others can improve on the ideas and make it better.

The basic lesson was on airplanes, flight, aerodynamics and the vocabulary around flight. After introducing vocabulary and discussion I focused on following directions. Students were asked to take a sheet of paper, regular copy paper, and fold it in half length wise. Then they were to open the paper and fold the left corner down into the middle so that the top of the sheet lines up inside the middle crease. Do the same with the right side corner. Then refold the paper along the center line. Fold one side down about half way and turn over to fold the other side the same amount.

As you can probably see, you now have a paper airplane. Discuss some variations that can be made to help it fly. How to put something heavy in the front, possibly a paper clip; adding larger wings by folding the paper further down over the sides to get more floating and less speed; folding up the edges of the wings for stability; etc.

Then put students in small groups with a few sheets of paper and they are to build the group's airplane to stay in the air the longest. After about 20 minutes of work then have a contest of flying the planes over the balcony or out the windows. Send a few judges outside to monitor each plane as it comes out. Everyone throws on que and then determines which plane is last to land. Give out candy to the winners.

Then write a short couple of paragraphs on what happened in class.

john

(2 from Rae)

From: Rae <raecarae@y...>
Date: Mon Dec 10, 2001 8:56 a
To: teflchina@yahoogroups.com

Ryan Schreck wrote:

So, hopefully some of these ideas will come in handy as the term winds to a close.

<snip>

Here's a couple that have worked for me:

The Wheel. Get the students into two circles facing each other. They can sit. You might have to form two wheels, depending on how big your class is: half the class sits inside the circle facing out, the other half outside facing in. Teacher stands in the middle. The students inside have the 5W questions. The students outside each have a different short story they have read for homework. It is the task of the person inside to ask questions to solicit the story from the person outside. The person inside takes notes. When the commotion dies down, usually 5-8 minutes, ask everyone in the inner circle to shift one seat to the left and then turn around to sit in the outside seat. At this point everyone should be working with different people. The inside circle again asks the questions, but the story is now reported speech - "she said that..." The circle can be used in a variety of ways - you can speed the process up or slow it down depending on what you're practicing.

Good Cop, Bad Cop. The class is divided into groups of 3. Explain the good cop, bad cop concept. The suspect is accused of robbing a bank at gunpoint and stealing a million dollars. Details can be added. Each person plays a role. The play lasts 4-5 minutes.

The good cop tries to use as many past continuous verbs as possible, the bad cop uses as many present perfect verbs as possible, the suspect uses as many simple past verbs as possible. Roles are exchanged until all three have played each part. The last role-play can be tape-recorded. Homework can consist of listening to tape recording, and identifying the verbs.

Rae

Paper Aeronautics w/ helicopter

From: "Betty & Tony Lee" <leesinchina@h...>
Date: Mon Dec 10, 2001 6:02 p
To: teflchina@yahoogroups.com

Sounds great - for those interested in an inside variation - you can make a helicopter-type paper plane as follows:
1. Cut a strip of paper say 2.5 cm wide and 10 cm long.
2. Cut down the middle to halfway.
3. Fold one part to the front and the other to the back - making a definite crease at the middle each time.
4. Now fold up the bottom (original width part) about 0.5 cm.
5. Keep folding several times.
6. Stand up on a desk and let it drop. It should spiral down.
7. Now begin variations to improve the design. (e.g.: Size of paper that you start with, how far down the cut goes,how many folds at the bottom,attach a paper clip (weight) to the bottom.... is my scientific method background showing too much?!

Actually what I think you discovered is that doing anything "different" - particularly those that generate talking naturally and requiring understanding - is the "trick" to opening up discussion. Do not feel restrained by the methods of the Chinese teachers. Tell them you are a foreigner and that we do things differently.

My seniors made a snowman with me the other day at the end of an English Literature double lesson. I had never experienced the fun of rolling snow into a ball though I knew how it was done - they enjoyed showing an overweight, middle aged foreign teacher how to do it even if we didn't plan it and my hands and theirs froze. I wished I'd taken my camera.

Betty
The Lees
ShengDa College
Zhengzhou, Hehan Province China

Argument

From: "Betty & Tony Lee" <leesinchina@h...>
Date: Mon Dec 10, 2001 6:27 p
To: teflchina@yahoogroups.com

Great idea - by the way our sophomores are spending the year (too long I might add!) on "Argument" from a text "Oral Workshop: Argument" (sorry I do not have my "daughter" here to translate the Chinese authors' names - but it is by Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press) There are 28 topics with background reading for each side for students to prepare from. Some topics include TV - positive or negative role?, Are pets good for mankind, Is euthanasia humane?, Is it a good idea to control population growth?, etc. If you are interested I can add to the list later. My husband will probably elaborate on using simulated job interviews as a break from this approach.
<snip>

Betty
The Lees
ShengDa College
Zhengzhou, Hehan Province China

Show and tell

From: Chris Wacker <chrishwacker@y...>
Date: Tue Dec 11, 2001 11:00 p
To: teflchina@yahoogroups.com

This may seem like an unworthy effort but since I printed out your ideas, here's one.

It's good to introduce Show and Tell, for any age group and any level. Everyone is pretty excited about it. I started it off by doing Show and Tell with my laptop computer, now I get two students to bring something each class, and with Q & A it takes about 20 minutes. After, I review the vocabulary that the speaker used and any grammar problems they might have had. Usually people's Show and Tell leads to some interesting discussion, also.

Chris

(2, from Nancy and William)

From: Nancy Buswell <nancybuswell@y...>
Date: Tue Dec 11, 2001 11:40 p
To: teflchina@yahoogroups.com

Ryan Schreck wrote:

I was daydreaming the other day that if even a fraction of the members on this list were to submit their best/favorite lesson plan (original or borrowed) then a large portion of our job related stress would be relieved.

Good idea, Ryan!

Role-plays w/ preparation (or without). I had been thinking about sending in an idea or two as a way of thanking William Donnelly for his role-play idea. I have copied his message in its entirety below. I only did the role-play part of it, as I have no experience in acting. I also only gave my students three choices for their plays, to make it simpler (and to keep me from writing so much on the board, six times). I found that the mobile phone, funny hat (I changed it from shoes to hat because the students in the first class were always looking at their feet) and lost wallet scenarios were the most popular. I often do role-plays where they don't have time to prepare, and likewise where they don't perform them in front of the class. But this was a good change, I think, because by having a lot of time to prepare and to write things down, the more shy and hesitant students could feel more confident. My classes are 45 minutes long, so I explained things and gave them time to prepare for the first 45 minutes.

I told the students there were three steps to this exercise:
1. Choose a topic;
2. Write a play;
3. Practice and memorize your play;
4. After the break, perform your play for the class. And don't forget to act!

The plays didn't take that long to perform, so we still had time to go through a chapter in their textbook.

William Donnelly wrote:

Here's a simple idea (most of my ideas are simple, like my mind!) to get the kiddos talking for a while. Do some partner decision role-plays. Here are some ideas I have used:

A is the future wife with a good job in Hangzhou; B is the future husband with a good job in Beijing. Where will they live after they get married?

A is the husband who wants to keep their baby at home; B is the wife who is tired and wants to send their baby to Guangzhou to live with her parents. What will they decide to do?

A is the husband who wants to buy a car; B is the wife who says "You're crazy! We don't have enough money!" Can the husband persuade the wife to let him buy the car?

A is a football fan who has 500 rmb in his pocket; B is a person with an extra ticket, who wants to sell it for 800 rmb. The gold medal football match at the 2008 Olympics between China and France/Brazil/name-a-country will start in 30 minutes. Will the football fan be able to watch the game?

A is the 12-year-old child who wants to have a dog; B is the mother or father who says "no". Can the child persuade the parent?

A is a 20-year-old factory worker, who lives at home and takes a bus one hour to get to work, who wants to buy a motorcycle; B is the mother or father who says "No, it's too dangerous."

I explain the situation, then tell them to start talking. I stop them when it seems like some have finished and others are deadlocked, usually after four or five minutes. Then you can ask them if they have solved the problem.

Please let me know of any other partner decision role-plays that you like.

Debates. As for debates, I've changed the way I do them. I used to have groups of 4-6 do debates, but I now do them one-on-one. I found that the quieter students didn't participate in the large-group debates, but of course all are forced to talk when it's one-on-one. My favorite subject are:
- I support/oppose the one-child policy;
- I support/oppose the death penalty;
- Smoking should be forbidden/allowed in public places.

To give an idea of how to prepare for a debate, I use "Arranged marriages are good/bad." This is good for some laughs. Since I've never debated, I don't know if I use the correct form or not. I tell the students, after
they have had time to think of three or so reasons to support their argument, to first present their points and then have a free talk time, where they say "You say da da da da, but I think da da da da da." If someone has a better way to structure a debate I'd be glad to hear it.

I am going to make a special folder to keep these teflchina ideas in. Keep them coming!

Regards from Nancy in Hangzhou

Ambassador

From: shaklev0572 <shaklev0572@s...>
Date: Wed Dec 12, 2001 5:46 a
To: teflchina@yahoogroups.com

I just wanted to thank the teacher who gave the ideas on oral English, one being dividing the class into groups with rotating topics. Today I went into the class that I am supposed to teach with a Chinese teacher and he told me, that I should teach the class today and he would just look, without having warned me the least. I was improvising like crazy, and I first taught them Simon says, which was rather fun, and then went on to do the group discussion, with topics that I was inventing as I was writing on the black board. One funny thing was that one of the topics was, "Is Wuhan the most beautiful city in China?" - of course everybody disagreed to this, but I tried to appoint someone "ambassadors of Wuhan" who was supposed to convince others that it was indeed a beautiful place. Sometimes this was very interesting, at other times the people had nothing to say.

Later that day I repeated the experience in two of my other classes, and I got different feedback according to the set up of the class - in some, they will eagerly start discussing, faking fights and everything, whereas in others they sit still and say nothing. I find I have to run around as a kind of a "party-fixer" to try and make everyone comfortable and let them speak. All in all, I think they enjoyed it.

--
Another fun effect of Simon says is that after having played this game in the beginning of class (I assume everybody know what I am talking about?), the class thereafter required me to say Simon says before any order I gave them - they would not do anything if I told them, "Move into your small groups." I had to say, "Simon says, move into your small groups."

take care
stian - who finally got his heater!

Connected speech

From: "fshdt" <fshdt@u...>
Date: Wed Dec 12, 2001 6:08 am
Subject: Re: oral english ideas

<snip>

This isn't really an oral lesson. It's about giving (and getting) insights into word boundaries in connected speech and into what distortions of vowel sounds and consonants are allowable to native speakers and what are beyond the pale.

Below are student book lists with silly authors. Remember the joke book titles, Broken Window by Eva Brick, The Female Alcoholic by Sheila Van Other?

They worked hard on these and I think they've done a good job, especially since they were able to laugh at the ones that were only just acceptable.

Good Fences Make Good Neighbours by Bill Dawall
Keep Laughing by Fanny Joke
The Police Are After Us by Leslie Eve Town
ooch ouch for that one!
He Had a Cramp by Kenny Walk
After Killing His Wife by Barry De Wuman
The Boy Fainted by Carrie Im
The Lost Sheep by Willy Findit
Silent Night by Chris Mass
From Riches To Rags by Penny Less
Don't Try It by Dane Jerus
Elegant Wedding by Maria Ridgeman

Now look at some that didn't quite make it:

Merry Christmas by Ann Joyce Urself
In the Graveyard by Rex Tim Peace
The Burglars by Dave Gong
The Gift by Franky and Mary Much

It's quite diagnostic and helps students listen to themselves.

Dick

Connected speech w/ dictation

From: Karen Stanley <kstanley@c...>
Date: Wed Dec 12, 2001 7:56 am
Subject: oral english ideas

Here's a favorite activity of mine that I've used in different variations over the years.

I use a list of sentences either taken directly from exercises that the students have done, or based on vocabulary and grammar that I'm sure they know.

I do a dictation using what I have seen called elided, relaxed, or rapid/fast speech. In other words, language with all the whaddaya (what do/are you), kujah (could you), kA? (can't), and other forms that are so different from the citation form found in the dictionary. In a community college setting in the US, this is helpful because it helps the people who have heard (and comprehend the idea of) an expression understand how it's written (and also become aware of sounds within the phrase that they may not have "heard," such as the -ed or 've sounds, which have such low perceptual saliency in spoken English). It also helps those who are more familiar with the written form understand what it *really* sounds like when they encounter it in the street.

Depending on how much time I have or want to spend on it, I may use anywhere between 3 and 10 sentences. First, I say each sentence three times, ALWAYS in rapid speech. It actually took me some practice in the very beginning to get good at NOT slowing down when using isolated sentences in a dictation. I pause between repetitions until all or most of the pencils stop moving. At the end, I repeat each sentence one more time.

Although eventually they get a dictation on a test, I do NOT collect the dictations they do in class. This removes some of the stress - I guess if you were afraid they might not notice errors, you could have them exchange with another student. However, it *is* important to give immediate feedback. I write each sentence (one at a time) on the board, and repeat it. I show them where certain kinds of changes take place. For example, I point out unreleased consonants, including the fact that the difference in pronunciation between 'back' and 'bag' (in a sentence such as, "I put the big one in the back.") is the length of the vowel sound, since the consonant is unreleased rather than actually pronounced. (Obviously, some things will vary according to the variety of English you speak, but a lot of things are quite widespread in most Englishes.) I encourage students to ask me to show the difference between what they wrote (and its pronunciation) and what I wrote on the board (and actually said). Many students like to repeat the sentence at this point in the exercise, and I find that it helps many of them become more understandable, bringing in stress and intonation as well as the elision of sounds.

Karen Stanley <kstanley@c...>
Charlotte, North Carolina, USA

Advice columns

From: "Ryan Schreck" <schreck517@h...>
Date: Wed Dec 12, 2001 6:40 pm
Subject: oral english ideas

<snip> I think Show and Tell, though it seems like something from grammar school, is an excellent activity for english learners. And if the students are excited about it then it is definitely a keeper. I'm going to include that in my classes next term.

Another idea I had that worked very well: advice columns. There is a Dear Abby website (don't know the URL but it's easy to find) with hundreds of letters. Or you can write your own so they are geared more directly towards your students' interests and experiences (i.e. a letter about noisy roommates or bad canteen food is better than a lesbian daughter drug addict). In groups they must agree on the best advice to give. If you want to incorporate writing, have them write the response letter. I give them three letters to choose from. It generally took each group about 45 minutes to agree on advice and write an answer to just one letter. This can easily be made into a two hour lesson. And I think it is a lesson format you can use more than once per term (just choose your topics carefully).

Ryan
BNU

(3 from Tony)

From: "Betty & Tony Lee" <leesinchina@h...>
Date: Fri Dec 14, 2001 6:36 a
To: teflchina@yahoogroups.com

The texts do make for a dull 90 mins (the usual lesson length as far as i know) and the thought of 'doing' Argument for a whole semester followed by Discussion for the next is a dismal prospect.

Role-play -- interviews. Split the class into groups of four. Three policemen interviewing a suspect, three executives interviewing a job applicant, two school officials interviewing parents, two partners seeking a loan from the bank, etc. (can have a fifth student who must take notes) Swap scenarios or change the group members after 10/15 minutes

Running stories. You start it off and each student adds a sentence. the better ones add a few extra sentences. Teaches listening skills as initially ( and probably forever) even the deskmate hasn't a clue what the previous student said -- hence much whispering in Chinese to set the scene. Forbid Chinese prompting and everyone with get more benefit.

20 questions. Animal, vegetable, mineral or abstract. Write their questions and your yes/no responses on the board as it is a bit hard to follow in their heads - and you can show them why some questions are "silly" or unproductive and show them that the quickest way to reach the answer is by continually cutting the range of possibilities in half rather than by making small increments.

Tony
The Lees
ShengDa College
Zhengzhou, Henan Province China

Role-play -- TV broadcasts

From: shaklev0572 <shaklev0572@s...>
Date: Tue Dec 18, 2001 3:41 a
To: teflchina@yahoogroups.com

today I really had a fun lesson. I've been teaching this class for about a month with another teacher, but this is the first time I got "free hands" and she just sat down like a student. The topic was radio and TV, and first I pretended it was a TV-show, and I walked around with the blackboard-eraser as a microphone, interviewing students about their favourite TV-programmes, the benefits of TV over radio and vice versa. After a while I had a list of different program categories on the blackboard (sports, national news, international news and so on).

I then explained to the students the concept of improvisation, and asked who likes watching the news - the (poor?) student who raised his hand was given my improvised microphone and told to make a news broadcast - I provided the sound effect and intro jingle... I was rather nervous as to how this would go, since they always prepare carefully before performing a dialogue for the other teachers, and their English level is not always great, but the students rose to the challenge! And so, with different students, we had fascinating (rather short) broadcasts of international and national news, sports (featuring me as a javelin thrower with a broom in slow-motion as the excited sports journalist, aka student who had almost never spoken before the class before, described my gracious moves), and game show (with host and two contestants who had two answer questions in order to gain the prize). We also had educational TV about the use of computers in Chinese classrooms (I never supplied the topics, the students invented them off the top of their heads, except for the gameshow and sports), but looking back I see that I forgot the weather.
:)

--
In the second class, I woke up that half of the students that had clearly been sleeping during recess with a bit of Simon says (problem is, I'm no good at hosting Simon says, since I always get so dizzy from all the jumping and head wiggling and so on, that I give up before half of the students are out:)), and then we did the 20 questions that were described here earlier. In the end we sang Happy birthday to a student who had her birthday today.

All in all, it was very much fun, the students responded wonderfully, it was very much improvised from my side, and I walked the thin line of making fun of myself and them (so far they think I'm hilarious, but I'm afraid someday they'll call my bluff and see that I'm just a pathetic guy a few years older than them, with no prior experience, trying to teach a university class... :)) If every day was like this, I wouldn't need pay to do this job :)

(Sorry if this wasn't very useful for the rest of you, but I had to share :))

stian
<snip>

Storytelling w/ a story element

From: "Betty & Tony Lee" <leesinchina@h...>
Date: Tue Dec 18, 2001 9:20 a
To: teflchina@yahoogroups.com

Thanks for sharing your great day. The big trick is to maintain the momentum.

Another possibility is to give each of the students the name of a common object - a key, door, taxi, hat, cloud, feather, etc (each gets a different one). Give it to them the week before for the freshmen or even a few minutes before for the more capable class. They have to use the object as inspiration for a short talk. Try to impress on them that it is to be a minor element of the story as they will want to talk about the actual object. You should get some very interesting stories among the boring ones and since they are all different most of the class remains interested.

A minor but useful variation is to pick a student at random to give his impression of the previous speech. Ideally they should comment on grammar and pronunciation (after you give them the spiel about having to lose face occasionally to learn English). They will invariable say the intonation was great, the pronunciation was very clear, and the clarity was almost perfect -- which saves everyone's face while helping no-one, but at least it makes the whole class listen very carefully since they will not know who is to comment next (and if they get caught out not having listened, they will lose face). As you have no doubt discovered, very few of the students can understand any other student speaking English and this forces them to at least try.
<snip>
Tony

(3 from Steven)

From: "Steven McMath" <ssroverss@h...>
Date: Thu Dec 20, 2001 4:37 a
To: teflchina@yahoogroups.com

<snip>

A cave is flooding. Escaping is a very slow process. Only 4 people can escape before the cave is flooded. Who should escape, who should die and why?

(1) An elderly doctor ( 74 ) who is on the verge of a breakthrough in the cure of cancer
(2) A beautiful young girl ( 19 ), unmarried and pregnant.
(3) An Arab father ( 47 ) of 12 children .
(4) A very intelligent student ( 19 ) at University studying literature. Very ugly.
(5) A soldier ( 27 ). Very tough.
(6) A convicted sex offender ( 32 ).
(7) A mother ( 28 ) of 3 children.
(8) A very rich business man ( 47 ).
(9) The guide ( 40 ) who led them into the cave.
(10) A recently married and pregnant woman ( 23 ).

Talking dictionary. 2 teams. 1 student from each team describes the words in English while the other students guess. Give them 3+ minutes each.

If you print off a couple of sheets this is also a good way to improve your Chinese!!

Marketing. I got this from davesEFL. It's a good activity. Thanks to Andrea, Qingdao, China.

"This is an easy but fun way to get students of any age up and speaking enthusiastically in front of the class. Get them in groups of three and tell them all that today they are all marketing executives. Give them each a product to invent (shoes, car, soft-drink, medicine, etc) and tell them that they have to come up with a way to market it and then present their idea to the class. They have to design an advertisement for either a billboard, television commercial or magazine. Divide the presentation into three parts:
1) Description of the product.
2) Description of the advertising method they have used.
3) Explanation as to WHY they chose certain things in their advertisement (ie. a beautiful landscape that makes you think of the peaceful way that you feel when you drink this soothing drink). This is a good way to make everybody speak making full use of every flowery adjective they can find and also a fun exercise in creativity/marketing strategies.

This activity is also a good wrap-up of or segway into a discussion on the good, the bad, and the ugly of advertising techniques."

I usually get the students to act out the advert after really hamming up what marketing is all about ( big dancing bear anyone?).

Steven McMath

Picture stories

Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2001 09:33:18 -0800 (PST)
From: Edna Hastings <edna9_99@yahoo.com>

When I was in China I brought 75 pounds of teaching things to China. What worked best were picture stories. My students were used to speaking other people's words. I wanted to force them to create the sentences. Resources I used were Look Again Pictures by Judy Winn-Bell Olsen, Linda Mrowicki's older books with cartoon stories, and The New Oxford Picture Dictionary Listening and Speaking Activity Book by Jayme Adelson-Goldstein et al. (that has many picture stories in comic book layout). I also used melodramatic pictures taken from magazines, calendars and newspapers.

If it was a beginners class, we first reviewed the vocabulary needed to tell the story.

I even made discussion cards from pictures cut from a Sunday Newspaper and an Ikea catalog. Each card had two people and one object pasted on it; for example, an old woman, a baby and a radio. Small groups of students (2 to 5) were assigned to create a story involving everything on their card. Beginners could write the story and then have one person read the story to the whole class. Sometimes I even had them do a role play based in their card.

Edna Hastings
Orange, California, formerly of Guilin, Guangxi

Role play -- the 9:30 News!

From: Katy Miller <katyinchina@y...>
Date: Mon Jun 4, 2001 1:08 a
To: teflchina@yahoogroups.com

I had fun with a role play activity the other day. Recently the students have been given an extra class each week - well, it's not really a class, I was just told to "supervise their reading" for one period a week. So I thought it would be a good chance to get them reading current news articles.

In the oral English class immediately following that period, we did "TV English news." Each group had twenty minutes to prepare a news item, with interviews and people acting out scenes in the background. They were really very open-ended - I just said "make a TV news item," and they were fantastic. One group did something on the environment, another did an item about the spring outing we were taking that weekend (belated), another group did one of the news items they'd read in the reading session, etc. I was the anchor woman.

It was great fun and I was impressed with the job they did. One group even made a microphone with the name of the TV station on it, out of a paper cup and a pencil. Another group had booms made from rolled-up paper. One group interviewed "people on the street" - went up to people from other groups and got their impressions. One of the most fun classes we've had so far. It's fun because the time limit is real: I told them the news would air at 9.30 cos it's the 9.30 news (vary time to coincide with class), and then started announcing the news even though a couple of groups weren't quite ready. They improvised the rest.

<snip>

Katy.

Exam-grading rubric

From: "eveinbeijing" <ear7@h...>
Date: Sat Dec 15, 2001 12:28 a
To: teflchina@yahoogroups.com

The Lion of Tianjin (HuangDi) sent me this link, and I am posting it with his permission. The link is to a simple rubric which allows for easy, logical grading of oral exams. I plan to use it with my OE exams. I'd like to give it to students in advance so they can know where their grade will come from, but I'd have to explain the fine differences between synonyms like "halting" and "choppy" and simplify teacher-jargon such as "emerging control of basic language structures." LOL...I can just see myself trying to get that concept across, with the blank looks on my students' faces. Maybe I'll just tell them they get from 1-4 points on each of the 5 areas of Task Completion, Comprehensibility, Fluency, Pronunciation, Vocabulary, and Grammar. The rest of the wording of the rubric will be my secret.

http://www.fcps.k12.va.us/DIS/OHSICS/forlang/PALS/rubrics/1spk_an.htm

Eve Ross
Beijing Institute of Machinery

Exam (prepare w/ The Wheel)

From: "eveinbeijing" <ear7@h...>
Date: Thu Dec 13, 2001 5:48 a
To: teflchina@yahoogroups.com

Exams are coming up around here, and I've decided that the test format for my Oral English classes will be a 10-minute one-on-one conversation between each student and myself. The criteria will be holistic: fluency and intelligibility. When a student arrives to take the exam, I will present him/her with little slips of paper and on each one will be a topic we have discussed in class this term (shopping, sports, divorce, etc.). The student selects one topic at random, like drawing straws. After a moment's reflection, the student must start the conversation with a question, such as "Do you like shopping?" or "What is your favorite sport?" or something a little more provocative, such as "Can divorce be a good thing?" and be ready for whatever answer I may give to that question. The conversation must last 10 minutes, but can stray to other topics, if they come up naturally (as in, NOT "Let's talk about sports now," but maybe, "Do you think Michael Jordan likes to go shopping?").

Obviously this is way more touchy-feely than my students are used to. But I think it will be a good measure of their ability to hold a conversation in English, as well as an experience that will give them confidence. I hope they leave the exam thinking, "Wow, I just talked for 10 minutes straight in English with a foreigner! And we understood each other!"

So, in classes to prepare my students for this kind of test, I'm using a variation of The Wheel (submitted by Rae). Students sit in a double circle, with those facing outward playing the teacher and those facing inward playing a student. I gave each "student" one of the exam topics on a slip of paper. They had 2 minutes to start the conversation with the "teacher" and have the "teacher" respond. Then the "students" handed the topic to the person on their right, and the "teachers" moved to the chair on their left. Thus everyone had a new partner and a new topic. They did the same role-play, except I gave them 3 minutes so they could elaborate a little more. We did several rotations, until they were talking for 10 minutes at a stretch. If I noticed anyone not talking, I would go over to them and try to jumpstart their conversation. However, there was really a lot of English going on!

Eve Ross
Beijing Institute of Machinery

Exam -- four visit teacher

From: "john pullen" <j_pullen@h...>
Date: Thu Dec 13, 2001 10:13 a
To: teflchina@yahoogroups.com

[An alternative to individual visit exams.]

Why not ease your load a little by inviting groups of four to come to see you and give them 30 minutes. The conversation is then among the group members. Also tell them you will give extra points for encouraging others to talk and if they ask for clarification of what has been said when it isn't understood. This way you have cut down your time invested by at least 10 minutes and they will do almost all of the talking, which allows you to concentrate on what they are saying and how it is being said rather than trying to think of your next response. It also allows you the time to concentrate on notes you want to write about them while it is happening rather than trying to remember what you had thought 15 minutes ago. And since you are writing your notes simultaneously, you don't have to have time in between each person to write. (Of course if you are not over 50 like I was, then you probably will have no trouble remembering)

john

Exam -- individual visit

From: "Jeff Kruse" <jkruse@s...>
Date: Thu Dec 13, 2001 10:24 a
To: teflchina@yahoogroups.com

John said:

Why not ease your load a little by inviting groups of four to come to see you and give them 30 minutes.

I agree with John that 10 minutes per student will soon stretch into the next lifetime or nearby - I think I only have one.

However, having done oral testing in groups of 2, then 4, and individually at various times, I have been surprised how much less-able speaker can be 'hidden' by the group. Great for learning but less effective as a means of individual assessment.

I would opt for 3 minutes on a range of questions which reflect the semesters work. (No penances here.) A short oral comprehension with written answers is also an effective method.

Cheers,
Jeff

Exam -- individual visit w/ surprise topic

From: Margaret Orleans/Tom Bradley <tomnpeg@i...>
Date: Thu Dec 13, 2001 3:53 p
To: teflchina@yahoogroups.com

Eve said:

Exams are coming up around here, and I've decided that the test format for my Oral English classes will be a 10-minute one-on-one conversation between each student and myself. The criteria will be holistic: fluency and intelligibility

When I was teaching at Fuzhou University some fifteen years ago, I used this format for term exams. Both the department chair and I judged the conversations, though he contributed only when the student needed a few hints to get started.

To avoid the widespread tendency among Chinese students to memorize something for exams, we did not announce the topics beforehand, and we had other teachers in the department serving as monitors. They stood guard at the doors to the classroom where those students waiting to be examined were sitting, and supposedly sent the students who had finished back to their dormitory without re-entering that classroom. However, after the first half hour, examinees started launching themselves into prepared speeches on what they assumed would be the topic (they didn't always listen closely enough to find out what the topic actually was, as it wasn't written down, just introduced orally by me).

Perhaps your practice sessions will relieve the natural anxiety about a new test format and prevent a similar attempt to bypass the spontaneous nature of conversation. Good luck.

(Despite the student attempts to present their set pieces, Professor Deng and I felt we had a good measure of students' abilities in Oral English.)

--Peg

P.S. Another possible format is to have two students engage in the conversation, freeing you up to do more observing, but then you have to give each student a couple of pairings to compensate for especially strong or weak partners.

Exam -- individual visits w/ surprise *picture*

From: watsonky@a...
Date: Fri Dec 14, 2001 4:14 a
To: teflchina@yahoogroups.com

My oral exams went extremely well. I had 10 pictures that were printed off the internet of various things -- a countryside setting, a few cities scenes, sporting events, etc. These were 8x10 and laminated at the local photo shop. I called the student out of class one at a time, had them "draw" (select, as in, "Pick a cart.. any card.. at random.") a picture (they were turned face down), look at it and in three minutes tell me everything he/she could about the picture. This could include shapes, colors, and any details they could see. Then I asked a question that pertained to the picture, such as for the countryside picture I asked the student if given a choice would they prefer to live in the countryside or city and why. These worked out very well. Hope this helps!
Karen

Acknowledgements

Ryan started it!

From: "Ryan Schreck" <schreck517@h...>
Date: Sun Dec 9, 2001 8:27 a
To: teflchina@yahoogroups.com

I was daydreaming the other day that if even a fraction of the members on this list were to submit their best/favorite lesson plan (original or borrowed) then a large portion of our job related stress would be relieved.

Just think, with 400 some subscribers, if only a quarter of us sent in a lesson plan we would still have more than enough to pick through and planning next term would be a breeze. I really think it would be great if this caught on. And to get the ball rolling, here are some ideas that worked for me (they are not all original).....

<snip>

Ryan
Beijing Normal University

*
Thanks Ryan Schreck and all TEFLChina email list subscribers who contributed, and Karen Stanley who compiled this!
*

Related: Games & ice breakers

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