The first three posts looked at exploiting sentence builder frames, texts and PowerPoint slides. This one is a bit different as it lists a miscellaneous set of go-to lessons, starters, fillers and plenaries you can throw into lessons. These are the fall-back tasks which you might need if a lesson has gone too fast, if you want to do something different before starting a new topic, if you just want a fun start to the lesson or need five or ten minutes to fill a gap in a lesson plan.
So here is a pot-pourri of low prep lesson ideas. I've taken these from various blogs I've written in the past.
1. My weekend (low to mid-interemediate)
We know that listening is the most important yet often neglected skill for language learning. It's also something some pupils find hard to do. To develop listening skill and provide tailored comprehensible input try this:
You tell the class you are going to recount what you did last weekend and that they have to make notes in English. The amount of detail you go into and the speed you go will depend on your class. Talk for about three minutes. If you spent the whole weekend marking, you can always make stuff up!
You then make some true or false (maybe not mentioned too) statements in the target language about what you said in your account. Class gives hands up (or no hands up) answers. This can then lead into a simple pair work task where pupils make up their own true/false statements. This can be further extended by getting students in pairs to recount your weekend from their notes and/or their own weekend.
2. Just a minute (intermediate to advanced)
Pupils work in small groups. Individuals try to talk for a minute without hesitating (i.e. drying up), repeating or deviating from the topic. This works well with good intermediate and advanced level students. You can give easy topics to intermediates and harder ones to advanced level students. This can be great preparation for an oral exam. I'd begin by improvising an example of your own to demonstrate as a model.
This is definitely an "output" task but one which can encourage students to speak fearlessly with an ear on fluency rather than accuracy.
3. Would I lie? (Intermediate to advanced level)
Students try to work out which three of six statements are not true by asking you questions. You prepare five statements about yourself, three true and two false, and write them on the board. For example:
• My brother has twin sons.
• I have three cats.
• If I’d been a boy, I would’ve been called George.
• My family was brought up in Spain.
• My favourite movie is The Sound of Music.
• My father was an extra in Star Wars.
You can ask the class how many of the statements they think are false. Then tell them there are three. Tell them they have to work out which by asking you questions, listening to your answers and watching your reaction. You can embroider your answers as much as possible, giving the right number of hints depending on how fast you think your class is.
Let the students ask questions until they have decided which ones they believe (by a show of hands). Give them the real answer. You could add an element of competition by putting the class into pairs or small groups, with each grouping coming up with their chosen two false statements.
An extension to this task is to ask students to write down similar statements for themselves – three true and three false. Divide them into groups and repeat as above with one person from the group being questioned by the others.
4. Exploiting a simple picture (Intermediate to advanced)
This is an extremely simple, zero preparation and fun idea for creating conversation lessons with high intermediate or advanced level classes. You take a simple picture featuring a couple of people and use it as the basis for some imaginative storytelling.
What's her name?
What's his name?
Where are they? What country? What town?
What's their relationship?
Did they meet recently?
Are they work colleagues?
How old are they?
What are they eating?
What are they talking about?
What is she like as a person? What's he like?
What are their interests?
Why do they look so happy?
How did they meet? When? Long ago?
If they are married, have they been married before?
What were they doing before they met at the restaurant?
What are they going to do next?
What do they do for a living?
What do they think of their jobs?
Have they always done that?
What did they used to do?
Now, how the conversation develops depends on just how imaginative your students are. You would do well to tell the students at the outset to be as daring as possible. They may take you in some interesting directions; or you may need to prompt them to use their imaginations a bit more by suggesting some more outrageous ideas, e.g. he has two wives, she is a spy, he is an ex convict, they are having an affair, and so on.
I would probably do this a teacher-led task, but with some classes you hand out a list of suggested questions and get the students to work in pairs or small groups. This would lead to a variety of stories which can be compared later on.
When you do this type of activity students come up with different scenarios. This can generate further debate. If you are leading the lesson, you may have to lead them along what seems like the most fruitful linguistic and creative path.
It's easy to encourage the use of different time frames - past, present and future - and to go on from speaking to writing or more listening. For example, you could make up your own back story to the couple, describe it in TL to the class, whilst they take notes, then feed back the account to a partner or the whole class.
How about getting them to write an imagined dialogue between the couple, once their story is established? Or how about getting the students to find their own picture and build an imaginative story around it, either spoken, written or both.
5. Word association (any level)
Give an example of how it works, then do it as a whole class activity, either working round in order or moving randomly from pupil to pupil. Stress that students should not plan words in advance and that they are allowed to pass. With the right class they can do it in small groups or pairs. This works at all levels.
You can use the game to develop quick vocabulary retrieval reflexes and to illustrate how humans organise words in the brain.
A similar and effective alternative is to build silly stories one word at a time, moving around the class. Sentences need to be grammatical, so in this case the task develops both meaning and syntactic and morphological skills. Tell students they can say "full stop" (period) if the sentence comes to a natural end.
6. Swap it/add it (from Kayleigh Meyrick) (any level)
Put students into small groups or pairs. If in groups you can have them stand in circles to add a sense of occasion. One student utters a sentence, e.g. “J’aime jouer au foot avec mes copains parce que c’est amusant.” (You could provide the starter sentence or let groups make up their own.) The next student (or partner) has to change one element in the sentence, and so on, until you restart with a different sentence. You could give a time limit of, say, 2 minutes. The sentence could easily relate to the topic you are working on. At advanced level a suitable sentence starter might be:
“Selon un article que j’ai lu les Français, surtout les jeunes, font de plus en plus d’achats en ligne.”
Variations might include:
“D’après un article/selon une vidéoclip/surtout les personnes âgées/en particulier les jeunes/les 16-24 ans/d’achats sur internet/de shopping en ligne/depuis leur ordinateur.”
An alternative to the above which Kayleigh describes is to begin with one word, then each person in the sequence or partner has to add another element (word or chunk) to the sentence. The sequence might go like this:
“école
à mon école
à mon école il y a
à mon école à Leeds il y a
à mon école à Leeds il n’y a pas
à mon école primaire à Leeds il n’y a pas d’éléphants” etc
If you wanted to build a lesson plan around these games why not, as a second stage, get students to write down from memory resulting sentences and share them with the class? If you do this you may be wise to tell the class in advance that this is what they will do - this may focus minds even more.
7. Instant QA (intermediate)
You can lead a question-answer sequence on a topic, e.g. ‘Describe where you live’ or ‘My school’. As students give answers you can write up partial answers on the board. Students can copy these, filling any gaps as appropriate. If they do not have time they complete the sentences at home. They end up with a reasonably or wholly accurate piece of writing which they can use later for oral practice or exam revision. This makes for a multi-skill lesson with all students actively engaged.
8. Alibi (intermediate to advanced)
For intermediate or advanced students, play 'Alibi'. You tell the class a crime was committed last night by two suspects in the class. Two volunteers go out and prepare their alibi - something they did together last night. They then come back in and are interrogated by the class in turn. While the pair were outside you will have prepared questions with the rest of the class. After questioning the class vote on whether they were guilty or innocent; if there are significant inconsistencies between the stories they will be guilty. This is a fluency and listening task, but you can focus a bit on past tenses, offering occasional correction with recasts.
9. Pattern drills (any level)
With all levels, do simple transformational pattern drills. These make effective starters. A simple example is to give a sentence which students have to make one or two changes to. These could be a change of noun, tense or adjective. You could go from positive to negative too. These work well as students appreciate the simplicity and clarity of them. They are a great way to stay in the target language. Ignore the naysayers who question the value of drilling!
10. Number games (any level)
- Fizz-buzz. Go round the class counting up in French. When you get to a number with 5 in or a multiple of 5, say FIZZ. For numbers with a 7 in or a multiple of 7, say BUZZ. Pupils must say FIZZ-BUZZ for numbers such as 35 or 57. This can also be played in groups.
- Play the Countdown numbers game. This is also good for practising arithmetical terms such as "multipliė par". By the way, the teacher does not have to get the answers! Good for intermediate and advanced level.
- Play mental arithmetic bingo. Instead of just giving a number, read out a simple sum which leads to the number
- Play "Reverse Bingo". In this game all pupils stand up. When they hear a number on their card they must sit down. Last person standing wins.
- Do complex mental arithmetic problems. Read out a series of simple operations. Pupils write them down and winners are ones who get them right. They need to be lengthy!
- Play original bingo. Still the best?
- Aural anagrams of spelt out numbers. Teacher reads out an anagram. Pupils write down letters. First one to get the right number wins. You can make it harder by getting pupils to do them in their heads.
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