STARTING THE CLASS WITH GAME

Teachers sometimes find that starting the class is quite a challenge. For class with high motivated students maybe it doesn’t happen but for the average classes it can be rather difficult. We know that our students are not always ready or are in good mood to start the class. Therefore, teachers have to find ways to set the students ready and happy for the lesson.

I have several ways to face this condition. I often use simple game to attract my students before I start the lesson. It works quite well but it wont be very interesting if we use it too often. I also compile some games from other resources you can try.

1. Word chain

     Teacher say a word to a student, then that student must say a new word beginning with the last letter of the first word; it is continued by the second student, the third until the last student. The students are not allowed to repeat word that has been mentioned. For more challenging situation, teacher may repeat this activity one more round and with 8-10 seconds time limit for every student. The words that have been mentioned in the first round may not be used anymore.

For another variation, students not only say the word but they also spell it. This game does not find any winner but it is thrilling for sure.

2. Describing Appearances & Characteristics of People

Each student is then given one sheet of paper.  One student sits at the front of a room.  He/she describes a person and the rest of the class draws the person being described. It is more interesting if the person being described is known by everyone. Once the student has finished describing that person then he/she reveals who it is and each student shows his/her drawing. The laughter from this is hilarious as the impressions tend to make the character in question look funny.

It is a good idea to encourage students to ask the interviewee student questions about who they are describing.

(Submitted by: Darrell in http://iteslj.org/c/games.html)

3. Sentence Race

Level: Any level

A good game for large classes and for reviewing vocabulary lessons.

1.       Prepare a list of review vocabulary words.

2.       Write each word on two small pieces of paper. That means writing the word twice, once on each paper.

3.       Organize the pieces like bundles, 2 bundles, 2 sets of identical words.

4.       Divide the class into 2 teams. get them to make creative team names.

5.       Distribute each list of words to both teams. every student on each team should have a paper.  Both teams have the same words.

6.       When you call a word, 2 students should stand up, one from each team. The students must then run to the blackboard and race to write a sentence using their word. The winner is the one with a correct and clearly written sentence. This is always a hit with kids. For more advanced students, use tougher words.

(Submitted by: Thomas D. J-B in http://iteslj.org/c/games.html)

4. Who Wants To Be Millionaire
You can modify the questions and answer in the power point file here. 

This game famous game is taken from http://jc-schools.net/tutorials/ppt-games

5. Guessing word (password game) 

You only need to write a word on each slide in the subtitle text box. When everything is ready (you need an  LCD projector to visualize it), ask a student to stand with this word behind his back, other students will give him clue or direction for him to guess the word behind him.

Download the game here. (this game is taken from http://jc-schools.net/tutorials/ppt-games)

Well, five games for now. I hope they will be useful for our class.