Any more ideas?

Hello

Does anybody have any more ideas for making drilling fun?

I'll add as much as I can over the next little while:

Here are a few drilling games appropriate for CK and low CL:

Back to the Board AIM – Choral Question Drilling. TA helps the students pose the question to the FT, whose back is to the group. The FT calls out, ‘I want a boat.’ The student with the boat sneaks up behind the teacher and taps him on the bum with the card. FT turns around and chases the student back. Pass the boat to a new student.

Guess What? AIM - Choral Question Production – with his back to the board, 1 student sits in a chair and has cards to choose from at his feet. The class produces, ‘Which do you want?’ The student produces, ‘I want a boat.’ The teacher is holding a card for all to see. The student ‘wins’ if the card the teacher holds is the same as the card he chooses.

A few 'stock' drills - which should be a part of early drilling for all low CL classes and when appropriate for the energy of the students, CK.


Triple drills; using your fingers to prompt the number of times you want a language point repeated when you are satisfied the students are speaking well, shout go. The students then have to either stand up sit down, stand up turnaround sit down; if they are sat around large tables then they have to shift one place to the left. Or they could start by standing up and have to sit down. A competitive element could be added by awarding or deducting points for being first or last. Also fun when the teacher joins in.

Chain drills; these would work best when classes are sat in long lines, but why not get students to pass an object (pen/chalk etc) over there heads to the student behind. First team to get the chalk to the back is the winner (maybe with points for 2nd and 3rd), alternatively the students pass the chalk forward and the student at the front has to make a mark on the board. This will work best with Question and Answer drills.


Sit down wrong: Especially effective when teaching categories, the teacher writes a category on the board, sports for example, and then holds up various flashcards to prompt the students, most of which are sports. When they see a sports flashcard they stay standing and when they see a non-sports flashcard they sit down. Again points can be awarded/deducted for fastest and slowest students/teams. Always make sure the students are saying the language though.

Turn and say: All the students stand up and turn and face the back of the classroom (getting them to look at a TA makes this easier to set up). The teacher shouts go and all the jump and turn around and saying language being pointed at, again points to the fastest (loudest student). An alternative is to lay out all the target language flashcards/realia and then take one away when the students’ backs are turned and they have to say what is missing.

Check out this link for a huge list of language games. I'll be categorizing them over the next two weeks. But for now, take a browse and try some out:

http://sescningbo.formyjob.net/t33-huge-list-of-language-learning-games-an-across-the-board-resource-bank#113