A. Board Activities to Review Lesson Content
i. Correct the sentences – sample sentences with errors from student writing.
ii. Unscramble sentences and put in order.
iii. Write a cloze exercise on the board.
iv. Create a language experience story from a picture in a book or from an experience
v. Practice grammar using grids or charts
vi. Write cue words from dialogues or stories. Students generate the conversations or story orally.
vii. Put weekly spelling words or vocabulary words on the board. Students write the words on a Bingo grid. Then the class plays bingo.
viii. Paired dictation from the board. One student sits with their back to the board. The other faces the board and dictates to their partner.
ix. Disappearing dialogue. Write a dialogue on the board. Then slowly erase it until students are reciting it without any text on the board or just word clues.
x. Send students to the board to do dictation or other tasks.
B. Use a set of picture cards or word cards in a variety of ways
i. Conversation mingle. Students circulate and ask each other questions with picture cards.
ii. Have students match pictures to word cards.
iii. Have students put pictures on a number grid (info gap). Have students keep the number grid to use again.
iv. Put names on picture cards and have students write sentences about the pictures.
v. Four part grid with word cards
1. I know these.
2. I don’t know these.
3. I need more practice
4. _________________
C. Use mini white boards.
In groups of 4, one student writes on the board, the others advise the student what to write. Then they pass the board to the next student. Great way to practice for dictation.
D. Conversation circles:
Write conversation questions on one paper that a group of 3-4 share and take turns asking each other the questions.
E. Use the roundtable strategy – Students pass one paper to brainstorm vocabulary words.
F. Use the classroom for everything. Have students talk about the classroom. Make a map in the classroom to do directions. Rows are streets, etc.
G. Use cooperative learning structures that get students interacting without paper:
i. Interviews
ii. Inside Outside circles
iii. Line ups
iv. Corners conversations
H. Technology
1. email
2. text messages
3. Blogs
4. Google Docs
5. Digital camera/ Picasa
6. Record instructions on ipod touch
7. Record instructions on language master cards
8. Have students practice via Quia exercises or other online websites
Monday, November 16, 2009
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3 comments:
I. Other ideas shared by teachers at our workshop
1. Thelma Moore uses sheet protectors (with two pieces of hard stock white paper inside) in place of the mini white board. Students can write and erase on them with dry erase markers. Sometimes she puts printed sheets inside, so the students can do an exercise and then erase it, and the paper can be used again, e.g. circle the words, fill in the blank, categorize, etc.
2. Connie Falconer does group dictations using poster paper. Groups of 6 go to the board and take dictation together, not showing others their work. They help each other and cover their work. Then they remove the cover poster paper and see if they were correct.
3. Sentences Strips – Write words on manila strips or sentences. Students stand up and get in order with their words to make a sentence or sentences to make a story.
4. Dictation activity - The teacher gives a dictation and students volunteer at the board. When finished, the teacher calls on students to “erase certain words.” This is good for literacy level students to practice sight reading.
5. Grocery ads – When doing a food unit, you can go to a big supermarket and ask for a class set of food ads for the week.
6. Games that don’t use a lot of paper
a. Board games – Sheet with 20 squares. Students sit in a group of 4 and each rolls the dice. On each square is a question reviewing a grammar or vocabulary item or students could pick up a question card from a deck of questions. The student who gets to the last square first wins.
b. Flyswatter game – The teacher writes new spelling words on the board in random order. The students line up in two teams. The first member of each team has a flyswatter. When the teacher calls out a work, the first person to slap the word with the flyswatter gets a point. The teacher continues with the second word and the next two students race to the board to do the same.
c. Hangman using new vocabulary
d. Throw the ball. Put students into circles and ask them to ask questions (present, past, future, etc. )The student with the ball throws the ball to another student. That student answers the question, then throws the ball to another student, asking a different question.
e. I Spy Game - The teacher says, I see something red. It is in a box on the teacher’s desk. Students guess what the object is.
f. Celebrity game ( for higher levels) . A student thinks of a celebrity. Students ask yes/no questions to quess who it is.
g. Chain Story – Veronika Norris plays a game whereby one student in each group is told a short story outside the classroom. Those students then come in and tell the second student in their groups. Then the 2nd student tells the 3rd student what they heard, etc. It is interesting how the story changes depending on what each student remembers from the previous person’s version of the story.
I tried Thelma's idea with the "homemade mini-white boards" and it was a huge success! The students want to write everything on them!
An extension activity for the #4. Dictation activity is to have the higher students come up afterwards and rewrite the words or sentences.
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