Jazz up Your Lesson

So, you want your students to have some fun, but you are too busy with checking their homework and making those never-ending lesson-plans?!
Well, this section will give you hints on easy and quick ways to jazz your lessons up, or in other words – make them more animated and lively. Here are a couple of 10-minute games to warm your students up. Age group does not make any difference.

Game 1:
“Find Your Clone”

Material needed: sheets of paper; pens; good mood (!)

How to play:
The teacher draws a chart of 9 squares on the chalkboard. The students do the same on their sheets of paper. Every square of the chart has a personal question:

1. What is your favourite colour?	4. What is your favourite season?	7. What is your lucky number?
2. What is your favourite number?	5. Are you an optimist?	8. What are you good at?
3. What is your favourite animal?	6. What is your favourite day?	9. What are you bad at?

Everybody puts their own answers in the chart. After they finished, they go around the room to find a person whose 3 answers will coincide with their own diagonally, vertically or horizontally. In other words – find a person who will have just the same answers to numbers 1-2-3 or 4-5-6 or 7-8-9 or 1-4-7 or 2-5-8 or 3-6-9 or 1-5-9 or 3-5-7. If they find such a person – they cross the line with identical answers and put the name of that person on their list. Encourage the students to speak English while they communicate with each other.
After all the students are questioned by their partners and all the “little secrets” are learned – find out who has got more coincidences than others. Prepare a small symbolic prize for such a student.

Game 2:
“Significant Letters”

Material needed: sheets of paper; pens; sense of humour (!)

How to play:
The teacher gives 7 letters to the students and asks them to write an animal or a bird, a flower or a tree beginning with this letter. Then let the students give a short description of this creature (hint: more advanced students can be asked to write a full-sentenced description, 2-3 sentences; the less advanced may just think of 2 or 3 adjectives, describing the chosen creature).

Here are the letters: H, C, F, S, R, G, A.
The trick is that these letters are chosen not randomly – they are the first letters of the following words:

H – for Home
C – for Company
F – with Friends
S – at School
R – at Rest
G – at Games
A – Actually… (describing the person in general)

So after revealing these words ask the students to read their descriptions stating that: “At Home I’m like a Horse, very graceful, hairy and speed-loving; in Company I become real loud because I like to sing with my ugly voice, but still – I’m always the brightest like all Cockatoos…” and have fun together.

Variation:
The teacher may collect the sheets of paper and read the descriptions himself or herself, without telling the name of the student. Encourage the students to guess the authorship.