Jazz Up Your Lesson

Get in Touch!

This is an active game to provide training for the vocabulary on the topic “Parts of Body”, perfect for relaxation and just having fun with students of all ages and levels.

Before the game revise different parts of the body.

Then let the students stand in pairs. The leader shouts out the commands, like “Palm to palm!” which means that people in pairs should touch each other on their palms. After 3–4 commands the leader says “Friend to friend” which means that everybody should change the partner and go on in new pairs.

Sample variant for the leader:

Nose to nose	Palm to palm
Arm to arm	Fingers to fingers
Foot to foot	Bottom to bottom
Friend to friend	Friend to friend
Cheek to cheek	Knee to knee
Hand to hand	Elbow to elbow
Hip to hip	Ear to ear
Forehead to forehead	Back to back
Friend to friend	Friend to friend

Let’s solve the problem!

This game helps the students to practice giving advice and provides intensive listening and speaking practice.

First, revise with your students the phrases that help to give advice.

For instance:

Situation: Your friend has a stomachache.

You may say: You should go to the doctor.

You’d better go to the doctor.

To my mind the best solution is to go the doctor.

If I were you I would go to the doctor.

I’d recommend you to go to the doctor.

Also revise the ways of describing a problematic situation.

Here are some idioms with explanations:

To come to a dead end – no progress is possible

To be in a fix – to be in difficulty

To take the bull by the horns – to clearly face the problem and attack it

To take a back seat – to do nothing

To be in a muddle – to be mixed up, very confused

To be in a tight corner – to be in a situation that is difficult to get out of

Second, the class sits in a circle. If you have a pretty large group – better divide it in smaller ones, of 3–5 people. Everybody takes a turn and picks up a card with a problematic situation. He/she reads it aloud to everybody and every person should give his/her advice. The person, who has the problem card, decides whose advice was the best and this person continues and picks up the next card.

Cards with problematic situations:

Your favourite magazine has been delivered wet to you for the last three days. You called the news dealer and the post office but nothing has changed.

Every day you come to school there is a little lovely anonymous postcard at your desk. You are not sure who is writing them to you but everybody else seems to be in the know.

Your family has a chance to buy a very pretty country house at a reasonable price. But you know that the previous owners have moved because of ghosts and negative aura.

Your father has been expecting very important information about his work on the phone answering machine today. But when you came home you accidentally erased all the messages.

You accidentally ran over your little sister’s cat on a bike. You aren’t sad since you never really liked that noisy animal. Nobody saw what happened.

Your neighbour is an elderly lady who comes to see you every evening, asking for help or just to chat. You are a little annoyed and want to stop her visits but without hurting her feelings.

You saw your boy/girl friend’s photo in your best friend’s diary. You presume they might be having an affair.

Someone you know but don’t like very much invites you to a concert that you really want to go to.

You have unexpectedly won a week’s trip to Italy in a lottery. But your parents and your teachers are against it and don’t let you go.

Someone in your apartment block keeps taking your mail from your mailbox. There is no way to put a lock on it. You think you know who that is but you can’t be sure.

Your roommate never does anything around the apartment. You have to clean up everything. You have tried to discuss this issue several times but it always starts an argument.

During summer holidays at a camp you are offered a cigarette. You have never tried smoking and have no desire to. But there is a danger that you will be an outcast in the company if you won’t try.

Your pet rabbit ate all the plants in your neighbour’s garden in the country house. Your neighbour is mad at you.

You have been receiving strange phone calls for the last week. When you pick up the receiver – nobody speaks, just breathes. You think you know who that might be but you can’t be sure.

You got too much money in change at the store last night. You discovered it today.

You have found a wallet in a phone booth. It contained a lot of money. There is no identification of the owner.