No Pens Or Paper Required

No Pens or Paper Required

Summer Institute 2011

The Minnesota Literacy Council

Burgen Young

What I need (Pollard and Hess)
Preparation: None

Procedure: Ask students what they need. If necessary, mention one or two examples such as: a driver’s license, a place to live with cheaper rent. When a student shares something, other students raise their hands if they think they can help. Students then mingle, talking with classmates who might help them, gathering information and making plans. When students return to their seats, ask what they found.
Odd One Out
Preparation: Write lists of three or more related items, with one item in each list that is in a different category than the others.

Procedure: Students discuss which item in each list does not belong. They need to justify their answers, which is an important critical thinking skill. Accept any answer that can be justified.

Brainstorm around It
Preparation: None

Procedure: Write a topic in the center of the board with a circle around it. Elicit ideas about the topic from students. Write these words around the circle. When you have approximately eight words, stop and point to each one as the class reads. Erase one of the words and point to the blank space and students say the missing word. Read the rest of the words and then erase another word. Continue pointing to blank spaces, erasing a word and then saying all of the words. When all the words are erased invite a group of students to the board to write all the words back on the board.

Swat!
Preparation: Write about 10 to 20 familiar vocabulary words randomly on the board, or compose ten to fifteen review questions and write the answers randomly on the board. Consider putting a couple of distracting answers on the board too. Get two fly swatters.

Procedure: Instruct the class how to give hints about the location of a word on the board (say up, down, right, left). Choose two students to come to the board and give each student a fly swatter. Say one of the words and the students find it and swat it while the class gives hints. After one student swats the word, they sit down and two new students come up to the board.

Brainstorming Relay
Preparation: Choose a topic for students to brainstorm about. It could be a review topic such as furniture or vegetables or it could be a question with multiple answers such as How do I decide which car to buy? or What questions can I ask my child’s teacher?

Procedure: Divide the class into two teams. Give each team a designated space on the board and a marker. Tell students the topic. Each team comes up with an idea and sends a writer to the board to write the idea. The writers return, the teams each come up with another idea and new writers write them on the board. If the other team came up with same idea first, that idea doesn’t count and should be erased. The team must come up with a new idea. The goal is to have as many ideas as possible listed on the board.

Vote with your Feet

Preparation: This activity is good for checking comprehension and expressing opinions. Write two or three answer choices on the left, right and middle of the board, such as yes and no or agree and disagree. Write a list of questions for students to answer.

Procedure: Ask one of the questions and students stand near their answer choices. Ask students to explain their choices to students who selected a different answer. If everyone agrees, ask students to explain their answers to their neighbors.

Dice Questions

Preparation: Write a list of six questions for students to answer. Here is one possible list:

Describe: what does it look like, feel like, etc.
Compare: what/how is it like something or different from something?
Associate: what does it remind you of?
Analyze: parts? Made of?
Apply: what does it do, what might you use it for?
Argue for or against: good, bad, why?

Procedure: Students work in pairs or small groups. The first student rolls a die and then answers the question that corresponds to the number he/she rolled. That student passes the die and then next student rolls and answers another question. Continue until everyone has had at least two turns.

Reconstruct the Story (Pollard and Hess)
Preparation: Find or remember a short and interesting story.

Procedure: Tell the story one time. Students listen, but do not take notes. Students take a minute to remember three things from the story, then tell these three things to a partner, and raise their hands to show they’re ready. Call on students to share. As a class or in small groups retell the story.

Two Minute Presentations (Pollard and Hess)
Procedure: Choose a fun topic that students are knowledgeable about such as advice for people who are new to Minnesota or how to practice English outside of class.

Procedure: Announce the topic and give students five minutes to discuss their ideas with a neighbor. Call on a random student and he/she stands in front of the class and talks about the topic for two minutes. Use a timer. Ask the class to share something that they remember from the presentation. Call on another student to repeat as time allows.

Building Up a Chain (Pollard and Hess)
Preparation: Choose a topic for students to list, brainstorm or review. Some examples: ways to practice English outside of class, things you remember from the story we read, words about travel.

Procedure: Ask students to think of three items. For example, “Think of three ways you can practice English when you are not in school.” Students mingle. Each partner tells their first partner their three ideas and listens to the partner’s ideas. Students move to a second partner. They tell their original three ideas and one that they just heard from their first partners. With the third partner each student tells the same four rules and adds a new one from the second partner. Continue the activity until the students give up. Find out who has the longest list and ask that student to share.

Thumb Scan
Preparation: none

Procedure: This activity checks comprehension. After a mini-lecture or explanation ask students how they feel about the topic. If student feel confident, they hold their thumbs up, if they feel ok, they hold their thumbs to the side and if they are uncertain they hold their thumbs down. Another way to phrase the options is: I can explain this/I have heard of this/I don’t know this.

Five Things
Preparation: None

Procedure: Students work with partners or in small groups. If the class is small, work as a whole class.

As an icebreaker when there is a new student, each student says five things about him/herself. The students can say anything they want (even beginners can do this if they have a model to follow).

As a review activity ask students to say five things they learned in class yesterday or last week.

As a preview activity ask students to say five things that they know about the new topic.

What’s my line? (Dobbs)
Preparation: Write a list of four verbs and two nouns that are associated with an occupation. Try to make the clues increasingly obvious. For example: questions, listens, examines, white coat, stethoscope (Answer: doctor).

Procedure: Tell students to guess the job. Write one item from the list on the board at a time, pausing between each word. Students call out their guesses.

Follow up: Have students write their own lists and work in small groups to make guesses.

Crowded Bus (Ladner)
Preparation: Put two long lines of masking tape or string on the floor, approximately 18 inches apart. This represents the bus.

Procedure: Review polite language such as excuse me and Can I get by please? Then students get on the bus. Have students reorder themselves according to different criteria such as height, shoe size, distance they drive to school, etc. without getting off the bus. Students then use comparative adjectives to explain their place in line by saying, “I am taller than Carlo,” and so on.

Students in Charge of Viewing

Preparation: Search the Internet for a short instructive video related to your lesson. If you do not have access to YouTube at your school, you might have access to TeacherTube.

Works Cited

Dobbs, Jeannine. Using Board in the Language Classroom. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001.

Ladner, Dani McArthur and Thane. Out of Your Chairs! 40 Active Games for ESL. ESLResources.com, 2001.

Pollard, Laurel and Natalie Hess. Zero Prep: Ready-to-Go Activities for the Language Classroom. San Francisco: Alta Book Center Publishers, 1997.