346 Part VI: The Part of Tens
Newspapers and magazines
If you can, keep your old magazines and a small supply of newspapers in the
teachers’ room for back up. Even though you can find images of just about
everything on the net these days, students tend to feel a greater sense of
accomplishment when they are leafing through an original glossy magazine
in full colour. It’s what native speakers do and it allows students to get better
acquainted with the culture.
Printed materials offer opportunities to select reading activities from among
the articles and advertisements, pictures to describe and stimulate the
imagination, and interesting comparisons regarding the students’ cultures
whatever the publication is about. Do not forget those interesting pages
like the TV guide and the problem page which reveal a nation’s lifestyle and
values from an unusual angle.
Personal memorabilia
Things like theatre tickets, tacky souvenirs and photographs are wonderful
aids for storytelling. Learners are often curious about the secret life of the
teacher and prefer having it slowly unravelled. So, get your class to guess the
relevance of an object to you. Make it a game of twenty questions and only
answer yes or no. This helps to get the students talking without focussing on
grammar and later in the lesson they can tell their own stories and anecdotes
based on similar experiences.
Playing Board Games
Specific board games are language based but even games that aren’t often
provide practise of other useful vocabulary such as numbers and colours and
phrases such as ‘It’s your turn!’ or ‘I have no idea!’.
It is always worth having a dice and some counters stashed in your bag
anyway as many printable and downloadable resources involve this kind of
turn taking. Of course you can design your own snakes and ladders or trivia
games as well.
Some particularly effective games include:
✓ Scrabble: For great spelling and vocabulary practice for all levels, this
is a board game which you play by distributing letters of the alphabet
on small tiles. The players have to make words and place them on the
board in a crossword type formation. You get extra points for using
trickier letters like Q and Z.
