Chapter 24: Ten Great Resources for TEFL Teachers 347
✓ Scategories: For upper-intermediate level students and above. It is fun
and effective for building groups of similar vocabulary. Players have a
time limit and they have to think of words which are suitable for
particular categories. You get extra points for originality.
✓ Taboo: This gets students defining words without giving away what it
actually is. A player gets a card with a main word to define and describe
to their partner or partners, but there are other words on the card
which that player is not allowed to use and this makes the game quite
challenging.
If you do not have the funds to buy board games (and they can be quite
costly), arrange a class project in which students design their own.Roping in Friends and Family
Language is all about communication and the people you communicate with
most are your friends and family. Some have unusual accents, others have
fascinating stories to tell and still others have jobs which raise eyebrows.
Why not take someone you know into the classroom to provide your students
with a little variety?One of the disadvantages of always being around your students is that they
become dependent on their familiarity with you. They may convince themselves
that all English speakers have the same pronunciation, gestures and expressions
as you. And of course you can only milk your personal anecdotes so much.
After that they become old hat. So bribe one of your mates to come in for 30
minutes and see how your class cope with the situation. If they are particularly
nervous, you can always get them to prepare interview questions to ask your
pal beforehand.People who are not used to dealing with non-native speakers have a tendency
to shout or speak too slowly. Encourage your friend to be natural at all times.
Students can ask for repetition if they need it.If you cannot get anyone to come in, get yourself a tape recorder and see
whether your friends and family mind you recording ten minutes of a normal
dialogue. These authentic listening texts tend to be very tricky for students
to understand, but short clips are usually manageable. You can use these to
show students that, just like them, native speakers use poor grammar and
incomplete sentences too, sometimes, but it is the overall communication
which really counts.