Activities for using flash cards

I have divided the activities into the following categories: Memory, drilling, identification and tpr activities.

Memory Activities: Memory Tester

Place a selection of flash cards on the floor in a circle. Students have one minute to memorize the cards. In groups, they have two minutes to write as many of the names as they can remember.

Drilling Activities : Invisible Flashcards

Stick 9 flash cards on the board and draw a grid around them. Use a pen or a pointer to drill the 9 words. Always point to the flash card you are drilling. Gradually remove the flash cards but continue to drill and point to the grid where the flash card was. When the first card is removed and you point to the blank space, nod your head to encourage children to say the word of the removed flash card. Students should remember and continue as if the flash cards were still there. They seem to be amazed that they can remember the pictures.

Depending on the age group I then put the flash cards back in the right place on the grid, asking the children where they go, or I ask students to come up and write the word in the correct place on the grid. This activity highlights the impact of visual aids. It really proves that the images 'stick' in students' minds.

Identification Activities: Reveal the word

Cover the flash card or word card with a piece of card and slowly reveal it. Students guess which one it is. Once the card is shown, chorally drill the word with the group using different intonation and silly voices to keep it fun. Vary the volume too, whisper and shout the words. Children will automatically copy your voice. Alternatively, flip the card over very quickly so the children just get a quick glimpse. Repeat until they have guessed the word.

TPR activities : Point or race to the flash cards. Stick flash cards around the class. Say one of them and students point or race to it. Students can then give the instructions to classmates. You can extend this by saying "hop to the cat" or even "if you have blonde hair, swim to the fish" etc. You can also incorporate flash cards into a game of Simon Says. "Simon says, jump to the T-shirt" etc.

Reading tasks should be if possible interconnected with problem solving; you might prepare some mathematical problems in English like: Ann has got 10 sweets; she gives 3 to her friend Sally. Now she has got --- sweets. Sorting things out strategies are aimed at building up reader’s competence and will include things like: looking for the story line noting names and pronouns; noting connectors like ‘and’, ‘but’, ‘because’, noting sequencers like ‘first’, ‘then’, next’; noting punctuation; you could ask kids to underline pronouns referring to one person in one colour, and to a second person in another colour. Or you can mix up two texts or put 3-4 nonsense sentences into a text and ask the children to find them.

Writing at the stage when children cannot yet write in their mother tongue has a simple enough solution: you can ask them to write down the number of what they hear; story telling or giving directions can be made and registerd by means of arrows; play-maps and schematic drawings. You can practice parts of body in the same way: draw a pin man and write numbers on the appropriate parts. You can ask kids to listen and put prepositions in the grid (The cat is on the table; the ball is under the table); putting numbers into a grid makes it an entirely new activity. You can combine: colours and clothes; times and activities; people and places, rooms and furniture, shops and things bought; places and directions.

A silent dictation is a transition between reading and writing; the children are briefly shown a phrase, a word or a sentence they have to write by memory. They are to understand and remember the message, or they can write opposites. Most children seem to love badges and stickers. Why not get them to design their own? All you need is a circle of plain paper, and coloured pens or pencils ( the texts or designs are in pale gray outlines which the children are simply to trace to create a lovely slogan or motto.

includes mostly variations on a gap: choose or write a description which has 7-8 adjectives in it that can be easily changed for others; the children read the description and draw a picture on it (e.g. There is a vase on the table. The vase is white. There are three roses in it. One rose is red, two roses are white. Near the vase there is a plate and a cup. The plate is big. There are 2 apples on it. The cup is blue. There is coffee in the cup). You should encourage kids composing simple poems, using themes like: Summer. Birthday. Outside the window. Name poems are also a good motivating task, like:

L ate

E evening

N ew

A partment

As to vocabulary and grammar, the rule of the thumb here is to recycle constructions over and over again; go back to the previous chapters, by including extra material children should always be given plenty of opportunities to use the language they have learned in class. Use chants to practice vocabulary, like ‘Train chant’

Coffee, Coffee

Milk and sugar, Milk and sugar,

Chockalate cakes and Chockalate biscuits,

Fish and chips, Fish and Chips

Soup!

Forming pronunciation skills deserves more focus since there is no concord as to how conscious pronunciation acquisition should be: one of the approaches is teaching with the help of a phonemic chart. Although the following activities are aimed mainly at young learners many would be ideal for adult groups. Adults also enjoy kinaesthetic activities, and many of the ones described in this article are just that! The ideas are for the most part are discrete item approach activities- isolating sounds. The phoneme race : This is useful for introducing students to new phonemes and revising recently learnt sounds. Put six or so symbols on the board. Write words on cards big enough to be seen when stuck on the board. Five for each sound is enough. Drill the sounds. Be imaginative with your voice if doing it with young learners. They will remember it better if they are having fun.

Put the students in teams. One person form each team races to the teacher and is given a card. They return to the group and decide which phoneme is used in the word from the board. They write the phoneme on the back of the card and run back to the teacher. If the symbol is correct the student is given another card. They must keep the cards and try to accumulate as many as possible. The winning team is the one with the most cards at the end. Give the students blue tack and ask them to stick the symbols to the board. Then do another drilling session. Then, in the teams, the students choose two symbols and race to make a sentence for each that includes three of the words from that symbol. The sentence must make some sense! Then you can reward the most imaginative sentences.

Make your own wall charts: Put the symbols you want to learn on the board and drill them.

Then ask students to match flash cards with each symbol. For example, /i:/ can be matched with a picture of cheese. Then ask the children to draw the symbol and the picture on the top of a large piece of coloured card. These cards are then stuck to the wall for the next class. In the next class, the children are put into coloured teams. Each team is given ten words on cards which they have to stick to the posters. Play some fun music to do this! Give them a time limit. Then, check how many they got correct. (Try to use words they are familiar with, or words you want to revise.) The winners are those with most correct. Every few classes you can revise this, repeat it and add to it. So you end up with a comprehensive and colourful wall display all created by them. Much more interesting than a published phonemic chart for young learners.

Chinese whispers. Again, this is for revising individual sounds.

The teacher sits the learners in a circle and shows a student a symbol, also whispering it in their ear. The sound is passed around the class. If the sound is correct at the end for the symbol the students get a point, if not the teacher gets a point.

Using dictionaries. This should be done with students who are familiar with the script and is

suitable more for teenagers and adults. Choose five words from the dictionary and write them in phonetic script. Ask the students in pairs to write down what they think the word is. Then get the students to swap papers with a different group and ask them to look up the word to see if they were correct. The winners are the group with most correct. Then they can make a new list of five words for the other group to repeat the activity with. This can be combined with a revision of vocabulary from the course book they are using. The students look up words in the dictionary from the book and transcribe them for the other group to guess.

Going shopping. This is a communicative activity which incorporates some sounds you have been doing in class into a shopping list activity where the students have to practise dialogues buying certain items like cheese, meat, /i:/, and crisps, milk /I/.

Students can be put into two groups of shop owners and customers with a budget to make it more 'authentic'. Then they have a certain time to buy all the items they can on the list. For the shop owners, give them flash cards of food items or pieces of card with the food and prices on them. Afterwards they can decide the cheapest and most expensive shops as a class.

Gaming: games can be conducted in the class or taken outside it, like treasure hunt: looking for a hidden chest with directions (oral or written); the chest should contain candies or something else for all to get and share. For young learners body writing and finger exercises are very useful.

Circle games are a great way to encourage the whole class to work together. They also provide an often welcome change in working pattern. They are mostly used with young learners, but teenagers will play them and so will the right kind of adult class: one that doesn't take itself too seriously.

What are Circle Games? Circle games are any games or activity that involve the whole class, sitting in a circle. Many of the games recycle vocabulary and involve an element of fun.

Nowadays, in the world of EFL, pair work and work in small groups is very much in fashion. The communicative approach encourages teachers to use a lot of pair work and therefore increase 'student talking time'. I believe that for a group to gel and for a good group dynamic to prevail there are times when the class should work together as a whole. Circle games are a good opportunity to bring the group together. I tend to use them to start or end a class. They can be used as warmers at the beginning of a class or as a 'filler' at the end.

Several of the activities, such as Chain Drawings and Consequences are great for when you have to do a last minute substitution class for a colleague. Very little material is required, they're suitable for all levels and a lot of language can be generated.

Managing circle games with young learners. Circle games can be incorporated into the regular routine of a young learner class.

If students are introduced to the idea of working in a whole group from the beginning of a course it is easier to establish the rules and acceptable behavior for this type of activity.

They should be seen by the students as a normal part of the class and clear parameters should be set as to what is and isn't acceptable behavior when participating in a circle game.

If you have never used any circle games and want to start, set up the class before the students arrive and begin the class with one of the simple activities. It may make a nice change and it also gives you an opportunity to greet each student on arrival and do the register. Speak to young learners about the importance of listening to fellow students and respecting each others' talking time and turns. To calm lively students and focus them, try some basic TPR activities which demand their concentration. For example, "if you're ready to start the activity, touch your nose", "if you're ready to start the game, point to the door".

When students get to know the routine and the activities you can nominate one of them to start the game and lead it.

Chain drawings Give each student a piece of paper and some coloured pencils. Tell them that you are going to play some music and you want them to draw whatever comes into their heads. As music is playing, all students should be drawing. After 20 or 30 seconds, stop the music. Students stop drawing and pass their picture to the person to the left of them in the circle. Play the music again and they continue with the drawing the person next to them had started. Stop the music again, pass pictures on and this continues until the end of the song.

When you have finished each student will have a picture that several students contributed to. Then it's up to you what to do with the pictures. They can be used to describe to the group, to write a story about, or to pretend they were a dream the student had last night. The rest of the class can try to analyze the meaning of the dream. Use different types of music to get different types of pictures..

Change places if… This is a TPR activity with students in a closed circle, with the teacher in the middle to begin the game. There should always be one less chair than participants. Depending on what you want to revise the teacher says, "Change places if …… you're wearing trainers." All students who are wearing trainers must stand up, and move to another chair and the teacher should sit on one of the recently vacated seats. The person left without a seat stays in the middle and gives the next command, "Change places if you …… like pizza" and so it goes on.

Young learners can get very excited, so be careful to incorporate this activity in the class at an appropriate time. It is a definitely a 'warmer' as opposed to a 'cooler' and may be better at the end of a class.

Picture consequences Each student needs a piece of paper and a pencil. Make sure students have their paper in portrait (not landscape) and ask students to draw a hat at the top in the middle. When they have finished they should draw two short lines to show where the head begins and then fold over the paper leaving only the two short lines showing. Students then pass the folded paper to their right and the teacher instructs them to draw a face and neck. Students fold, leaving the two lines of the neck peeping out from the fold. Instruct students to draw the body, to the waist. Fold and pass as before.

Then they draw to the knees, then fold and pass, then to the feet. It's important to tell students not to cheat and peep at the folded part of the body. That will spoil the fun! Students then unfold the paper and reveal the misfit type character they have created between them. Use the pictures to practice describing people, revise clothes vocabulary or to create role plays.