Yahoo Answers For TEFL Classes

I came across a great idea for an activity for students using Yahoo Answers. Yahoo Answers is a service on Yahoo that allows you to both ask questions for those things you don’t know and give answers to the questions that you do know. It works out nicely because people with knowledge to share will gain knowledge and those interested in gaining knowledge will learn more.

By now, your brain is probably running through all of the different activity opportunities. My favorite activity is to give a each class member an assignment that involves asking one question on Yahoo Answers and then providing 10 answers to questions. Give them one week to complete the assignment and then have them present their question to the class. Have them also read off 3 or 4 of the answers they gave when they shared their own knowledge.

There is a lot of pre-work that can be done with this activity. You can teach how to ask a question properly, how to answer a question properly, you name it. You warp and morph this activity to fit any need you have in your class. Best of all, it’s a lot of fun for your students.

What The King Wants

This week’s TEFL Game of the Week is a traditional camp game that’s been modified for the TEFL environment. It’s called “What the King wants.” We all know that what the King wants, the King gets. This game is a lot of fun and is a great way to teach new vocabulary to young kids.

Description:
This is a offshoot of indoor scavenger hunt (30-100+ people)

Time:
15-20 min

Material:
Nothing

Objective:
Get the object to the King first

How to play:
Split the group into smaller groups of about 10-12 people. The leader is the “king”. Then get the “king” to stand at the front and say: “The King wants ….” and the first group to get it to the “king” gets the point. Some ideas of what the king would want are:
-1 sock
-a size 12 shoe
-something that smells pretty
-belly button lint
-toe jam
-ear wax
-a retainer
-a pink rock

Remember that if they do not have it they need to get and get it.

Rules:
First group to get the right item wins the round

Keep score and run it through several rounds until you have a winner of some sort.

TEFL Good: It teaches students new and interesting vocabulary words in a fun and energetic way

TEFL Game: Why Ask Why?

Why ask Why? Wasn’t that a commercial for some beer product several years back? This games has nothing to do with beer and everything to do with having fun with the English language. It is the perfect game for classes of between 5 and 15 intermediate students.

What materials do you need? A whiteboard and/or chalkboard is all you need. The teacher starts the game by writing a simple fact on the board. An easy one might be, “I am a student.” Ask one student to answer the question. Use their answer to formulate the next question for the next student.

For example:
Teacher: “Why are you a student?”
Student #1: “Because I want to learn English”
Teacher: “Why do you want to learn English?”
Student #2:”Because English is fun.”

Continue this through the entire class and when you are finished, rewrite the first fact on the board with the final student’s answer. An example from one of my classes was, “I am a student because I don’t want to die.”

If you are students have decent English skills, you may get one or two students to play the role of teachers in asking the questions. I use this is as a weekly warm-up exercise to get my students thinking and it never gets boring.