A twist to the Conventional 'Tic-tac-toe'

If you've taught ESL long enough, I'm sure you have used the 'Tic-tac-toe' game to review vocabulary, irregular verbs in the past tense, phrasal verbs and many other topics. This is probably the most cliche game when it comes to the ESL classroom. However, I'd like to make a suggestion for you to be able to use this game for anything. And I really DO mean ANYTHING!!!

Lately, I've used this game to review units from the book. You know how every unit in coursebooks is filled with different topics and contents that students need to learn? Well, I found a good way to check how much they knew about these by playing tic-tac-toe. What I'd do is to set up a tic-tac-toe grill containing key words from the unit in each space. For example, one of our books presented the topic: Jobs and Hobbies and we reviewed using the following chart:

Even when the words seem a little unrelated, we had studied all of these and students had enough information in their books to provide a description of the job/activity and the necessary skills and/or equipment needed to succeed in each of them. So, I would play with a small class divided in two groups. Each group would pick a topic, taking turns and in order to get their cross or nought in the spaces they selected, they are required to provide general information about the topic. I'd set a minimum of sentences according to the number of students in each group. They are all required to participate with at least one sentence related to the topic and using vocabulary and structures from the coursebook. Giving the students the opportunity to speak freely, allow them to be creative and you might get surprised to hear the sentences they are able to produce.

A different option that I LOVED to review grammar, was this amazing grill I found at etimag.com.ar, one of my favorite websites  :) It's an E-magazine that provides creative ideas and printables to use in class. Check it out! You're gonna love it too! 

As I said before, you can use this game for pretty much anything. And even if it's a very simple one, it helps create a different atmosphere and students forget that they are actually reviewing and learn while having fun. :)

Enjoy! XO

Tell me what they did

This is a very simple activity I've come up with in one of my many attempts to make my classes with teenagers more dynamic and interesting. In this case, I was working with Past Simple and I was looking for a creative way to review irregular verbs so I thought this would be a good way. I would recommend this to be used with small groups, unless the whole class is able to respectfully listen to their classmates for a considerable time. Otherwise, things may get complicated.

Level: Elementary/Intermediate
Materials: Little pieces of paper

Target Vocabulary/Grammar: Everyday life/Irregular Verbs in the Past Tense

Prep time: 2-3 min to cut the pieces of paper.

First off, the teacher will give each student 5-6 pieces of paper and ask them to think about what they did last weekend. Students will pick 5-6 activities they did the previous weekend and write the verbs (in the infinitive form) in the pieces of paper. After that, they will pair up and exchange papers. The task will be to talk about their classmates weekend, so the teacher will give them a few minutes to put those in order and prepare their speech. After that, students will use the verbs they have been provided to talk about their partner's weekend. The interesting part is that they will only have a few verbs and it's up to their imagination to make it a good story.  
The information in the papers shouldn't be too accurate. In fact, it's better if they only receive random information, since they will have to 'fill in the blanks'. For example:

• work
• play
• get up
• drink
• sing

Students will have to decide what their classmates worked on, what they drank, what and where they sang, and it can end up being a great story! The more creative students are, the funnier and more interesting their stories will turn out. At the very end and as a closure, students can decide on who told the best one.

Variation:

• In case you want to use it to review the Present Simple tense, students can be asked to write verbs they perform on a regular basis and their classmates will try to tell how a day in their partner's life is. 

Good Luck, XO