Teaching Games

Tower of Blocks

Very fun, even for older kids, up to twelve. . Good for old material, good for new. Your school probably has some blocks. Gather them up and bring them to class. Introduce/review some English. Then, put one block down with a thud. Shrug and say "Hrumm?" like Scooby used to, then start building a little house, mall, whatever. Put down three or four blocks, then ask "Who wants to try?" Keep playing, letting each succesful speaker add a block until you’ve finished exercising the English, then "accidentally" knock the blocks over, sneeze them over, whatever. Rebuild quickly if there’s a collapse.

Kids get very excited because there are so many elements to this activity. Tactile, creative, danger (the blocks can fall), so they’re really willing to speak up; for review it’s a snap. And, because its so simple and they don’t need to think about it too much, you can easily use it to introduce some new English without worrying that they will be too distracted by the enormity of the activity.

Group
For group practice, just intro the new pattern or review the old pattern, put down the foundational two or three blocks and rev them up asking "Who wants to try?" "Okay, but you must be very, very good, OK?" Say the pattern, and choose the ones who are repeating well or are trying hard.

Individual practice
This one’s really great for individual practice because its fast and its basically all individual since the kids come up only one at a time to put up a block. Review the pattern, then start the game by laying down the first blocks, challenging them to build a TALL building. Then ask "Who can do this?" Stand up the lucky kid, ask the question or prompt the English. Ask the class "Is he good?" If yes, they go up and choose a block to add to the structure. If they don’t do a good job, smilingly sit them down with a "Oooh, sorry, you must be very good." "Who can do this?"

With this game you'll get through a bunch of kids, with individual responses from each. And, you'll get some pretty interesting buildings.

Note: remember with teaching in Taiwan, whether its kindergarten, English as a Second Language, preparing college-age students for the TESOL or TOEFL, or even teaching business people the dreaded ESP (English for specific purposes) sometimes a good game really makes time fly and learning easy. Don't fail to learn as many games as possible.