Communicative Activities: Easy and Fun! Grace Chen: Judy Kim: Sarah Sherwood:

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1 MATESOL Conference Spring 2009 Communicative Activities Page 1 Communicative Activities: Easy and Fun! Grace Chen: inbloom.grace@gmail.com Judy Kim: ocholic@gmail.com Sarah Sherwood: sjsherwood@yahoo.com Communicative Activities: Tasks performed in the classroom to help students work on building accuracy and fluency by practicing vocabulary and structures previously taught (Byrne, 1987). Rationale: Students, especially in the U.S., are required to speak English outside of the classroom. Not only will students have to learn basic questions and personal information to participate in their communities and daily tasks, but also to talk with prospective employers. Furthermore, for ESL students with children, who are learning English in the U.S. school systems, must learn English to help their children with homework and communicate with their children s teachers. Why Communicative Activities Work: Students cannot gain communicative competence if they do not practice the structures learned in class in natural conversation. It has been suggested that when language classrooms focus on task-oriented activities which give students experience in functioning in extended, realistic discourse in the target language, those students are able to learn not only appropriate language use, but real communicative processes as well (Taylor, in Long and Richards, 1987, p. 45). In this handout we provide multiple timeless activities (found in the references on page 4) that can be used in the classroom for any level and any context. They encourage students to use language spontaneously and naturally, where the focus is on communicating ideas, not necessarily on being accurate. We suggest variations for these activities based on levels, but with creativity and experience, you will find your own ways to adapt each activity to best work for your students. Secondly, the books listed in our references display a plenitude of communicative activities to use in your classroom. Good Luck! Oh, and have fun! Notes: Proficiency Level: Endless proficiency levels exist in the ESL world, including multi-level classes too. We tried to provide variations that demonstrate very simple to complex language abilities. Context: With experience any teacher can find a way to include these activities in different teaching contexts to help students build communicative fluency and accuracy. For example, in an academic grammar class, the teacher can use these activities to help build meaning behind grammatical structures. In a composition course, these activities are useful for brainstorming essay topics, forming opinions, or practicing widely misused grammatical structures found in your students writings.

2 MATESOL Conference Spring 2009 Communicative Activities Page 2 Activity Procedures Variation by Proficiency Level Line-Up Gibberish/Interpreter Two Lies, One Truth Sound Ball/ Circle Word Cards/ Strip Story Charades/ Guess the Place or Characters Think, Pair, Share Ss must line up according to a topic, or feeling by asking each other questions. For example, Ss must get in order based on the months of their birthdays. When is your birthday? Ss get into groups of three. Each selects an expert, interpreter, and interviewer. The interviewer asks questions to the expert, the expert speaks gibberish and the interpreter interprets what he/she said. Allows Ss to practice fluency over accuracy. Ss get into groups of three and each narrate a short, interesting event from their childhood. Ss choose one story and practice telling it as their own, changing some details. The groups present and the class guesses whose story it is. Can also make the game Two Truths, One Lie. Ss get in a circle. T has an imaginary ball. T models a structure and then passes the ball to a S, who then changes the structure, creates a new structure, and passes the ball off again. For example, to change first person to the third person, the T says, I like chocolate. Then T passes the ball to a S, the S says, she likes chocolate. The same S makes a new original sentence, I like coffee. Ss get into groups. T gives each group sentence strips or word cards. Ss put words or sentence strips in order to create a story or sentence. T chooses a category to practice. Ss pick a verb or noun from a hat and act it out, Ss must guess the verb or noun. Or, Ss write short dialogs based on given roles and/or locations. Class guesses unknown info based on conversational context clues. Ss turn to a person sitting next to them and rehearses with them their answer or shares an idea. Good to use with answers to questions, ideas, or brainstorm responses. Low: Ss draw a letter of the alphabet, or number. High: More complex questions required to find line-up information. Low: Ss practice vocab and sentence patterns from class. High: Ss practice fluent conversation and pragmatics. Low: Each S makes a statement about the weather, the day, their likes/dislikes, two true, one false. High: You can specify the context/topic/tense; for example, family, work, likes/dislikes, my goals/wishes for the future. Low: Use the alphabet, days of the week, months, numbers, and simple sentence patterns. High: Use to practice more complex grammar structures. Example, change past tense to present perfect. Low: Use basic sentence structure, example, I like coffee. Each Ss in the group will get a card with a word. The Ss get in order physical order. High: Ss work in groups to order their sentences to make a story. Low: Use jobs, action verbs, or have Ss get really creative and choose subjects like fruits. High: Use known places and ask Ss to guess the relationship between people in the dialogue. Low: Ss compare answers or rehearse their simple statement. High: Ss brainstorm original ideas to share or ask for opinions of.

3 MATESOL Conference Spring 2009 Communicative Activities Page 3 Activity Procedures Variation by Proficiency Level Find Someone Who Line-Ups Survey Create a list that has Ss find a person who either knows the answer or meets the requirements of the answer. For example: Find someone who is wearing green. To Find someone who knows what an adverb is. Ss get in two lines facing each other. T poses a question. One line asks the question, the other answers, the T says, switch and one line moves down; continue until all Ss have talked with each other. T makes surveys that require Ss to collect information from each other using grammatical forms and topics practiced in class. Low: Use statements that require simple question constructions, or Ss can visibly find the answer (someone wearing green). High: T creates statements that require more complex questions. Low: Ask a simple question, such as What is your name? High: Ask a short answer question that expresses an opinion, advice, or statement. Can also be used for roleplays (job interview, speed dating) or short conversations (small talk, invitations, making plans) Low: Ss ask each other their names, where they were born, where they re from. High: T creates topics requiring Ss to respond with specific verb tenses. Can also be used to generate discussions and practice organizational skills (graphing the results). Suggestions for Implementing Activities: Make communicative activities routine in your classroom Model the activity with a student, then student with student Make the activity fit the themes/topics/skills being taught in the class Explicitly and clearly explain start and stop signals and time limits Make sure every student gets a turn You can participate too!

4 MATESOL Conference Spring 2009 Communicative Activities Page 4 References and Resources (Indicated with a *): *Byrne, D. (1987). Techniques for classroom interaction. New York: Longman. *Christison, M.A., & Bassano, S. (1981). Look who s talking!: a guide to the development of successful conversation groups in intermediate and advanced E.S.L. classrooms. San Francisco: The Alemany Press. *Klippel, F. (1987). Keep talking: communicative fluency activities for language teaching. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. *Maley, A. and Duff, A. (2005). Drama techniques: A resource book of communication activities for language teachers. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Taylor, B.P. (1987). Teaching ESL: Incorporating a communicative, student-centered component. In Long, M.H., & Richards, J.C. (Eds.), Methodology in TESOL: a book of readings. (pp ). New York City: Newbury House Publishers. *Ur, P., & Wright, A. (1992). Five-minute activities: a resource book of short activities. Cambrige, UK: Cambridge University Press. *Whalley, E. (2008). Performance in ESL/EFL (ENG 724). San Francisco: San Francisco State University. *Woodward, S.W. (1997). Fun with grammar: communicative activities for the Azar grammar series. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall Regents.

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