A good balance of stand-up and sit-down activities in a kids’ EFL class

The one overwhelming difference between teaching kids and teaching adults is that the younger the children are the more they need to move around in class, both to keep up their levels of concentration and to help them learn by getting physically involved. Teachers therefore need to know a stack of fun games where students mime, run, touch things etc. Once they have gained the ability to use such games, though, teachers often lose sight of the fact that the activities were developed not just because they were fun but mainly in order to help kids learn better. They might also lose sight of that fact that sometimes the best kind of learning can be done sitting down quietly just like adults. Here are some pointers to help you judge whether you have got the right balance of sit down and moving around activities in your classes, and then some tips on how to think about making changes.

Possible signs that you are using too many sit-down activities with kids

1. The children become more and more restless during the class
2. You have to discipline the kids more and more as the class goes on
3. The children become less and less receptive to new language as the class goes on
4. The amount of noise increases over the length of the class
5. The children become less and less responsive as the class goes on, e.g. stop responding to requests to copy movements (e.g. animal mimes or finger songs) while they are sitting down
6. There are more and more jokes and other silliness as the class goes on
7. The children starting overreacting to some of your cues, e.g. shouting extremely loudly during drilling
8. The main reason for discipline problems in your classes is the kids having too much energy
9. The only reaction you know to students getting restless is to discipline them more
10. The periods of attention and good behaviour after you discipline the kids or start a new activity become shorter and shorter as the class goes on
11. You have done songs, storybooks, flashcards and realia but no standing up or moving around the room
12. The only reason you don’t use stand up and move around action songs like Hokey Cokey or Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush is that you are scared of losing control or wasting time as they get up out of their seats and into the right position
13. The only reason you don’t get students standing up and moving is that you don’t think there is room in the classroom
14. The only reason you don’t get students standing up and moving is that you are scared of disturbing neighbouring classes
15. The only reason you don’t get students standing up and moving is that the students could break something
16. When you do actions sitting down (e.g. bobbing up and down with two hands on your head for ears for “rabbit”), the children naturally move to stand up and do it but you usually stop them
17. There is no variation in energy levels in your lesson plan
18. There are two or even three quiet sit down activities in a row without something more lively and active to break them up
19. Most classes with under- tens pass without the students standing up and moving around
20. Most classes with under-sixes only have one standing up activity
21. The only standing up activity in every class is the warmer at the beginning of the lesson
22. You convert most standing up game ideas you read in the teachers’ book or in teaching magazines into sit down games
23. The only reason you reject a good game idea you find on the internet or in a teacher’s resource book is because it involves standing up and moving around
24. The more studious students win all the games and the more physically active ones never have a chance to win
25. The more physically active kids are learning much less than the more studious one
26. You have the same number of stand up and move around activities in your younger kids’ classes as in your older kids’ ones
27. The more physically active kids don’t like English class or say they are bored
28. The more physically active kids often get into trouble in your classes
29. You have difficulty making a clear transition between sit down activities
30. Students become overexcited every time there is a physical activity because they do them so rarely
31. You had problems the first time you used a stand up and move around activity and so you have never tried one again
32. Your students are looking longingly towards the wall of the neighbouring classroom, from where sounds of running around and other merriment are coming
33. Students go running out of the classroom shouting with a burst of pent up energy at the end of your class

Possible signs that you aren’t using enough sit-down activities with kids

1. The kids often do two or three stand up and move around activities in a row without a sit down activity between
2. You have tackled the same language point with several stand up and move around activities (over several classes or all in the same class) without trying a sit down activity on that point
3. You do so many more stand up than sit down games that you are running out of ideas for stand up games
4. Students who prefer more intellectual, mathematical, logical etc activities rarely win the games
5. Students who prefer more intellectual, mathematical, logical etc activities are progressing more slowly in English than in their other classes
6. Students who prefer more intellectual, mathematical, logical etc activities are progressing more slowly in English than the more physically active students
7. You reject some game ideas just because they are done sitting down or in silence
8. The kids often become overexcited
9. The kids often become physically tired
10. You have difficulty making a clear transition between two stand up and move around activities
11. You rarely use photocopiable activities
12. You rarely do craftwork (colouring, using scissors, gluing etc)
13. You rarely do project work (making posters, making picture dictionaries etc)
14. You are missing a chance to combine English development with development of other skills they need in school like learning to use scissors
15. The English classroom has far fewer posters and other student work on the walls than other classrooms because students aren’t producing them in your class
16. Students bring materials like picture dictionaries and colouring pencils to class but rarely have a chance to use them
17. Other teachers or students complain about the noise coming from your classroom
18. Other teachers complain that your students are tired or overexcited when they come to their next class
19. Students become very restless during tests because they are not used to sitting down and being still in English class
20. You have to interrupt your activities to let students cool down or drink water
21. Your students go into shock when they join Junior High School English classes next year and have to spend the whole class sitting down

Other possible signs that you haven’t got the balance of stand-up and sit-down activities right

1. Most classes are not a mix of the two
2. You don’t vary the number of each type of activity depending on the age of the students
3. You don’t vary the number of each type of activity depending on how physically tired or restless the students are on the day
4. You don’t vary the number of each type of activity depending on what the students have been doing before your class (e.g. sports or a sit down test)
5. You ignore pointers on how high energy games are when you read about them

Ways of making sure you use the right number of sit-down activities

1. Grade all your classes from the class that usually needs most stand up and move around activities to the class that would benefit most from and appreciate more sit down activities
2. Write an energy level next to each of the activities you have planned from your class from 10 points (running around and screaming) to 1 point (suitable for calming down overexcited or naughty kids). You can also try this with all activities you read in the teacher’s book and elsewhere.
3. Count up the number of sit down quiet activities and stand up moving around activities in your lesson plan and see if you think you have the right percentage of each for each class. You can also do the same thing for percentage of class time.
4. Check that the active stand up stages are scattered throughout the lesson, and are put in at places where students are likely to respond well to them.
5. Plan sit down and stand up variations of as many activities on your lesson plan as you can, so you can respond to their mood and energy levels on the day
6. Add other optional stand up and sit down activities to use only if the students don’t respond well to plan A due to energy levels etc.
7. Find out what classes students will have before and after yours and plan your lessons accordingly
8. Observe other people’s lessons or watch videos of lessons and judge them on the use of stand up and sit down activities
9. Brainstorm all the things that are stopping you using more stand up or sit down activities (e.g. lack of room to move around or students not using pencils well yet) and then brainstorm solutions to each one that does not involve abandoning sit down or stand up activities   

TEDx Talks. How to learn any language in six months | Chris Lonsdale

How to become a memory master

19 simple, fun and effective ESL board games

like the even more common teacher’s trick of putting things on little slips of paper, converting something into the format of a board game can be a great way of making it instantly more stimulating and fun, even if it isn’t quite Monopoly. Perhaps the two most common things that teachers put in the squares on the board are questions from language exercises (such as gaps to fill and errors to correct) and topics to speak about. Students usually move around the board by successfully doing what they are asked to in the square that they are presently on and/ or doing something with an element of chance such as rolling a dice. Other possibilities for adding luck that I have seen recommended and tried include flipping coins, spinning spinners with numbers on, and doing “janken” (rock paper scissors). 
As good as these basic TEFL board games I’ve described so far sound, I no longer use any of them. Those kinds of regular board game include at least one of these problems:

• The language activity and how you move around the board being completely separated from each other, with the latter often being down entirely to luck
  
• No need for the speaker to push their speaking performance
  
• No need for the people playing with them to pay attention to what they say
  
• Rather passive students
  
• A bit random, often including no clear language focus
  
• Quickly becoming repetitive
  
• So common that students have almost certainly done the same thing with previous teachers
  
• Not really a game (and certainly not the kind of board game that students would play by choice outside class)
  
• Too similar to other things you do in class, not really exploiting the strengths and peculiarities of board games
  

The variations below aim to deal with all these problems while adding more variety and fun. Most of the variations also need less equipment and preparation than some more complex variations, with only one game needing dice and no extra cards etc needed.
The main thing that I try to get rid of when making a new board game is the first of the problems mentioned above – the disconnect between the language activity and how students move around the board. Possibilities of bringing what they say and how they move together include, in approximate order of how simple they are to organise and explain:

1. Students moving the number of squares of the answer that they get when they ask someone who is in their group a question (e.g. three squares if their partner answers “I have three” to “How many cousins do you have?”)
   
2. Students moving the number of squares of the number of linguistically correct things that they say in the category given in the square that they are on (e.g. uncountable nouns which are “liquids” when they are on that square)
   
3. Students moving the number of squares of the number of linguistically correct things they can say in order in the category given in the square (e.g. expressions of certainty and uncertainty in order of how sure they mean someone is)
   
4. Students moving the number of squares of the number of factually and linguistically correct things that they say (e.g. making true sentences about their partner with Present Perfect and the verb in the square that they are on)
   
5. Students moving by the number of linguistically correct statements that they make which the other people in the team agree with (e.g. predictions about the future that everyone thinks are true)
   
6. Students moving by how long they can speak (e.g. one point for each thirty seconds that they can speak, up to six points for speaking for three minutes, with points off for things like silent pausing)
   
7. Students moving by a ranking by the other people in the team of how well they did something (e.g. from five squares for perfect communication down to one square for barely achieving their aim in a roleplay in the situation given in the square)
   
8. Students moving by the number of criteria which their speaking matches (e.g. one point for few pauses, one point for using language that the class have studied, etc, up to maybe six criteria)
   
9. Students moving by the number of words or phrases on an accompanying worksheet that they can use while they are speaking (with the other people in the group looking at the worksheet and ticking them off, perhaps with the person speaking being able to see hints such as names of functions or key words)
   
10. Students moving by the number of phrases they can use that have the functions given on the side of the board game (as long as no one else has used the same phrases during the game)
    
11. Students moving by the number that they get on the dice, but only if they can overcome the challenge that one of the other people in the group have given to that number (e.g. for the square “In the post office” their partners decide that “Six equals you don’t have any foreign currency and five equals you don’t know exact address you are posting it to” with the other numbers being “No problem”)
    
12. Students moving by the number of levels of formality/ politeness that they can come up with beyond what is in the square (e.g. moving four squares for coming up with “just a mo’”, “Just a moment”, “Just a moment, please” and “Can you give me just a moment, please?” in response to a square saying “Please wait”)
    
13. Students moving by the number of longer and longer phrases they can come up with (e.g. “It’s a long ruler”, “It’s a long clear ruler”, “It’s a long clear 30cm ruler” etc, with the adjectives in the right order)
    
14. Students moving round square by square with only one counter for the whole group, with something else such as who has which role being decided by their speaking performances etc
    
15. Students moving by the number of times that they can obtain the response that is written in the square from the other people in the group (such as “Yes, I did” for one square, “I don’t remember” for another square, “That’s a bit personal” for another, and “I envy you” for another)
    
16. Students moving by the number of a single kind of response (for the whole game) that they can get from other people in the group by asking questions on the topic in the squares (e.g. squares that say “toys” and “kindergarten” for a game which is meant to practise versions of “I don’t remember”)
    
17. Students moving by the number of questions that they can answer or reject for being off topic or already answered after speaking about the topic in the square (with points also for their partners running out of questions)
    
18. Students moving by the number of lines that there are in a dialogue which they take part in (with the other people taking part in the roleplay trying to keep the conversation as short as possible by politely making their excuses etc)
    
19. Students trying the challenges on as many squares after the one that they are on as they like, but going back to their original square if they mess anything up before they settle on a new square and let play pass to the next person
    

All of these variations are looked at in more detail below.
For the ones where students try to come up with as many correct examples of the thing in the square as possible to get points and so be able to move that many squares (like most of the games above), there are several possible policies on wrong answers:

• Students can continue to attempt the challenge in the square until they make a mistake, with the number of points (and so number of squares that they move) the number of correct answers that they had said before they messed up. For example, if their fourth attempt at doing what the square which they are on asks them to is wrong, they move three squares. If their first attempt is wrong, play passes straight to the next person and they have to try the same square again when play comes back to them. If the tasks are quite easy, you might want to set a maximum number of points per square, e.g. students stopping when they get to six correct attempts, even if they haven’t made a mistake.
  
• Students continue trying to do what the square tells them to until they aren’t sure about their next attempt. They then move the number of squares of their (correct) attempts before that point. If they have misplaced confidence in their next answer and so make a mistake, their points go back down to zero and they have to try again from the same square the next time that it is their turn. Progress will obviously be much slower this way, both in terms of number of squares moved and thinking time.
  
• Students are allowed a certain number of attempts (e.g. six) and get one point for each correct attempt out of that number, with no particular punishment for making mistakes early on. This should make progress round the board quicker than the two versions above.
  
• Students have a fixed time limit to make attempts and get one point for each correct answer in that time. This can be combined with stopping when they make a mistake or stopping and losing all your points when you make a mistake as just described above.
  

You could also tell students to stop their turn if they can’t come up with another idea and/ or are silent for more than a certain time limit, e.g. 20 seconds.
1. Moving the number of squares of the answer they get
This can be played with a whole board game for just “have”/ “have got” or “there is/ there are”, perhaps including things in the classroom with questions like “How many tables are there in this room?”
Students could also use Present Simple (“How many sausages do you eat?”), “can” (“How many times can you head a ball?”), Present Perfect (“How many times have you…?”), or Past Simple (“How many… did you yesterday?” or “How many years ago did you last…?”), although this would probably be for a freer/ more mixed game as it would be a struggle to make up a whole game from just one of these structures.
This game doesn’t necessarily have to have anything written in the squares, or you could put in pictures and/ or words to tell them what kinds of categories to ask about such as toys, media, furniture, family, cutlery, crockery, and clothes. You could also include categories of language or phrases mentioned such as “can” and “Present Perfect”.
You have to design the game very carefully to make sure that students don’t get answers like “300” and have to count round and round the board, or you could just set a maximum number of 10 at how many squares they can move. To make them think more carefully about their questions, you could also say that any answer over 10 means that they actually can’t move that turn and have to wait for the next one.
2. Moving the number of squares of the linguistically correct things they say in the category given
This can be used with so many language points, e.g. examples of particular categories of countable and/ or uncountable nouns (“liquids”, “abstract nouns”, etc), particular kinds of comparative adjectives (“ending with –ier”, “positive”, “four syllables” etc), Past Simple verbs (“with –ed pronounced /t/”, “irregular with the vowel pronounced ‘or’”, “three syllables” etc), and words with a particular spelling and/ or pronunciation. For a few of those language points you could make a whole board game for one language point, e.g. by putting a different phoneme or a different category of uncountable noun in each square. However, this generally works best as a revision board game, with different things from the course which you want them to remember in each square. I often use this version in the penultimate lesson of a course, before an end of term test.
3. Moving the number of squares of the linguistically correct things they say in order in the category given
This is basically the same as the game above, but students must also get the things that they say in the right order. This works for anything that you can rank the meaning of, e.g. phrases explaining how similar and different things are like “very different” and “slightly different”, phrases explaining how often something happens like “very rarely”, phrases explaining (approximately) how many or much something is like “a couple”, phrases explaining how sure you are like “fairly likely” and phrases explaining positive and negative feelings like “absolutely disgusting”, “a bit irritating” or “can’t stand”. For enough squares to make a whole board game, you’ll need to repeat squares and/ or have students doing the same thing backwards sometimes, e.g. going down from “always”. You can also have a mix of some squares with words that they should go up or down from and some squares with just descriptions of the kinds of language they need to come up with in order (e.g. “adverbs of frequency”). You could also have whole sentences that they should make more and more sure, make about more and more people, etc.
The levels of politeness game below is a version of this.
4. Moving the number of squares of the factually and linguistically correct things they say
This is perhaps the most flexible of all the games in this article, being possible with just about any language point and again being great for a review game at the end of term. If possible, it’s best to add some personalisation by telling them to make most or all of the statements things which are true about the other people in their group such as “You have never been to Iceland” and “You detest heavy metal”.
Some of the many possible points to practise with this game include (with suggestions of what to put in the squares in brackets):

• Present Perfect (topics such as “work” and times such as “this year”)
  
• Likes and dislikes (words to use such as “adore” and topics such as “food”)
  
• Second Conditional (words to use and topics such as “lottery”)
  
• Simple Past (times such as “the day before yesterday” and “last”, and topics such as “daily routine”)
  
• Present Simple (adverbs of frequency, other frequency expressions, verbs and topics)
  
• Comparative and superlative (things to compare to the other people in their group or their possessions, topics, and adjectives to use)
  

5. Moving by the number of linguistically correct statements that the other people in the team agree with
This is a variation on the game above which allows students to make statements about other topics such as comparisons (comparisons between the thing written in the square such as “this town” and other things), adjectives (describing things and people in the squares that they all know), recommendations, (strong and weak positive and negative) opinions, and Third Conditional (about the historical topics in the squares like “inventions” and/ or decisions in their own lives like “different study after high school”). In each case, their partner must agree with their opinion for them to get a point. Note that this doesn’t work with very competitive groups as they will just disagree with everything that the other people say in order to stop them winning (whatever their real opinion).
6. Moving by how long they speak
This is another very flexible game which I often use for revision by adding topics from the course book like “a holiday” and “my health recommendations” to the squares on the board. This can also be good preparation for giving presentations in English, as well as more informal extended speaking – for exams such as FCE Speaking Part Two and IELTS Speaking Part Two, but also as a vital skill for higher level students.
7. Moving by a ranking by the other people in the team of how well they did
This is another one which is good for revision, especially as you can include roleplays such as “In the post office” and “Respond to a complaint”. You can also do telephoning and emailing roleplays, in the latter case with them saying what they would include in such an email (word for word) and their partners doing the same for the original email which that person has to deal with and/ or the response after they send the email that they come up with. Business English students could also roleplay meetings for particular challenges such as “Negotiate a pay rise” and “Explain to your boss why you haven’t finished your project yet”.
8. Moving by the number of criteria which their speaking matches
This can be used for any of the uses of the game just above, and this variation is usually better than that game as this one makes students think more about what successful communication in English is. Possible criteria include “achieved what the square asked you to do”, “smooth communication”, “friendly”, “good stress and intonation”, “good active listening”, “polite”, “few pauses”, “fluent”, “language that you have studied in class”, “few mistakes”, “high level language”, “speaking for a long time” and “avoiding repetition”. You could also let students decide what the criteria will be, maybe changing it (a little) for each square.
9. Moving by the number of words or phrases on a worksheet that they can use while they are speaking
Students roleplay the situation of the square that they are on now while the other people in the group look at a list of useful words and phrases for that situation, probably ones that have already been studied in class. The students who are listening tick off anything they hear and when the person whose turn it is has finished speaking they can move one square for each one that was ticked. Those phrases stay crossed off, meaning other people must use different ones when it comes to their turn. The person speaking can’t look at the list, but they will be able to see it when it is other people’s turns, giving them a chance to memorise them somewhat at that time.
This works best if the words and phrases are divided by function, e.g. “apologise” and “give reasons” as the categories for a board game with lots of different situations for dealing with complaints in the different squares, in which case the key words etc that they must use can be things like “afraid” and “due to”.
10. Moving by the number of new phrases they can use that have the functions given on the side of the board game
This is the same as the divided by functions version of the game just above, but with an extra blank space with each category of language that they are asked to use. As well as ticking the phrases that the person speaking uses, students can also give them a tick in the blank space for each other suitable phrase with that function they use that hadn’t been used before. This means that the person who is speaking doesn’t have to use exactly the words and phrases which are on the suggested phrases list as long as they say something original and with the right function.
The functions that you give will need to be ones which can be used with almost every square, e.g. “checking/ clarifying”, “starting conversations” and “thanking”. I mainly use this game with exam preparation classes, e.g. typical topics for FCE Speaking Part One in the squares and typical interactional language that can come up in the exam like “vague answers” and “commenting on your partner’s answer” as they categories that they should come up with as they are speaking. It can also be used for business meetings/ negotiations, as long as you push them to keep each meeting very short.
11. Moving by the number on the dice, but only if they can overcome the challenge given to that number
When it is someone’s go, the other people in the group try to think of a challenge for each number on the dice connected to what is written in the square that they are presently on. For example, if they are on the “telephoning” square, their partners can decide that “Six means that you can’t contact the person you want to speak to” and “Five means that you have a bad line”. If they run out of ideas, the other numbers on the dice have no problem attached to them. As the other students want to stop their partner going too far, it’s best for them to give the challenges to the highest numbers on the dice, leaving low numbers like one as “no problem”.
The person whose turn it is then throws the dice and roleplays the situation, including the problem if they get one of those numbers. If they find some way of having a successful outcome, they can move the number that was on the dice, with the new square being what they will have to do next time.
This game works for all kinds of situations and functions.
12. Moving by the number of levels of formality/ politeness that they can come up with
Students must make more and more polite versions of the basic or rude phrases that are written in the squares like “Please write back soon” and “No idea”, getting one point for each additional level of politeness that they can come up with (in order). You will need a mix of functions to fill a whole board game, but you can make them all connected to one situation such as emailing (with squares for opening, requesting, etc), telephoning, giving presentations and business meetings. As well as sentences to improve on, students can also just be given just the name of the function that they should try many levels of formality for (e.g. “apologising”).
13. Students moving by the number of longer and longer phrases they can come up with
If it will be difficult for students to judge whether the sentences which someone is coming up with are really getting more and more polite as in the game just above, it might be easier for them to come up with longer and longer correct sentences (which are also usually more polite). This game can also be used for longer and longer descriptions, or longer and therefore more specific and higher level functional language phrases (“bigger”, “a lot bigger”, “quite a lot bigger” etc).
14. Moving round square by square with only one counter for the whole group
In this game there is no skipping squares/ jumping ahead, so there must be another reward for doing well. Students who do well could give someone else the more difficult role in the situation on the next square, sit out the next round, make problems to be solved, choose the criteria for doing well, etc. Doing well could be defined as doing better than the other people taking part or other ideas from above such as meeting criteria or using phrases on a worksheet.
15. Moving by the number of times they can get the response that is written in the square from the other people in the group
This is another one for which is quite difficult but just about possible to make a whole board for one language point. Possibilities include all the short answers (“Yes, I did”, “No I haven’t” etc in the different squares), typical short social responses (“That’s a shame”, “I don’t believe it” etc in the different squares), names of different people and relationships (with questions like “Who do you…?” and “Who… you?”) and frequency expressions (“Once every two weeks”, “Often” etc, with “How often do you…?” questions).
16. Moving by the number of a single kind of response they get by asking questions on the topic in the squares
This is similar to the game just above but with the responses for all the boxes being basically the same (although different phrases meaning the same thing should obviously be encouraged). Possibilities for what they have to get their partners to say include versions of “I don’t remember” (with topics like “primary school” and “celebrations”), versions of one level of agreement or disagreement (e.g. variations on “I totally agree”), phrases for accepting advice, and phrases for turning down requests.
To make sure that the language which you are focussing on gets some practice, you’ll need to ask students to use a different phrase each time they respond, being able to repeat only when it becomes the next person’s turn. Note that unlike most of the games in this article, this rather unusually makes it as much of a challenge for the people waiting as it does for the person whose counter is on the square.
17. Moving by the number of questions that they can answer or reject for being off topic or answered already
This more complex version of an extended speaking game is for students who might not really listen when their partners are speaking or for students who need to practise dealing with questions (e.g. Q&A sessions in real presentations). Students try to say as much as they possibly can about a topic while they are speaking, then their partner(s) must ask (say) six questions. The person who spoke gets points for successfully answering questions, but also for any questions that their partner(s) can’t come up with (e.g. two points if their partners only come up with four questions) and any questions that they can reject (e.g. for being off topic or already answered when they were originally speaking on the topic). You’ll need to decide if answers such as “I’m afraid I didn’t research that but I’ll check and email you tomorrow” count as a successful answer or not. You could also give points to the other people in the group for asking questions that other people can’t answer.
18. Moving by the number of lines in a dialogue that they take part in
This is useful for politely and smoothly ending conversations, although actually it is the people who are waiting for their turn who mainly use that language. The squares on the board can have topics of conversation or (probably) situations in which you might meet someone such as “the lift” and “a conference”. It’s probably best to have groups of at least three people so someone can count the number of exchanges in the conversation while the two people speaking try to extend the conversation (the person whose turn it is) or quickly but politely end it (the other person).
19. Students trying the challenges on as many squares after the one that they are on as they like
This means that, unlike most of the games here, students only need one correct answer for each square. Even more than the games above, for this game to work it must be obvious if a student has successfully managed to do the thing on each square. Possibilities include difficult roleplays (“negotiate a pay rise” etc), a certain number of correct things to brainstorm (“six uncountable nouns in this classroom” etc) or single things to come up with (“A food that your partner can’t stand” etc). If their partners decide any of those are not successful, the person whose turn it is goes back to the square which they started that turn on.
Creating your own board games
It is incredibly easy to make your own simple board games such as those described in this article with just any ordinary word-processing program. Make a normal table like you would if you were making cards or a substitution table, maybe one with five columns and ten or so rows. Combine (= merge) the middle boxes of the table to make one big space in the middle, leaving just a rectangle of boxes round the outside that will be the squares that students will put their counters on and move around. In Microsoft Word merging boxes in a table can be done by simply holding down the left button on your mouse while you drag the cursor over the boxes that you want to merge, right clicking on those highlighted boxes, then pressing “M” for “merge”.
Write “START” in one of the remaining squares, e.g. the top right one. You can then add a circular ClipArt image to the middle space to show students which way to move, or some straight arrows to some of the boxes round the edge with the same purpose. Then add words and/ or ClipArt images to the remaining boxes around the outside of the table as you would to any other table.
You’ll need to decide which of the games you are going to play above, and how wrong guesses are treated. You’ll also need to decide on how the game will end. Possibilities include:

• The first person to pass the START square again after one complete rotation of the board wins
  
• Students continue going round and round the board until you tell them to stop, with the person who has progressed furthest at that point the winner
  
• Students play for a fixed amount of time, with the person who has progressed furthest at that point being the winner
  
• Don’t tell students which of those systems you are planning to use, only deciding when you see how useful the game is and how your timing is going
  

Ten things you might not have known about the English language

 

1. It is the only major language without an academy to guide it

L’Académie française, based in Paris, is in charge of overseeing the French language. Part of its job is suggesting alternatives for the English words that are pouring into French. That’s how email became courriel, for example (although you will still hear it called e-mail in French).
For Spanish there is the Real Academia Española. German has the Rat für deutsche Rechtschreibung. There is no equivalent to L’Académie for English. Of the 10 most-widely spoken languages in the world, only English has no academy guiding it.
There are political reasons for this. The closest Britain ever came to having a language academy was at the start of the eighteenth century, when Gulliver’s Travels author Jonathan Swift was lobbying hard for an academy because “our Language is extremely imperfect… its daily Improvements are by no means in proportion to its daily Corruptions (and) in many Instances it offends against every Part of Grammar.” Queen Anne supported the idea but died before a decision could be made, and the issue was largely forgotten.
In the USA, a bill for the incorporation of a national academy was unsuccessfully introduced into congress in 1806. Fourteen years later, an American Academy of Language and Belles Lettres was launched with John Quincy Adams as president, but broke up after two years after receiving little political or public support.
Nowadays, the only English-speaking country to have a language academy is South Africa. Because the English language has become so ubiquitous without any guidance, there is little prospect of anyone starting an academy any time soon. Where would it be? In Britain, the home of the language? Or the USA, where the largest English-speaking population lives?

2. More than 1 billion people are learning English as you read this

According to the British Council, around 1 billion people around the world were learning English in 2000. This figure is now likely to be significantly higher.

3. 96 of the 100 most common English words are Germanic

Of the hundred most frequently used words in English, 96 have Germanic roots. Together, those 100 words make up more than 50% of the Oxford English Corpus, which currently contains over 2 billion words found in writing around the world.
Surprised? The most frequently used words are the meat and bones of the language, the essentials that make communication work, including I, you, go, eat, and so on. Old English developed from various Germanic languages that came to the British Isles in the second half of the first millennium AD.
Whereas the language has changed almost unrecognisably since then, including the grammar, the basic words have remained.

4. …but most words that have entered the language since 1066 have Latin origins

If English is your first language but you find French or Spanish easier to understand than German, you are not alone. This may seem strange when English and German are on the same branch of the Indo-European language tree.
The Renaissance, which started in Italy and reached England via France, was a massive source of new vocabulary. New ideas, or old ideas rediscovered, started flooding out of the southern cities but there were no words to describe them in English. So the language adopted or adapted the Latin words. During the Renaissance, the English lexicon roughly doubled in size.
The shift away from the Germanic languages, however, had started much earlier, because…

5. For more than a century, the English aristocracy couldn’t speak English

William the Conqueror tried to learn English at the age of 43 but gave up. He didn’t seem especially fond of the land he had conquered in 1066, spending half of his reign in France and not visiting England at all for five years when in power. Naturally, French-speaking barons were appointed to rule the land.
Within 20 years of the Normans taking power in England, almost all of the local religious institutions were French-speaking. The aristocrats brought with them large retinues and were followed by French tradesmen, who almost certainly mixed bilingually with the English tradesmen. In turn, ambitious Englishmen would have learned French to get ahead in life and mix with the new rulers. Around 10,000 French words entered English in the century after the Norman invasion.
There is little to suggest that aristocrats themselves spoke English. It isn’t until the end of the 12th Century that we have evidence of the children of the English aristocracy with English as a first language. In 1204, the English nobility lost their estates in France and adopted English partly as a matter of national pride!

6. …which is why Latin words sound more prestigious than Germanic ones

Think about the difference between a house (Germanic) and a mansion (French), or between starting something and commencing, between calling something kingly or regal. English has a huge number of close synonyms, where the major difference is the level of formality or prestige. The prestigious form is almost always the Latin one.
The names of animals and meats also reflect this phenomenon. The old story goes that, in English, the animals have Germanic names but the cooked meats have French ones. For example, swine is Germanic but pork is French, sheep is Germanic but mutton is French. Was this because the English speakers worked on the farms whereas the French speakers ate the produce? It’s certainly possible.

7. The concept of “correct” spelling is fairly recent

There are many reasons why English spelling is so erratic including the lack of an academy, the contributions of Noah Webster (see below) and the introduction of William Caxton’s printing press just before major changes in pronunciation. But the idea of correct or incorrect spelling wasn’t really considered important until the 17th Century when the first dictionaries were published. Even then, it was largely a debate for academics and writers.
Shakespeare, for example, was liberal in his spellings of words, often using multiple variants within a single text; his name itself has been spelt in many different ways over the centuries.

8. One man is largely responsible for the differences between American and British spelling

Noah Webster, whose name you still find on the front of many American dictionaries, was a patriotic man. Born in West Hartford, Connecticut in 1758, he believed that a great emerging nation such as the USA needed a language of its own: American English.
Webster found the English in the textbooks of the time to be corrupted by the British aristocracy, with too much French and Classical influence. He was to write American books for American learners, representing a young, proud and forward-thinking nation.
Between 1783 and 1785, he produced three books on the English language for American schoolchildren. During his lifetime, 385 editions of his Speller were published. The modern US spelling of color was initially spelt in the British way, colour, but this changed in later editions. Other differences include the US spelling of center as opposed to the British centre, and traveler instead of traveller. Webster wanted to make spelling more logical, as befitting a nation that was founded on progressive principles. This is a rare example of a dictionary writer trying to lead the English language instead of describe it.
In Britain, the use of “Americanisms” is almost guaranteed to upset people. But not all Americanisms are what they seem. For example…

9. -ize is not an American suffix

There is a popular belief that words such as popularise/ize, maximise/ize and digitise/ize have different spellings in British and American English.
Look at that z – isn’t it snazzy? It’s got to be American, hasn’t it?
Not according to the Oxford English Dictionary, which rejects the French s for a good old British z:

…there is no reason why in English the special French spelling should be followed, in opposition to that which is at once etymological and phonetic. In this Dictionary the termination is uniformly written -ize. (In the Gr. -ιζ-, the i was short, so originally in L., but the double consonant z (= dz, ts) made the syllable long; when the z became a simple consonant, (-idz) became īz, whence Eng. (-aɪz).)

10. The English language will change a lot during your lifetime, like it or not!

The only thing that is consistent in language is change. When a language stops changing, it becomes purely academic, like Latin or Ancient Greek.
New words are being coined all the time. If you asked someone twenty years ago whether they had googled the person they had just friended on facebook, they would stare at you blankly (spell-check still gives them wiggly red lines of disapproval).
Vocabulary changes more rapidly than grammar, but even English grammar is evolving. For example, the dative whom is increasingly being replaced by who. Who can you blame? Decades ago, this would have jumped off the page as a grammatical error, but doesn’t it look ok now?
Similarly, in the first part of this post, “Gulliver’s Travels author Jonathan Swift” is an example of grammar that would have sounded very strange even fifty years ago. Did it seem strange to you?
One thing is certain: with well over a billion people speaking English around the world and, for the first time, most of them speaking it as a second language, there are plenty of changes to come!

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