by Will Peach
So you’ve rocked up abroad and you’re about to start your new teaching placement. Nervous yet? It’s only natural. But before you start quaking in your boots and worrying about how you’re going to fill your time in front of class, take a moment to breathe and grab yourself a warm cup of coffee. I’m about to soothe your pain.
Quick and easy “teach English” games are a staple in the life of the volunteer abroad. As any teacher will tell you, having these in your arsenal is a failsafe akin to travelling the world on the riches of Bill Gates. The best thing about these however? You don’t need a classroom or much time to prepare. They really are simple enough to take with you and use anywhere at anytime.
Ready? Let’s get cracking.
Bonk
The rather rude sounding “bonk” is actually rather innocent in nature. This game involves getting all your “students” to stand in a circle and then you start off by shouting out a category they will know vocabulary from (works well with beginners and things like animals, sports and months - with higher levels use things like adverbs for example). Each student shouts a word related to the category out in a clockwise motion starting from the student on your left. If a word is repeated or a student hesitates you “bonk” them on the head with a soft object and they sit out the game. The last one standing wins.
Listen Closely
“Listen Closely” is one of my favourite teach English games because it allows you to really get to know the personalities of your students. It works by dividing the students into teams (pairs or threes works best) and giving them each a name. You then say a sentence that is either correct or incorrect using the vocabulary they know. For beginners try: “Will is wearing a skirt and blue socks” and for higher levels say something like “Will studied in the University of Sussex”. Each team has to then say whether the sentence is correct or not and if not they have to give their correction. Switch around the team that goes first to make it fairer.
Draw What You Hear
This game involves having something to draw on and works best if you have students running (or walking) from a distance. “Draw What You Hear” is a great game to gauge the language level of your students and to revise things they might have just learnt. It involves separating a class into two teams and then having them run to some paper or a board and drawing what you describe. The fastest team to draw the correct thing gets two points, if the opposing team draws the correct thing you also award them a point. This is especially great for describing things like people (body parts/clothes) and landscapes (natural/buildings).
Would I Lie To You
How many times have I used this one? I can’t even remember! “Would I Lie to You” is based on the BBC panel show featuring Rob Brydon and is an incredibly useful game for introducing yourself to a new group of students in order to “break the ice”. Playing it is easy. List five things about you, three sentences must be true and two should be lies. Make these sentences relatively easy to understand if it’s your first time with a class and be willing to repeat them several times until understood. Once finished get the students to place bets on the ones they deem true and the others they feel are false. Once finished and the correct answers are revealed switch the game around and get your students to do the same for each of themselves and play as a class.
Hot Seat
This last game I’m recommending I’ve taken with me to places like Russia, Vietnam - and now Spain - and still students seem to love it. Setting up is quite easy; all you need is a more than four students and a bit of space for two of them to sit with their back to you. You’ll need to choose words or phrases they’ve previously studied and have them written out or whispered so that the students facing you can understand them. Then these students have to mime or explain the word or phrase (without saying the word itself) so that the students with their backs to you can guess. The first correct guess wins.
And that’s it! It’s pretty safe to say that these five games became the lifeblood of my English classes abroad and it’s entirely possible, of course, to interpret them in a way fit for your own circumstances. Just make sure you get some serious teaching in their somewhere!
Good luck and safe volunteering.
Tags: English teaching, gap year, overseas volunteering, teaching english, volunteering
