This is a good activity for getting your students going in the morning. It is also excellent for revising vocabulary.
Procedure

• First, split your class into different teams (two is best, but if you have a large class, any number could be used).

• Sit the students facing the board.

• Then take an empty chair - one for each team - and put it at the front of the class, facing the team members. These chairs are the 'hot seats'

• Then get one member from each team to come up and sit in that chair, so they are facing their team-mates and have their back to the board.

• As the teacher, have a list of vocabulary items that you want to use in this game.

• Take the first word from that list and write it clearly on the board.

• The aim of the game is for the students in the teams to describe that word, using synonyms, antonyms, definitions etc. to their team mate who is in the hot seat - that person can't see the word!

• The student in the hot seat listens to their team mates and tries to guess the word.

• The first hot seat student to say the word wins a point for their team.

• Then change the students over, with a new member of each team taking their place in their team's hot seat.

• Then write the next word…

This is a very lively activity and can be adapted to different class sizes. If you have too many teams, perhaps some teams will have to wait to play. Or if the team sizes are large, you can restrict how many team members do the describing. Have fun!

This text was originally published on the Teaching English website. Check it out for more activities like this one.

By Callum Robertson

• Login or register to post comments
• Printer-friendly version