This tip is for a game which is really useful for getting shy students to speak. It can also be a fun way to practice extended speaking for exams, and requires very little preparation indeed.

Get enough pieces of string so that you have one for each group. The pieces of string should be really long, probably about 4 metres each.

Give each group their piece of string, keeping one for yourself to demonstrate the activity with. The rules are:

• Each person in the group will take turns to be the 'string winder', or the 'string police'. The string police will go to another group to make sure there's no cheating!

• The teacher will say the topic, eg holidays, and the string winder will talk about this topic while winding the string (not too tight!) around one finger. If they are not speaking they can't wind, and it's the job of the string police to say 'stop!' if the winder isn't speaking but is still winding.

• If the winder can't think of anything to say their team can give them ideas and suggestions.

• The first winder to finish winding their string gets 5 points for their team, the second gets 4 points etc. When all the winders have finished the string goes to the next winder, string police change and we have another round with a new topic.

I've found that this game gets even the shyest students speaking, and having fun at the same time.