Category Archives: Writing

This is a fun an interactive way for students to practice writing vocabulary, verb forms or sentence.  The complexity of the activity can be easily increased or decreased based on the  language level of the students.

On one side of the room, set up clip boards with pictures of vocabulary, subject/infinitive pairs or full sentences.  Number the items on the paper. Cover the paper with a colored piece of paper.  I use a different color on each board so that groups know which board is theirs.

On the other side of the room, line up chairs with another clipboard that has the numbers of the items on the other sheet with a blank line for writing.

Students work in pairs (or groups of three). One student begins sitting in  the chair with the clipboard and a pencil.  When you begin the activity, the second students runs to the clipboard on the other side of the room, lifts the colored paper and begins with number one.  He/she memorizes the picture (if doing the activity with vocabulary), the correct verb form or the sentence.  He/she then runs back to the student in the chair and says what the word, verb form or sentence is and the student in the chair writes it on the paper.  They then switch rolls and continue until all the lines are filled.

This is a fun activity to practice vocabulary that involves the entire class.  It is a great way to practice new vocabulary and the spelling of new words and it is an effective go-to activity to review previously learned vocabulary.  I call this game/activity “Who has what I have?”

Begin with a set of pictures that represent the vocabulary that you want to review.  Take a few minutes to review the pictures and vocabulary orally with the class before beginning the activity and keep the pictures visible (pictures on board, LCD, etc.).  The class should sit in a circle facing each other. Give each student a small white board and market.  You can also have students do this on paper, but I always find that they enjoy using the white boards and markers.  Instruct the students to choose a picture and write down the word without showing it to anyone else.  When everyone is done, count to three and have everyone reveal the word that they wrote.  They then look around at everyone else and see of there is a match.  They all get a point for each match that they have.  Repeat the activity, but instruct students not to repeat the word that they previously wrote.

It is important to tell students not to communicate with each other while writing.  They soon realize that it is more fun to see the matches at the reveal so they usually don’t have a problem with this.    I usually change the image/vocabulary category a few times so students review several themes during the game.  The winner (or winners) is the one with the most point when the time is up.

This is a fun and easy way to review vocabulary and spelling.  It is also a good idea to teach a few useful phrases to maintain the target language during the activity (“We match” “We get a point”, etc.)

I am always looking for new ways to use the plastic magnetic letters that I have. This activity is called “fishing for letters”.  Students use a string with a paper clip or other small metal object and a bowl of plastic magnetic letters.  They fish out 3-4 letters in small groups and write words in the target language beginning with those letters. The first group to write a word for each letter wins the round. It is also helpful to give categories if you want students to review a particular vocabulary theme. You can also have them try to build the longest word that they can using in the letters that they fished out and adding in any additional letters that they need to spell out the word.  A second round can involve groups writing sentences with their words.  This idea could work well with Scrabble tiles as well.  I usually take out the letters that less commonly appear at the beginning of a word.