Shopping at the Grocery Store
All the players in the game should sit in a circle. One player begins the game by saying: "I am going to the grocery store. I'll buy a sack of flour." The next says: "I'm going to the grocery store. I'll buy a sack of flour and a box of matches." Each player repeats everything that has been said by the players before him and adds one more thing. The first player who forgets something in the list is out of the game. The player who is in the game longest is the winner. (It is possible to make up another game line, e.g., Taking a trip in which you use the names of cities and countries you would visit on the trip.)
A Story Without Adjectives
The teacher offers the class a story in which the adjectives are left out. The players offer various adjectives one after another. The teach-
er fills in the blanks in the same order. Then the story is read to the class.
Who AmI?
The game "Who Am I ? " is an excellent way of practising all kinds of question forms, e.g. present, past, with and without auxiliary. The teacher tells his class that he is going to pretend to be a famous per-son. He can be male, or female, dead or alive. By questioning him, the students have to guess who he is or was. Questions such as "What do you do ? " or "Where do you come from ? " are not allowed, as these give the game away too quickly, but questions such as "What do you do in your spare time? " and "Do you travel a lot? » can be permitted. After 6 or 7 questions have been asked, the teacher stops them and asks one of them to sum up what they know about him so far. The student will say: "So far, we know that...", etc. Then they try to guess "Who I Am".
Sustained Speech Exercises
In the following games students speak on a variety of topics for a short time, so that there are regular breaks, giving the student im-mediate knowledge of mistakes and a chance for language practice.
A subject is drawn out of a "hat" and the names of two students out of another, the first to speak in defence of the subject (e.g., "Travel to the Moon") and the other against it, for one-and-a-half minutes; one minute's silent preparation helps them to assemble their ideas and after the main speakers and 2 or 3 others have spoken the mat-ter is out to the vote. Each "mini-debate" lasts about 6 minutes and before another "motion" is dealt with, there is an opportunity to cor-rect any mistakes and practise the correct form in its original con-text.
The games adapted from the radio can also provide an opportu-nity for sustained but controlled speech. The class can form the au-dience, questioners and panel for an "Any Questions" session with one member of the panel of 4 being changed after each question has been dealt with and after errors have been rectified as before.
In another panel game, "Just a Minute", members of the class are asked to speak for one minute on a subject given by the teacher. The rest of the class listen for 4 things: "urns" and "ahs" repetition, or other drawbacks and errors. If anyone hears one of these things, he
interrupts the speaker, is awarded one point — or 2 for spotting a language error — and is asked to continue until he, in turn, is inter-rupted. The student speaking when 60 seconds of speaking time, excluding the interruption, has elapsed, is also awarded one point. "Who's Who?". A microphone and tape-recorder can create an interview atmosphere and also give the students a chance to hear their mistakes.
Reinforcement Games
Contrastive statements can be practised with 2 pictures alike in all but a few minor details. As well as eliciting patterns with "while", "whereas", "however", "on the other hand", "not only, but also", "the other one", those pictures can be used on other occasions for con-textualized practice.
Many structures can be enjoyably reinforced after presentation or revision, by simple question-and-answer games, or other. .
Scoring
Any exercise can be made enjoyable by scoring right answers and penalizing wrong ones in an entertaining way: a question-answer drill can be turned into a game of football or tennis. The class is di-vided into two teams. A correct answer is a "goal".
(Compiled from "ELT Journal", L., 1973, No. 2; "English Teaching Forum", Washington, 1973, No. 3)