Last weekend on April 18 and 19, 2008, I had the pleasure of meeting Brigitte Miller at MEXTESOL Morelia Chapter’s 8th Regional Convention. I participated in her workshop, Fun and Games: Oral Fluency and Motivation. We had a blast! Thanks, Brigitte! Check out Brigitte’s blog: Senior English Language Fellow’s ELT Mexico Bulletin. Brigitte is an English Language Fellow with the Office of English Language Programs, US Embassy in Mexico City.
Even thought these games do have a competitive element, Brigitte was clear in conveying that they are played in the context of teamwork and shared goals, not individuals working in isolation to “win.”
Anyway, back to the fun stuff. After a little “Find someone who…” icebreaker, we got to play some really fun fluency games like:
- Round Robin Toss - we split up into small groups with little crumpled paper balls (no more hunting for real balls now!). The person with the ball describes a famous place in Morelia (insert location of your choice). The others then have to guess the name of the place being described. Once someone correctly guesses the location, the speaker then tosses the ball to a new team member, and so on. The first team to cycle through all members wins. P.S. My secret location was The Planetario. (topic can be varied: describe a room in the house, a famous person, etc.)
- The Birthday Line - I liked this one because we got to gossip while others eavesdropped then tattled on us. Sounds like real life you say? Hehehe! Everyone lines up in order of their birthday and then describes “the perfect Bday celebration” to the person next to them in line (so each person has a chance to listen and talk). A few people are identified beforehand to be “gossips” that sneak up and down the line listening in to all the “private” conversations. After a few minutes everyone returns to the classroom and the gossips report on what they heard. And, no, I was not the guy that said that he wanted to be “unmarried” on his ideal Bday.
- Why Have You Got a Monkey in Your Bag? - This was great imaginative fun. One person starts by passing a bag (purse, portfolio, lunch sack, whatever, etc.) to another team member and asks, “Why do you have a monkey (pumpkin, car, bottle, brick, shoe, etc.) in your bag?” The responder must come up with a convincing explanation and answer other team members’ questions. The bag is then passed on and the cycle repeated until all have a chance to ask and reply. Then the team reports on the most interesting response to the entire class. Great way to extend vocabulary and get some fun listening and speaking practice. Why do you have a monkey in your bag?
- Messenger - I really liked this game; I think because it really tapped into the teams collective intelligences and collaborative spirit. One artist and several messengers working together to decode an image from memory. OK, here is the setup. One team member is designated as the artist (we had a volunteer, someone that liked to draw). The teacher/facilitator has a predetermined image on her computer (or on paper, etc.). One by one different “messengers” from the group take a look at the image and report back to the artist. So those students that are better at say color organization and spacial relationship get to shine and participate in a way that they learn best. Then maybe the next student is more “texty” and literary and can report back on the exact words that he saw in the image. Perhaps the next person has good interpersonal skills and can better “see” relationships played out in the image. The naturalists might remember best the animals, plants, trees, etc. Of course, let the kinesthetic students take a 2nd and 3rd trip back to the image. And all the while that students are shining in their strong intelligences and contributing collaboratively in a proud and meaningful way, they are also exposed to and challenging their weaker strengths and growing in a more rounded fashion. At the end, all teams show and compare their drawn images to see which most resembles the original.
Like, I said, “We had a blast!” Also be sure to check out Brigitte’s other blog, Fun Web Tasks for English Learners (for all the good 21st Century stuff).
I am an EduBlogger newbie. But how wonderful it would have been to join in with seasoned and newbie bloggers alike this weekend at EduBoggerCon 2008 in San Antonio (supported by CUE and NECC). I live in Morelia, Mexico, south of the Texas border - perhaps a bit too far south to attend (working in Mexico also means that your paycheck is a little too far south as well). Somehow with the event being practically in Mexico (and indeed Old Mexico), I felt authentically connected, technically and spiritually. But behind this feeling of connection are the educational technology and academic bloggers feeding the EduBloggerCon and NECC events to the rest of the world via Ustream live videos and chat backchannels, Mogulus live broadcasting, Twitter, blogs (loaded with goodies like those of Ian Jukes), podcasts, live blogging with CoverItLive (thanks TechChicks, CoolCatTeacher and others), and the sensational microblogging newcomer, Plurk - where Ginger Lewman set out to prove Plurk as a serious live journalism tool. See my Plurk post for more details on this incredible new Web 2.0 tool that fits so comfortably into the hands of right-brainers like me. Even those not yet quite fond of Plurk were still feeding news, links, schedules, tidbits, and humor to Plurk via multisite forwarding tools like ping.fm. Thanks Mrs Durff! And thanks Lee Kolbert for nudging me back to Plurk after dismissing it so quickly a couple weeks ago.
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