Monthly Archives: April 2010

3rd World Farmer Note Taking Activity

Level: Upper-Intermediate Location: Connected classroom Skills focus: Note Taking Game: 3rd World Farmer SCREENSHOT Preparation Download a copy of the 3rd World Farmer Worksheet (which contains learner worksheet and teachers’ notes). Play Hand out a copy of the student worksheetUse the teacher’s notes to play the game.  The interesting thing about this game is that [...]

English Attack – a new fun way of learning English

English Attack is a new way of learning English through videos, games and other online entertainment platforms. Aimed at the 15-35 year-olds and claimed by the founders to be “the world’s first 100% entertainment-focused online resource for improving English language skills”, it is now open for beta testing (you can request an account here) and [...]

10 Search tips to find games online

Here’s a brief description of ten key words to make your online search for games to use more effective.  They should help you find some free, easily accessible, engaging and fun activities for your English Language Learners. 1 “free online games” Learn a bit about boolean search techniques.  An example of one of these is [...]

Cartoon Crazy Zimmer Twins

Lesser controlled computer room writing activity.  This activity can be adapted to the level and grammar area of your choice. Level: Intermediate & above Location: Computer room Topic: Writing direct speech in a cartoon Language Focus: Direct speech, present tenses etc Time: 30 minutes Game: Zimmer Twins Screenshot of Zimmer Twins game Preparation 1 Play [...]

Tale of Big Totem Treasure

Level: Intermediate Location: Computer room Skills focus: Reading Game: Treasure of Big Totem PREPARATION Two possibilities: 1 CLASSROOM – Print off a copy of the story and read the tale in class.  Learners predict the most important elements of the story needed to play the game and underline them.  They then use dictionaries to check [...]

Avalon – Online interactive reader

Level:  Advanced / Proficiency Location: Computer room / homework Language skill: Reading The Game:  Avalon is a text based role playing fantasy adventure game based on Dungeons and dragons, the stories of Tolkien and the Ancient Greek myths.  You read the story and make choices in the fantasy world as they are made available to you [...]

A Game With Teen Appeal

Level: Intermediate Location: Computer room Topic: Prepositions, describing things in a room Skills Focus: Live Listening Game: Obama Guantanamo Escape THE GAME Teenagers sometimes like to play games that have a slight rebellious nature and that pokes fun at authority figures.  The game referrences a few iconic film characters including (in order of appearance) Rambo, [...]