Location: Computer room

Skills Focus: Speaking

Language focus: Prepositions of place, vocabulary in a house, imperatives (look, go, pick up etc)

Game: Escape Pear Room

The premise is that you get a little bit too drunk each Christmas and the family have decided they’ve had enough and locked you in the house.  It’s up to you to figure out how to escape.

Preparation

You can watch the Escape Pear Room video walkthroughs to familiarise yourself with the game.  This will help you while you are monitoring the activity to predict ahead, input language and guide learners if they get stuck.

Preplay

1. Tell learners they are going to see 4rooms and they will have 25 seconds each to write down any words associated with Christmas that they can see.
2. Open the game and move through the four rooms allowing 25 seconds on each for learners to write down the words.
3. Feedback in open class making sure all learners know the meaning of the words they have written down.
4. Go through the 4 rooms again and ask learners to describe where any of the difficult words are or any objects that they don’t know the name of in English.
5. Explain a little about the game and say here’s the start and show some of the video walkthrough.  Show enough so that learners see a few of the puzzles being solved.
6. Elicit how you play the game and what you do at the start.

Play

1. In a computer room gather learners round a single central computer and open the video walkthrough.  It may be a good idea to open one of the videos on one internet explorer and the other video walkthrough on another.
2. Tell learners that they can play the game in pairs and if they get stuck they can come to the video, watch a little bit and go back to their partner and tell them how to play a bit of it.
3. Put learners in pairs and get them on the game. Tell one of the pair that for 5 minutes they are the gamer.  The other is the watcher and they go back and forth to the video walkthrough.
4. Start the activity.  Monitor to ensure learners are using English and encourage them to use the words from the preplay activity.
5. Swap gamer and watcher roles after 5 minutes.

Post Play

1.  Learners write directions to  the end of the video.
2. Learners record vocabulary items from the game and make a Escape Pear Room dictionary.
3. Learners write a Dear santa note explaining the story and wishing to escape.

1 Christmas facts

Test your learners knowledge of Christmas with these ten questions.  You can either get them to write down their answer and pass it to the next person to mark (before returning it) and then take a class poll on what they think the right answer is.  I always throw out a few bonus points as they come to me.  After the question on the left I asked them to write down the names of the other reindeers, then looked them up online and gave out bonus points for each – it kept the game a little more exciting.

2 Around the World

If you liked the last Christmas Quiz then give this one a go too.  I think the questions are a little harder but if you think your learners are up for it then why not give it a go.  You can always play this quiz straight on the end of the last one if you are looking for a quiz with more than just 10 questions.  Play these two and you’ve doubled the amount of questions to 20.

3 Q’wick Q’westion Q’west

I don’t know how your multiple computer access situation is but when my learners are on a computer in pairs I’m lucky enough to have a large screen connected to a computer at the front of the class.  Learners told me where to click (moving from the reindeer towards the candy cane) and when they saw the question I gave them until the first pair said “next” to find the answer on the internet.  I then took the direction the pair that said next told me to take in the game.  This continued until we had finished.  If you want to be extra sneaky (and give slower ones a little more of a chance) then get learners to write the answer down.  You can then (sneakily) get them to write out questions to the answers they have written down at the end of the game.

4 CBBC Christmas Quizzes

The CBBC website has a few fun christmas quizzes up.  The nice thing about this page is that there are a few quizzes there for learners to work through autonomously on computers.  You can monitor and help with language (or even set an online dictionary for them to use) while learners take each quiz in turn.  Encourage them to make a note of how many points they score in each so that you can declare a winner at the end of the activity.

5 IWB Christmas Quiz

A downloadable interactive PowerPoint Quiz for Christmas from the people at tes. No searching questions here – just 15 multiple choice questions based around Santa, The Nativity and Traditions. Click on the correct answer and you’ll get a ‘Well Done’, but click on the incorrect answer and you’ll get a ‘Try Again’ for the opportunity to go back and have another go.

6 DIY Quizzes

Well sometimes it’s best just to do your own quiz so you can grade the language, add your own images and effects or simply so that it can be saved on a network computer for other teachers to use.  If this is the case then check out this website for a large list of Christmas questions and answers.  The site invites you to cut and paste but I find it’s a good idea to check their spelling and grade some of the language there for your own purposes.

7 More Merry Christmas Resources

This site has a mix of all the above.  There are interactive quizzes, ideas for questions with answers and explanations as well as video quizzes with audio.  It’s a bit like going to Santa’s grotto and having a lucky dip grab – you might be lucky and find something you really like here.

 8  Christmas Carols

If you are feeling extra adventurous then one idea might be to have a Christmas quiz that goes with Christmas Carols.  This quiz focusses on just that.  What would be great now is if you can find all these carols online on a video sharing site and play them while the question is up there.  Hey Presto!  You have a listening and reading activity.  Would be a great one to do but sadly I have two more ideas to come up with for this post so I’ll leave this one for you.

9 Triviapark Christmas Quiz

If you are not feeling so inspired to make your own Christmas Quizzes and you are simply looking for more to use in the connected classroom then here’s a nice little website.  There’s a novice level quiz as well as a regular level quiz, which is a little trickier, and also a more challenging expert level.  It’s worth making a note of the website too as there are a load of quizzes on all sorts of topics here.

10 PowerPoint Quizzes

There is some demand for downloadable PowerPoint quizzes that have already been made for you.  Here are some more.  A word of warning though – these have not been made with English language learners in mind so a little tweeking here and there may be needed.  Good luck!

Digital Play

This book was written by both Graham and myself and we are particularly proud of it.  This teacher development book starts with a look at the state of play in gaming with an eye cast specifically on education and language learning.  It’s also packed full of ready to use digital play activities covering a range of classroom scenarios from no available technology, through one computer and a projector to multiple computers.  If you are a fan of this site then this book is (in our biased opinion) a must.

Closing date for the competition is the 8th of December.

Good Luck!

Send your competition entry to: kylemawer@yahoo.com

Language: Prepositions of place

Skills Focus: Listening/ speaking

Location: Classroom room

Game: Happy Christmas Escape

Father Christmas wants to deliver his presents but he is locked in a house and he can’t get out.  Help him to find the keys that will help him escape.

Preparation

Familiarise yourself with the walkthrough to this game.  Also make a list of useful vocabulary.  The vocabulary that is necessary to complete the game is listed below but you may want to preteach others or deal with them as you play.

Play

1. Sit your learners in front of the screen with a clear view of the game.
2. Explain the problem – that father Christmas needs to escape form the house in order to deliver all the Christmas presents he’s got for all the good children.
3. Elicit vocabulary by asking ‘What’s this (called)? or ‘Where’s the X?’
4. Elicit from your learners what you need to do and where you need to look/ go.
5. You can give hints by saying ‘you’re getting closer/ warmer’ or ‘you’re getting further away/ colder’.

To keep the pace moving shift between letting them direct you as an open class, calling on volunteers, giving clues etc

Post Activity

There are a number of activities but here are a few suggestions:

• Learners write the walkthrough using vocabulary only.
• Draw a picture of one of the rooms and label it.
• Write a letter to Father Christmas.
• Write a description of where the keys are.
• Write where they would hide the keys (in a better place).

You can find it here: http://www.sporcle.com/games/calvinbudnick/christmasknowledge

The site has many other timed quizzes. Here are some more Christmas-themed ones:

• Guess this Christmas message
• Reworded Christmas carols
• Christmas A-Z
• Christmas Movie Quotes
• Christmas Triva
• 12 Days of Christmas Price List

You can also get your students to register and create their own quizzes – a fun way to end the year.

Topic: Christmas vocabulary

Language Focus: First Conditional

Time: 30 minutes

Game: Christmas Escape

The Game

Explore the house and find the fourteen hidden presents to get a key which will let you escape through the front door.  The object for your language learners is to use 1st conditional sentences to walk you through the game and finish it.

Preparation

Play the game yourself from the start to the finish in order to familiarise yourself with the game.  Print off a copy of the vocabulary walkthrough for each pair of learners and a copy of the conditional walkthrough for yourself.

Pregaming

This game is for the connected classroom.  Make sure that your learners understand the meaning of the words in the vocabulary list.

Playing

Explain to your learners that they are going to play a game.  You will show them the game at the front of the class and that they will have to dictate to you how you should play the game.  They have to tell you where to look in order to find 14 presents and then escape through the front door.  Each time they tell you they have to use a 1st conditional.  If the conditional is grammatically correct you will then do that action.  Use the conditional walkthrough as a guide to possible sentences your learners may produce.  If learners are finding it a little difficult you can wave your mouse over key areas in the game as a clue or verbally guide your learners towards the correct answer.

e.g.

location    “If it’s not behind the bin and it’s not in the bin, where else can it be?”

Post Playing

Learners can write the walkthrough out for the game using 1st conditional sentences.

Topic: Picture dictation

Listening focus: Describing a Christmas Ecard (prepositions of place)

Time: 30 minutes

Preparation: A copy of  the Ecard Wordsearch for each learner.  A single copy of the Ecard Picture Dictation or a screenshot of a finished ecard.

Game: xmas ecard maker

Screenshot of the finished picture dictation

Key Language: Snowman, path, buttons, hat, snow, roof, window, mask, presents, star, light, transparent, robin, chimney, stocking.

Pregaming

Use the word search in the classroom to raise awareness of the language items that will appear in the picture dictation computer room activity.  Fast finishers can start to decorate the edges of the word search with pictures of the vocabulary items.

Gaming

If you have ever done a picture dictation then you’ll know how to do this activity.  Use either the image above or download the dictation.

Image If you are using the image above describe the picture for your learners to reproduce.  As you monitor their screens ‘tweek’ any individual or class differences by providing greater detail.  When the class has finished show them the image above and ask learners to look at the pictures the rest of the class has produced  and find any differences.  Award points to those that find differences.

Dictation As an alternative to dictating from looking at the image above you can print off a copy of the picture dictation text.  You may find that sticking to the text means that learners produce ecards that are loyal to the dictation but that differ from the target image.  This may be an advantage in that more language can be produced talking about the differences between the ecards.

Postgaming

Learners can make their own Christmas Ecards and send them to friends and/ family.  They could also write a short text describing their Christmas Ecard using the Ecard Picture Dictation text as a model.