Illustrating a Summer Song

I am sorry for the sporadic posts! I've had some internet problems and my new job is sapping a lot of my time.

I wanted to quickly share this video my friend's students made over the summer! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfFmBKkHXYo is the link since this YouTube video can only be played from the main YouTube site in some countries.



I know I've discussed making videos with students before, and I've also discussed illustrating them. This is an easy way to have student visualize vocabulary, get used to syntax, and really make them understand a song that they probably have had in their head for ages (instead of using Google translate)!

Plus, the pride they get from knowing that they've made something real that people around the world watch is incredible!

If you have a moment PLEASE check it out and leave a comment. I know students appreciate feedback so much.

If you have a video your students made that you'd like me to comment on just leave a link in the comments and I'll get to it as soon as I can!

Artistically Challenged Pictionary

Thanks to The Doghouse Diaries for this great comic. It IS how my students play sometimes.

I think most language teachers know how to play pictionary with their class. It is a very popular party game and has really clear applications to language teachers. For those that don't you can follow the directions from the comic (hehe), or the SUPER basic set of directions that follow:

1. Give a student randomly select a word (usually a vocabulary word).
2. Have them try to draw it on the board. 
3. Other students guess the word.

Now, you can add variations (divide it into teams, have it timed, say they can't draw any circles, etc.) to make it more difficult or more fun.

I always feel a little bad when playing pictionary because...well... this is an example of my wonderful work. 

Post by Melted ELT Activities.

Alfred Sisley - Flood at Port-Marly

It isn't bad! In fact most people will look at it and say, "flood."  However, many of my students are INCREDIBLY talented and will end up drawing something like the image to the right in about 30 seconds.

As a result, even though the vast majority of students LOVE playing pictionary some students get discouraged because they just don't have the artistic skills to have fun. They get stressed about letting their team down, or people not guessing what they drew properly.

I even have a few talented artists who get discouraged because the white board "limits their abilities" (I have found that whiteboard crayons help).

The category card with the child options

So the other day when I was shopping I was super excited to find Pictionary... the CARD GAME for sale! I live in Mexico at the moment, so the game was technically in Spanish, but that isn't important since the main point of the game (for me) is that it is all pictures. I tend to create my own clues for students.

The category card with the adult options

To start, there's a category card you can use to show if it is movie related, TV related, music related, or something else.
Then there are the "clue cards" these are what people have to guess. In this case mine are all in Spanish, but if you buy the English version your would be in English! Regardless, I would probably create my own to fit my classes level and knowledge.

The nice thing about the clue cards is they are arranged into two categories: children and adults. The children have four words surrounding a theme. For example, "Weather" is snow, air, cloud, and sunlight. Depending on how you play children can say the theme before they start to help others guess. Adults have four options: a movie related option, a TV related option, a song related option and a random word or phrase. 

Finally comes the drawing cards which are my personal favorite and why I am writing this blog. For example, take a look at the following cards and see if you can guess the movie:

A man with fire eyes

There is a lightening lady

A man with fork hands

Any guesses?

If you guessed X-men you are right!


The man with fork hands was supposed to be Wolverine, the lady with lightening was Storm and the man with fire eyes was Cyclops.

Now, if no one had guessed yet, I could have kept giving you hints! (Like the photo to the right).

There are 88 of these little drawing cards in a pack (44 red and 44 blue). The only thing I don't like about them is they are SO little! If you are having students work in small groups then this works fine, but if you want to do a full class review this would be impossible for everyone to see, but I LOVE that they even the playing field of artistic and non-artistic while encouraging students to be creative!

You have a few options as how to proceed.

1. If you have a doc cam, or a similar device, it would be easy to have students rearrange the cards on a table and display them larger for all the students to see. I am not that lucky, but I know a lot of teachers who have them, so make the most of it!

2. Even if you aren't artsy crafty, you can make your own cards! Part of the joy is that these don't require much artistic skills. They are just stick people, squiggles, and other easily drawn shapes. If you don't have the time to make them yourself, you could have students draw these one day as a listening activity. Save and laminate your favorites! Another option is to make a list of what you want and have students offer to make them for extra credit. It would show comprehension!

3. You can photocopy the cards so that they are bigger. My photocopier maxes out at 4x as big, and that makes them look like the picture to the right (which I think it big enough for the class to see). There aren't many details in the pictures so making them bigger doesn't really distort the image.

2/3 b If you are doing option 2 or 3 I suggest you laminate the cards and invest in some reusable adhesive so students can easily stick them on the board / wall for everyone to see.


If you are as artistically challenged as I am, I hope this post helped you.. If you have students who hate pictionary because they are like me, I hope you will consider this as an option.

Finally, even if you and your students are extremely gifted, I would encourage you to try this out. It gets students to really think creatively about how to use the cards to express their word. So many of my students are intelligent, but their creativity is still weak. Games like this will hopefully help them work their creativity muscles so they can think outside the box in real life!

If you don't think these cards could be used to make YOUR classes vocabulary words I'm happy to show you what I would do. Comment below (or on facebook) with the vocabulary word from your class, and I'll show you what Pictionary Cards I would use to describe your word!

10 ways to use tongue twisters in your class!

I LOVE tongue twisters!

Sometimes I am pretty good at them. I feel like I have an agile frog's tongue attacking sounds as they come.

Other times I get so tangled I feel more like I have the dog's tongue, a useless appendage that just hangs from my mouth. 

OK, so we all know what a tongue twister is, but how can we best use them in class. Have the students say them? Well yeah... but what else? Here are 10 different ways to use tongue twisters in class.

1. Dictoglosses  (Higher Level)
• I’ve mentioned using them in dictoglosses and that can work well. A dictogloss is essentially an activity where students hear a text (in this case the tongue twister) and without notes try to write what they remember. Then they hear it again and get to work with a partner to share both renditions with the end goal of having replicated the original text well
• The advantage of using tongue twisters in a dictogloss? Unlike other EFL activities this has students hearing the sounds repeated (first by the teacher then the other student). They also have to talk with their partner (practice speaking) and write the sounds (often with homonyms this can be tricky).
2. Running Dictations (I've done this with all levels)

• Divide your class into small groups (of two-three students is perfect)
• Post tongue twisters on the wall around the classroom (as many tongue twisters as there are groups).
• Explain that one person at a time can run to a tongue twister and then run back to the table. The person at the table then writes down the tongue twister as the runner told them.
3. Fill in the blanks (Depending on the blanks you choose, all levels)
• Give them a longer tongue twister with some blanks. Ex. If I buy some better ______ it will make the batter _______. See if they can fill in the blanks based on what the rest of the tongue twister says.
4. Who’s there? (All levels are possible depending on the tongue twister you use)

• If you are looking for another oldie but goodie in the EFL world try Telephone. This increases the difficulty of the game as each time the message is passed one person will have to say it correctly (usually challenging) and the other person will have to hear it correctly. This will help students remember that speeding up their speaking won’t always help them.
• Try to use shorter tongue twisters for this game! ("Red lorry, yellow lorry" twice is fine.)
5. The Rotation Situation (All levels)
• The best tongue twisters to do this with are the ones that play minimal pairs off each other. For example: “She sells sea shells by the sea shore” uses s and sh.
• The premise is you pick a simple pattern: putting your hands on your shoulders and putting your hands on your head. “She” hands on your head “sells sea“ hands on your shoulders ”shells by the“ hands on your shoulders “sea” hands on your head, “shore”.
• This can be done slowly at first, but once students get the hang of it try it faster and faster each time.
• This is commonly done with, “My Bonnie lies over the ocean” with students standing and sitting every time they hear the B sound. It helps them recognize and distinguish sounds.
6. One by one (All levels are possible depending on the tongue twister you choose)
• Another fun way to do this is to have the tongue twister on the board and have the students say the tongue twister individually. That is, that one student says “On” the student behind him says “a” the student behind him says, “lazy” etc. The other students should pay attention as they still need to move their hands appropriately and be prepared for their turn. This can make the game more fun. See how many times you can get around the classroom. Use a stopwatch and see how fast the class can do it. Divide the class into two groups and see who does it the fastest etc.
7. Illustrate it

• Have students illustrate a shorter tongue twister. 
• Then have them present it to the class.
• In the end bind them together for your own tongue twister book.
8. “Oh no! Where’d it go?” (For lower levels, but your higher level class may like it)
• Younger students love chants so I would write entire tongue twisters on the board and then erase one word and say, “Oh no, where’d it go!” Silly but they loved it!
• Then we’d try to recite the tongue twister even though the one word had been removed.
• After we said it a couple times I'd erase another word, "Oh no! Where's it go?" and we'd try to do it again without that word on the board.
• In the end there would be no words on the board, and we would successfully do it on our own
9. Hangman
• Use a classic game of hangman (or a not so classic game) and at the end have the students say the tongue twister. If they do so successfully they get an extra point for their team.
10. Make their own
• Now that they have seen tongue twisters see if they can come up with their own and present it to the class. 
• Vote on the best tongue twisters, the funniest, the saddest etc.

Normally $2.99 snag it for free!

Normally $.99 get it for free.

If you are trying to find a place with tongue twisters the Internet is FILLED with them. Right now Twisty Tongue Twisters, Looney Limericks and Pixelated Poems and Tongue Twisters for Kids are free to download from Amazon. If you don't get them while they are free you can still find them for under $3.00! If I could only pick one I would suggest you spend the extra $2.00 and get Tongue Twisters for Kids.

What about you? I am sure there are more ways to use them and if you know of any please share them in the comments below. Or do you have a site you love using to find that perfect tongue twister? Share it in the comments!

Literally Incorrect Participial Phrases

I love teaching participial phrases! They are relatively easy, lend themselves to tons of fun hands on activities and native speakers mess them up all the time so you can give your students confidence by having them find incorrect sentences in a newspaper or magazine for extra credit.

One of my favorite assignments to give with participial phrases is the "Literally Incorrect Phrases"

First in class I show them dangling participials, such as, "Running to catch the bus Bob's wallet fell out of his pocket." As a class we find the participial phrase (running to catch the bus) and the noun it refers to ... but we can't! The sentence isn't clear and suggests that Bob's wallet is running to catch the bus. We discuss why the sentence is wrong and then I show them an example of what the sentence meant literally.

This example is from a student, but you can find examples online using your friendly local search engine.

Once I believe that my students understand why dangling participials are incorrect I hand out a list of ten sentences containing dangling participials and have students pick two. They have to 1. Illustrate why the sentence is wrong and 2. Re-write the sentence correctly. As an example:

INCORRECT: Riding along on my bike, the dog hit me.

CORRECT: Riding along on my bike, I was hit by a dog!

Now, some of my students are very artistically blessed, but others have my artistic skill. That's OK. This example below was very well done and not as artistic as others:

INCORRECT: Being flat, Kelly changed the tire.

CORRECT: The tire, being flat, was changed by Kelly.

OR
Being flat, the tire was changed by Kelly.

OR 

Many other options, because unlike math English usually has more than one right answer.

I like to rotate this list with each class so I get a new bunch of pictures each time. Below is an example of some of more of my favorite work from past students.

   Literally Incorrect Pariticipial Phrases by ESLCarissa

15+ different Vocabulary Methods (How to teach words)

A key to learning any new language is new vocabulary! There are so many ways to

GAMES:

• SNOWBALL FIGHT Get students to have a blast throwing around paper in class and then answering vocabulary questions! http://eslcarissa.blogspot.com/2012/12/fight-fight-playful-way-to-have.html
• Get students to improve their vocabulary by really thinking about what word someone is trying to get you to guess with rhymes! http://eslcarissa.blogspot.com/2012/11/i-am-thinking-of-word-that-rhymes-with.html
• Make reviewing vocabulary words more fun by throwing hangman into the mix. Like the snowball fight, this game plays on students love for throwing things. http://eslcarissa.blogspot.com/2012/10/alternate-hangman-hangman-you-knew-and.html
• Using pictures, homophones, antonyms, or definitions you can play Flyswatter. You can also get students to run around, which helps with excess energy. http://eslcarissa.blogspot.com/2012/09/flyswatter.html
• When you want students to practice vocabulary get them to create ink pinks. By using these rhymes they are using other vocab and showing they really understand the word http://eslcarissa.blogspot.com/2012/07/rhyming-word-game.html
• Battleship is what I usually use to repeat grammar. However, it can also be used for vocabulary. Simply make each box a vocabulary word, or arrange the columns and rows by categories. http://eslcarissa.blogspot.com/2012/06/battleship-game-differentiated-for-efl.html 
•  (NEW Added June 2013) Pumpernickel is another no prep game where students try to guess the verb another student is thinking of by replacing the verb with pumpernickel. For example, "Do you pumpernickel every day?" http://eslcarissa.blogspot.com/2013/05/pumpernickel-another-word-guessing-games.html 
• (NEW Added June 2013) Feed the baby is awesome for beginning EFL students. Think of it as a specified Simon Says. One student volunteers to be the baby (or the teacher starts). The baby says: "Broccoli" The parents (students) decide if it is edible or not edible. If it is edible they clap twice. If it is inedible they cover their mouth. While obviously great for food this can be adapted for other categories.  http://eslcarissa.blogspot.mx/2013/06/baby-shower-games-in-efl-class.html
• (Added June 2013) Remember making fortune tellers when you were younger? Change it into a game! My EFL students love playing so much they'll forget they are learning. http://eslcarissa.blogspot.mx/2013/05/cootie-catcher-speaking-activity.html
• (Added November 2013) Have you ever used Quizlet? You can make word lists and your students can play the automatically generated games to study on their own. http://eslcarissa.blogspot.com/2013/11/quizlet-for-at-home-studying.html
• (Added May 2014) Have you ever played Jenga? I bet you have! You can also use Jenga to review vocabulary words http://eslcarissa.blogspot.com/2014/05/jenga-in-classroom.html 
• (Added June 2014) This is a GREAT version of Pictionary that required NO DRAWING! Intrigued? Check it out! http://eslcarissa.blogspot.com/2014/06/artistically-challenged-pictionary.html

ACTIVITIES

• Try using a dictogloss with vocabulary. It gets students to practice listening, reading and writing PLUS they can hear new vocabulary http://eslcarissa.blogspot.com/2012/09/5-fun-ways-to-use-dictagloss-in-efl.html
• These are the basic steps one has to take to teach any words (you can combine these with any of the methods here) http://eslcarissa.blogspot.com/2012/08/basic-steps-of-teaching-any-lexis.html
• This activity can be a basic way to reinforce vocabulary words..and it usually ends up being really funny! All it takes is a piece of paper and the ability to write and fold. Make sure to set a time limit! http://eslcarissa.blogspot.com/2012/06/write-fold-pass-draw-fold-pass-repeat.html
• Have your students use word journals to get different collocations, idioms, etc. in addition to the definition http://eslcarissa.blogspot.com/2011/03/nelson-arditto.html
• Tell a story! Students respond well to stories, so put one together using different vocabulary words. http://eslcarissa.blogspot.com/2011/03/occupations.html
• Start a blog. Have students send in pictures using their cell phones or e-mails of their vocabulary words http://eslcarissa.blogspot.com/2010/08/part-ii-day-1.html
• To get a bit more complicated than just telling a story tell a draw and tell story. Then see if students can make their own using vocabulary words  http://eslcarissa.blogspot.com/2012/06/tell-and-draw-stories.html 
• Use songs! Students will get them stuck in their heads and never forget.  http://eslcarissa.blogspot.com/2012/06/not-another-cloze-how-else-to-use-songs.html
• Use TPR. There's a reason "Simon Says" and "Head Shoulder Knees and Toes" are so popular! Associate a motion with a word and it should stick with your students longer. http://eslcarissa.blogspot.mx/2012/10/this-or-that-these-or-those.html
• (Added June 2013) To review names of items in a house have them make their own house. This is an easy origami craft http://eslcarissa.blogspot.mx/2013/06/house-learning-rooms.html
• (Added October 2013) Decorate your class AND give your students a little help remembering tricky vocabulary words  http://eslcarissa.blogspot.mx/2013/10/vocabulary-mobiles.html
• (Added March 2014) This is a fun activity to help students grow their vocabulary in a visually pleasing way :) http://eslcarissa.blogspot.com/2014/03/get-students-using-different-words.html 
• (Added February 2015) This activity has students form small groups and make dialogues to show they understand words. They need to listen to other students, guess defintions from context, and finally tell a story! http://eslcarissa.blogspot.mx/2015/02/vocabulary-group-work.html

ALTERNATE QUIZZES

• Instead of multiple choice offer some quizzes that are a bit different than traditional vocabulary quizzes http://eslcarissa.blogspot.com/2012/09/vocab-quizzes.html

Dicto-Draw-and-Tell-Gloss

I posted about the idea of using a Draw and Tell to differentiate a dictogloss the other day using a draw and tell story to review transition words the other day I did it and it worked out really well.

• With my rowdy class I started by putting a text on the board. It said 

 READ THESE DIRECTIONS CAREFULLY 

I will not be taking attendance right away. Please sit down and take out a piece of paper and a pen. When you are quiet, I will tell you a story. You should should NOT write down anything. Just listen to the story. I will begin when you are quiet. 

• That worked better than it could have. They were quiet and ready within 5 minutes ( I was pleasantly shocked). Then I told them the story. 

There was a boy. He was young. He was three years old. He went on a walk. He was attacked by bees. He was scared. He ran away. They followed him. He jumped into a lake. He stayed there until the sun set. The bees went away. He went home. I was eating eggs and bacon. I was happy to see my dog. 

NOTE: This story, though brief, is actually pretty hard since it is purposely bland! SO keep it simple.

• I told students to work on their own and try to recreate the story to be as close to the original as possible. They had 2 minutes. A few of them freaked out, but I let them know they would hear the story again. and they weren't expected to get it perfect.
• After two minutes I told them the story again. This time I drew the dog that goes with it. I told them they had one more minute. Most students did NOT look at the board; however, I noticed some students looking up and using the picture to help them.
• When the minute was done I told them to partner up and they spent the next 5 minutes working with someone else to recreate the text.
• Finally students swapped their answers with another partner and I showed them the original text. They made corrections and the team with the least mistakes got bonus points.
• I asked the students what was wrong with this text. THANKFULLY (as we had been studying transition words) they told me it was missing transition words.
• Now, with their partner, had to re-write the text to include AT LEAST
• 1 relative clause
• 1 cause and effect transition word
• 1 sequencing transition word
• 1 contrast transition word
• 1 addition transition word
• (When students finished early I added other categories to get them to add to)
• Finally we shared all the different ways the sentences could be combined.

This worked really well as a review of transition words, and we practiced general listening, reading and writing skills that would be on the exam. Even though the use of draw and tells is normally reserved for younger groups I think in this case it was a useful add on to help some students with the dictogloss. 

Would you ever consider using draw and tells with a dictogloss to differentiate?

5 fun ways to use a Dictogloss in the EFL class

Listening is important. Collaboration is important. Writing is important.

Dictoglosses combine all of these these things to keep students' brains working in a foreign language.

What is a dictogloss?

I am glad you asked :) Dictoglosses are essentially dictation exercises where students work together to recreate a text. The process is normally as such:

1. The teacher reads a text. Students listen. They do not take notes. They just listen.
2. The students INDIVIDUALLY write down as much of the story as they can remember. They can use pictures, abbreviations, other words, blanks or anything else that will help them if they don't recall the specifics. 
3. (optional) The text is read again. Students do NOT write while the teacher is speaking. When the teacher finishes, they make changes as needed to their version. (I prefer to skip this step and go straight to 4, but some teachers find their classes don't have much to share unless this step is used. You know your classroom best so do what you think will work!)
4. The students pair up with a friend and together try to combine their versions to get the version as close to the original as possible.
5. Students put down their pens and the teacher reads the text one last time.
6. The students get a few more moments to write their final version (if you as a teacher want you can combine pairs at this point to make a group of 4 working together on the final version).
7. If you want you can have the students write the final version on butcher paper and everyone posts it on the board. Then give students time to circulate and mark any mistakes they see (misspelled words, bad punctuation etc.) I find the faster way is to have them pass the paper to the right/left and then the teacher reads the reading again and they correct the paper. 
8. I usually give the team with the fewest mistakes a prize of some sort (bonus points, free homework passes, etc.)

So now that we know the basics. How do make this fun?

SONGS Well, part of it means that you have to pick fun texts! Use a song! Yes, I know that I love to use songs whenever possible but it can be fun. Break out lyrics (and have them listen to the song to reveal the answers). You shouldn't use a full song unless it is really an upper level class. If they are fairly advanced though you don't even need to speak. Just play the chunk of the song, (something slower and older the students won't know. The first 30 seconds or one minute of Jill Sobule's "Lucy at the Gym" is a good example; the first 20 seconds of "It makes me ill" would not be advised. I find punctuating these is usually the hardest part!


DRAW AND TELL With lower students tell a draw and tell WITH the picture, and keept the picture up! Stories tend to follow a logical progression more than a speech or tongue twister. Since they are lower level the visual will also help them remember the story and vocabulary used. Just be sure to remember to keep it short! You could also differentiate by passing out the picture to certain students and not to others. More on Draw and Tells here.

MOVIES/TELEVSION Again, keep the level of the student in mind. You don't want to use Rock, Paper, Lizard, Scissors, Spock from The Big Bang Theory. The first minute (actually I'd keep it at the first 20 seconds) of the Hitchhikers Guide the to Galaxy is better. You could use the audio from the movie, or recite it yourself. Be careful of accents, background noise, and audio that requires students to see something to understand it.

 TED TALKS / NPR / SPEECHES Get authentic speech in here! TedTalks could work. Why not try the  first 39 seconds of this one. Use an acceptance speech from MTVs Video Music Awards (because many students care more if Taylor Swift says it than if you say it). These can be helpful when practicing idioms and other things that don't often come up in artificial texts. These can be very difficult if the person is a fast talker, or there are lots of proper nouns. I LOVE Peter Dinklage for example, but his recent Emmy acceptance speech has some names student may struggle with. I may tell them to just use initials or write the names on the board to help them out with that part.


 TONGUE TWISTERS / BRAIN TEASERS Tongue Twisters can be fun for advanced students and brain teasers have the added bonus of letting students who finish quickly try to solve them. These also tend to be super short. Tongue twisters have the advantage of being used to differentiate sounds (especiall minimal pairs). Try to start with something like, "She sells sea shells by the sea shore" and then move onto something longer like, "Betty bought some butter 'But,' she said, 'this butter's bitter. If I put it in my batter, it will make my batter bitter, but a bit of better butter, better than the bitter butter will make my bitter batter better.' So she bought a bit of better butter, Better than the bitter butter, and made her bitter batter better.

So there you go 5 ways to make dictoglosses a bit more fun! Do remember to aim the text at your learners. Stories are easier than texts which don't follow a logical progression. Keep in mind accents, vocabulary, etc. To make them even more effective try to use texts or audio that have grammar points you have recently covered. The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and Lucy at the Gym both have transition words for example.

Have you used dictoglosses? What texts do you find work well? Any other tips to share?

I am not an artist (my class and their troubles with my visuals)

The other day a student asked which "shit" we were going over.

Recognizing this as a chance to review some minimal pairs (and correct an embarrassing mistake) I said, "We are going over the homework shEEt, remember that shit means something else." I grabbed my marker as some students laughed and explained what shit meant to those who didn't get it.

Then I made my way over to the board, "It's like ship or sheep"

And I draw a ship (to which all students nod and I even get a few murmers or "barco"): I repeat the English word and sound: "Ship"

Then I draw the beautiful sheep, to which one student says, "Sheep means like cloudy?"

Everyone laughs at my sheep as I try to defend it, "It isn't a cloud it has a head...and legs"

To which the student replied, "I thought it was raining"

At this point I just have to conceed my art is not the best. "Fine. OK. I am no artist, but just remember a shIp is not shEEp and a shIt is NOT a shEEt."

There is lots of stuff online to help you help your class with minimal pairs. When we studied minimal pairs earlier to help with the TOEFL. We used this worksheet which worked well.

ESL handouts also offers a worksheet which makes students listen carefully to George Michael's, "Careless Whispers"

If your students still struggle with minimal pairs there are lots of fun activities to do in class. My favorite website for home study is: http://www.shiporsheep.com/

If you prefer books then you're lucky. When I took my CELTA and were my go to books for minimal pair and overall pronunciation help!

Write, Fold, Pass, Draw, Fold, Pass, Repeat

I was trying to describe this great EFL activity to a friend the other day over the phone and decided I would just make a blog so I could include pictures (my very classy high quality made via paint pictures, but still).

This is a fun review activity for vocabulary words, or just when you need your students to practice forming complete sentences. Best of all it requires no preparation.

It is usually easiest to play this game in a circle, but if you don't want to move people that's fine, just be ready for confusion when you have people passing the papers around and be clear on who passes it where.


First everyone gets a piece of paper and at the top they write a simple sentence. The cat chased the dog, The man is standing on the moon, She loves the man...anything(well almost anything). 

I tell my students they have to use an active verb (not I am tall, or he is pretty) because it makes the game more fun.


Then they pass the paper to their right and the next person draws a quick (I have a timer and the students get a minute) picture of the sentence.

When the time is up have the students fold the top of the paper so that you can no longer see the sentence. In this case you fold on the imaginary blue line.

Now you should have a sheet of paper with a fold where you can just see the drawing.

The students take this and pass it to their right again. Now they have to write a sentence that matches the picture.

When I play this with my students they are NOT allowed to  ask the person, "What is that?" or get any help because it makes the sentences more interesting.

Once they finish the sentence they need to fold on the imaginary blue line so that the picture isn't visible and pass it to the person on their right.

This person should just see the sentence.  They need to draw a picture that shows what the sentence is doing. When they finish they fold and pass it to the right.


You can keep going until a student runs out of space, a paper has circled the whole class, or make it a timed activity. At the end I have my students unfold the paper and compare the first and final sentence. Then they try to find the person that started it.

I am hesitant to call this a game since there's no competition, no winners, and no losers, but the students have SO much fun with it I think you can!

So you could start this by giving everyone a different vocabulary word and having them make the sentence, OR you could have them pick whichever word they want.

Have you used this in class? How did you go? Did you adapt it? Let us know!