Ten affective activities to play and learn with alphabet letters

Every English teacher has given classes in which he or she has taught students the sounds of letters and has given support for them to spell their first and last names. Even though letters appear in the first levels, it is not unusual even for intermediate students to have some trouble spelling. 

In this post I share 10 affective activities for you to expand your activity repertoire beyond singing the ABC song and playing hangman. I call them affective because we always have to play using our affect, either by choosing words we like, creating strategies, or just playing. Make sure you have 3 or 4 alphabet sets for these activities for a small group of students. If you are with a larger group, you will need many more. 

Here I share some creative alphabet activities that will engage your students. 

1. Choosing words you like: here students choose words that they have read or listened in a story and then they write these, spell them and say why they like them. This activity can be done in the following two ways: students can choose the word and write them and other students check and spell or the student who chose the word can spell and other students have to guess and write it with the letters. Make sure that students always share why they have selected that word. If your students are really motivated, you can even invite them to make a song with the words the group has chosen!


2. Letter theater: here you can create a scenario with your students in which they add things that can be seen in a certain place. You can decide with them any place, ranging from a spaceship, the classroom, a kitchen or the beach. Each student adds one piece at a time.

You can have students use a structure such as "I see a/an ... ", "Have you seen there is a/an ... ?" or any other that you are working with. After you finish the setting, you can ask students in pairs to remember what each letter stands for and even to create a story with all these components.

Here you have a beach setting with the following elements starting from the bottom to the top: whale, fish, wave, surfer, sand, child and her mother, seagull, cloud and the sun!

And advanced variation would be to give all students a chosen combination of letters and they come up with a setting.

3. Letter interaction: here students pick a letter and say a thing that starts with that letter. If one student has chosen B and a banana, he or she can pretend to be eating it. Another  student can have a B which is a butterfly that suddenly flies away, and a third one can have a U for an umbrella that he has in case it starts raining.  Once learners have their things you can ask them to exchange the things they have for others, ask them which go together, make a story, or even line up according to some criteria (size, price, etc).

Variation: you can have the first person starting with a letter and a thing and the next has to do something related to that first thing. Let's say the first students has a Flower, then the second has a Bee, than the next one Honey, and another the Sun, etc. It is easier if you allow students to choose the letter instead of having them come up with something with the letter they have been given.

4. Letter story with words that begin with the letter: here students make sentences with each word starting with the letters that are in a certain order.

Students can make the following sentences for the letters in the sequences above: 

In the easy variation students can insert other words to make their sentence: 

An elephant watched a duck climbing on a white goose. 

In the harder variation students can only use words that start with the letters:

Once upon a time many lions ate spinach. 

5. Anagrams: in this classic activity students write a word for every letter of their names. These words can be adjectives that are characteristics of the students, verbs that they like to do, or things they have. As you have probably thought this is a great activity for students to introduce themselves. The words can either cross any letter of a student's name of can start with the letters in a student's name.

Anagrams be done both at the beginning and at the end of courses. In the beginning students do their own names and at the end students do the name of one of their classmates.


6. Scrabble: in a similar way students make a crossword writing words about a certain topic using the letters they have available. You can play it individually or you can have them playing it in groups.

7. Wordsearch: here you can prepare a wordsearch like the one below for students to find words related to a certain topic. The catch here is for you to tell students only the topic, and not the actual hidden words.

See you can find five words in this wordsearch that I have prepared for you. The topic is teaching. Write the words in the comment session below!

8. Guess before I finish spelling it: a fun way to play with the letters is this game that I play with with my students. I start spelling a word and students go finding the letters and writing the words. The challenge is for them to discover the word before I spell it until the end. It's quite fun!

9. Socratic Answers: here students have to answer questions using words that start with the letter that they have chosen. Example for a students that got the letter B:

What's your name? Boris
Where are you from? Bulgaria
What's your favorite food? Bulgarian banitsa - contribution from Mineva Rositsa! Thank you!
What do you do during your free time? Bake cakes
What is your favorite sport? Basketball

 

10. Domino: in this easy and fun activity students make word chains always using the first and last letters of the words that have been played. As a challenge you can tell students that they have to close the chain finding a word that starts with the first and last letters of the words in the beginning and in the end of the chain. In the picture here that word could be "sum".

And here you get the traditional bonus activities! Gotta make the reader satisfied! 

Bonus 1 - Scrambled letters: here you give the scrambled letters of a word and then students have to guess and write the word. You can give one hint at a time to make the students discover it. You can tell the context where the word is used, if it's a verb, and so on. Then students do the same to each other. 

Bonus 2 -  Bananagram: in this game a group of students has to use all their letters they have to make a crossword like the one in the picture. In order for them to achieve this goal they will need to change their words several times. Getting the actual game is really nice, but you will need many sets to play with a large classroom. The plastic letters will do fine and you can just use the rules of the game. 

Bonus 3: Make a letter doll: I saved the most creative to the end! I always like to present different kinds of material without telling students what we are going to do with them. I remember being with this very creative girl that started making letters characters as soon as I put the letters on the floor. It really pays of wait and see what your students will come up with!                                                                                                                                                                         You can them use the letters here to describe the personality of the character and the things it likes doing. Our character here has white hair, and it is very elegant, it's a violent and likes to fight, but it can be docile sometimes. It has a watch and a medal for playing soccer! 

Wow! What a fun-tastic post!
I hope you have enjoyed reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it.

Do you have any different activities do you do with letters?
Share them in the comment area below. I will love to hear from you!



Hugs,

Juan


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Interviewing Affective Educators: Beatrix Price

Have you ever thought about going to a country and staying there just to learn from one particular person?   I thought about doing so as soon as I met Beatrix Price at IATEFL last year. I was already planning how long I was going to stay in Budapest, when I learned that Bea and I would be working together for two weeks. I could not believe it, I was so happy! I immediately wrote Bea and she was happy as well!!!

The two weeks were great and we were able to learn a lot from each other and enjoy each other's company having lots of tea. But I would not let her go without interviewing her first for our blog. 

Here is our interview!

Juan: Let’s get started. When did you discover that you wanted to become a language teacher?

Bea and I met at IATEFL in 2015.

Bea: That is a good question. When I was a child I wanted to be a kindergarten teacher because my mother was a kindergarten teacher. Then later when I went to school I still wanted to be a teacher and my desire had never changed. I was 14 or 15 when I first met English as a language and then I decided to become an English teacher. But as I grew up in a communist country, where it was impossible to learn English, it took me quite a long time to learn it, so only when I was twenty seven I finally started learning English. Before that I was a Russian teacher and a Hungarian literature teacher.

Juan: It is very interesting that you have mentioned that your mother was a kindergarten teacher. How did she influence you? Were there days that you would go with her to school?   

Bea: Unfortunately at that time it wasn’t possible to do this in Hungary. But somehow I picked up the abilities or skills to work with children.  And there was also another very important experience that I lived when I was a child. We lived very near the Croatian border and my parents had friends from Croatia. In fact, these were their best friends, so we visited them and they visited us very often and there was this constant contact between us. Unfortunately they didn’t have any children , so I didn’t get to learn Croatian fluently, but I always heard this other language in the background. My father was sort of the interpreter in the family as he told us where we were going and what we were going to do.  One fascinating thing that I discovered just a couple of years ago is that my mother didn’t speak any Croatian and  her friend didn’t speak any Hungarian and even so they were friends for thirty or forty years.  It was a wonderful experience to have so many holidays together. Now looking back, I recognize this communicative competence that is so important in the lives of language teachers and language learners.  

Juan: Wow, what a beautiful memory! It’s truly amazing how your mom and her friend were able to communicate.

Juan: I saw your presentation this year at IATEFL in Manchester and I was fascinated by the way you promote language learning while you play with children.  How important is affect when learning a language and how do you incorporate in your teaching?

Bea: We all know about  emotional intelligence nowadays because it has been a buzz word for years but if you just look at natural cultures and how mothers, grandmothers take care of their children, then we can learn a lot. You have to feel the children and children have to be at ease with you when you are teaching them, if they are afraid of the atmosphere or the situation, then learning doesn’t take place, but if they love what surrounds them, then learning will happen in a much more effective way.

Juan: How did you become an English teacher of young learners? 

Bea: About fifteen years ago and before that I had never thought I would end up becoming a teacher of young learners.  Life brought me this experience as my children are bilingual  (English/Hungarian) and I had to teach them together with other children who were in the same classes. So I had to discover a method, something that my children who already spoke English would be happy in the class, just as well the other children who came to learn English. So then I started searching for games that are global and multicultural, so I collected a lot of different activities that are played all over the world and that are enjoyed in different cultures, regardless of language, and then I added the language element to it.

Everybody was happy in my class all the time and then I saw how much the other children learned, those who came to learn English. They had a massive vocabulary through the rhymes, songs, poems,  and everything that we enjoyed doing together. Everybody knew it wasn’t about language learning, it was about having a great time together. I think it is so important for children to enjoy what they are doing because many times we adults impose our own will on them and then they end up not having much choice.

Juan: Could you tell us a little bit about your ten-house model?

Bea: When I did my masters’s degree I wrote my thesis on movement accompanied by language learning, and the ten houses were the skeleton for my thesis.  I also included Vigotsky’s and Krashen’s theories in my thesis.  The houses really go through the natural development of the child, when we imagine that the baby is born and the child is in the cradle, the first thoughts that the baby has are his own hands and fingers, and the baby looks up and starts playing with his own fingers. A little bit later when the children are a little bit older, mothers take the children and gets them in their laps and start playing with their palms, their fingers with ticklish games and all that those that belong to the children’s body. In previous cultures  there were no plastic toys and Disney films and other things to entertain the children, so mothers and their children would build very beautiful rapport and that’s how children started to learn language through this emotional bond.

So the first things are the finger games, which are not only important because the mother plays with them or children play on their own, but they are also very good for fine motor skills. And this is what educators nowadays neglect totally, because children grow up in front of screens, they only touch buttons or they are just watching something. Their fine and gross motor skills are not developed nowadays and children get clumsy to the point they can’t even climb trees.

The other activities in the ten-house model are those that children enjoy in social interaction such as  bean bag games, circle games,  skipping games, and string games. We can find these in every culture,and they are enjoyed by the children because they share. Social interaction is another very important element, because I think a lot of children lack social competence in our world because they are just interacting with cell phones. Playing together has another educational value in my system.

Finger games, bean bag games, string games, and circle games incorporate singing, which is very important. That's because singing is in a different sphere. And then when I take children through these activities that are always a  little bit more difficult for the children and they want to learn that skill that is very important for them as well. These manual skills are always a little bit higher than their actual competence, just as Krashen says that comprehensible input should just a slightly higher than the child’s language competence. In my model I put the skills competence, so they want to learn the language together as well.

These activities are always accompanied by authentic English nursery rhymes, songs, and verses,  so children can build a very big vocabulary doing these activities and then after a  while, they start being introduced to real poetry. So after a couple of years of teaching children through these rhymes, I introduce very simple authentic poems to and after this stage we learn in the realm of literature and that’s the finest stage in my learning curve, that’s the last house,  when I can already introduce authentic novels to these children obviously through graded readers or simplified versions or I myself make them accessible to them.

I think that children deserve to be introduced to Narnia in English when they are small as well as Robinson Crusoe, which is my other favourite book. These are all layers that are built one on top of the other.  I think that when we introduce literature, they will become readers, that’s another stage and then authentic learning takes place. And they are able to learn in English and look after their own language development.

Juan: Which advice do you give to teachers of young learners?

Bea and Anastasya sharing their storytelling board. 

Bea: Learn lots of songs and  look at mother goose nursery rhymes and choose the ones you will teach according to your taste. It’s most important that you teach according to what you like, just believe in something and teach through that. And children will love it because they can see you are enjoying it and you will love it too. I think we can never stop learning and learning children’s rhymes is not a childish thing. We can learn from each other and even nowadays meet other colleagues around the world and then share our treasure with them. We should not hide what we know, we should make it accessible to everybody.

When teaching children it is very important not to simplify the language, as when you look at natural language acquisition, when a child learns in her own environment, everybody speaks in full sentences with lots of language, and I think that in second language acquisition we should do the same, providing a lot of authentic language to children.  I try to do it in a rhythmic way  because rhythm carries language, specially in songs, chants, verses, and nursery rhymes that have this natural rhythm that lives in the child’s system or body. As a result children are introduced to a lot a language and they will deduct meaning from this rich language for themselves and that’s how language is built up. Not specifically taught to them saying that this is this and that is that, but allowing the child to recognize the words in the songs, in the verses, and in the poems.

Juan: You have given me this amazing rainbow string. Where did this idea come from and which other tricks do you have in your teaching?

Bea teaching Kasya the witch's story in Paris

Bea: First of all, I felt that as an adult I wasn’t able to learn any of the tricks, but fortunately I had a very good friend who knew many of these tricks. And he happened to drop in my English lessons and he didn’t speak any English and he enchanted the learners in a second. I was a little bit jealous and I wanted to learn those tricks too.


As I wanted to enchant the children as well, so I looked for my son's book on string games and I learned one trick which was a huge success.  It took me a long while to learn other tricks and the most interesting thing is that when I introduce it to children they just pick it up in seconds.

I only know three or four stories altogether and I see that storytelling with strings is amazing not only for children but for adults too. These are well known in many cultures such as in Turkey, Malaysia, Indonesia, in central Europe, Western Europe, well everywhere. So I encourage everybody to learn a couple of string games.

Juan: Being a very affective teacher educator, what do you consider important for teachers of young learners to experience in their preparation courses?

Bea: Well, it comes naturally to me it’s and it is also a very conscious process. I try to build very good rapport with my colleagues, I prefer to call them my colleagues instead of participants.  I like to draw their attention to the importance of being an educator as we we have a very big responsibility for the future generations. I see that teaching young learners has become a very big business around the world and we have the responsibility not to let children be harmed by all this business. As appropriate learning is very important, we have to see who our learners are, language teaching ought to be almost like a therapy for children with lots of singing and lots of good things. 

Juan: Do you have a favourite quote to finish our interview? 

Bea: We only remember 10% of what we hear, we remember 40% of what we see, and we remember 90% of what we are involved with.

Juan: Anything else you would like to say? 

Bea: I love you Juan and Buddy too!

Juan: Me too!  

Wow, what an amazing interview with Bea!

Would you like me to interview any teacher in special?
Let me know and then I will get in touch with this person and give it a try!

Sending you all a big hug,

Juan


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Follow my Playing to Learn column!

Hello! 

It's with great pleasure that I share some good news. I have a column of my own!

It is entitled "Playing to Learn" and it is published twice a month with Gallery Teachers and iTDi. My very first column will have 12 posts and there I invite you to explore practical ideas and playful activities that can make your classes memorable, engaging, and fun. More than that, my intention is to awaken and strengthen your playfulness and empower you to create and live play with your group. 

On galleryteachers.com  you will be able to learn with amazing ELT bloggers and writers such as Barbara Sakamoto, Shelly Terrell, Luke Meddings, Christina Rebuffet, Jason Levine, and Chuck Sandy among others. Topics range from culture to critical pedagogy to cooking and there's something for everyone. Each column post comes with a downloadable PDF full of ideas, activities, or a lesson plan that you can take into your classroom or use for your own development. 

Do pay me a visit and leave your comment giving me feedback on how you liked it and what you would like to talk about next. I write it for you. 

Hope you have enjoyed these news as much as I do. It's really exciting!

Send you all a big hug from Seoul, South Korea!

Juan

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Thank you!!!

Learning English with Flying Hankerchieves

"Aesthetic matters are fundamental for the 

harmonious development of both society and the individual."

Friedrich Schiller

I simply love having hankerchieves in my classes because these flying and maleable colourful pieces of light fabric bring much more than joy, movement, and fantasy. Flying hankerchieves bring a sense of aesthetic and beauty to the process of language learning.

These small pieces of magic allow students to create language while playing, to move their bodies while learning, and to see them beautifully floating in the air.

That's probably why I have have given over 50 sets of these flying hankerchieves made by my mom Stella to fellow English teachers at congresses and school visits around the world.You can make your very own hankerchieves by cutting 15-cm squares of colourful and very light fabric. 

Here I share 12 creative ways through which flying hankerchiefs can promote affective language learning in your class:

Ready or not, here I come!

1. Counting numbers: children can count with hankerchieves in several different ways. One way is to have only one hankerchief being passed around, one variation is to give a hankerchief to a small number of children to be passed around, and finally a pair can share a hankerchief. Another possibility to prctising counting is to throw the hankerchief really high in the air and children count until it touches the floor.

2. Drawing numbers, letters, and words: you can model drawing numbers, letters and even words in the air which students should guess. One student can then be invited to do it to the classroom and finally students do it in pairs of small groups. It can also be done with ribbons that will maintain even longer the shape of the numbers and letters. Great fun!

3. Noticing colours: here I share some ways that you probably already know. The first one is hiding one in your hand and students have to guess which colour you have. Another is hiding them in the room to be found. Next you can play the subtracting game by getting one colour from the pile and getting them to notice which one you got. Last you can display the hankerchieves on the floor in a certain order, ask kids to close their eyes, and change the order, students have to tell you what has changed. All these can be played as a big group, small group, and then in pairs.



4. Touching body parts: here one throws a hankerchief in the air and students have to get them with the part of the body that is chosen. A variation is to say a student's name and a body part as a challenge. If the students completes the challenge, he or she says the name of the next student and a different body part.  Great fun!


5. Exchanging things they like: you get a hankerchief and you tell students you have something of that colour in your hand. One can say for instance that the white hankerchief is a cloud,  the red one a strawberry, and the blue one is the ocean. Have students say what things each colour is. Then each student can get a hankerchief and say what they have in their hands. In the last movement, students ask each other what they have and  if they would like to exchange them.More advanced students can give reasons why they accept or not the exchange.

6. Checking students' emotions: tell students you feel happy when you pick the yellow hankerchief. They can them tell you which colour means happy for them. After that learners can choose a flying hankerchief according to how they feel on a certain day or about a certain topic. They can choose for example the white one if they are really calm or the yellow one because the like the sunny day.

7. Creating things ( or even a scenario!) : call out some things that have one color like the sun or water and let students make them on the floor, after this call out things like trees or a watermelon that have two or more colours. When you notice your students are really good at it invite them to make a scenario with all the hankerchieves. If they choose making a beach for instance, they can use the blue ones as the ocean, the yellow ones as the beach, and the green as palm trees. Their creations are usually incredible!

8. Discovering things with the chosen colors: this is the opposite of the previous activity. Each learner chooses a hankerchief and the teacher calls two students. These students have then to say which thing has the colors of their hankerchieves. For example, black and blue could be a policeman's uniform or even a sunken ship. You can leave their creations on the floor. Call out all the students until they run out of hankerchieves.


9. Telling a story: here you can start a story by giving a specific meaning to one hankerchief. For the story to continue one student comes and ties his/her hankerchief to the first one. Example: Once there a flea (black one) that fell in the water (blue one) and then the day started to get really hot (yellow) and so on. Once all the hankerchieves are used students can retell or even rewrite the whole story.


10. Reading through them: a fun way to use the hankerchieves is to read through them. You can decide together with the class if colors have any special moods or ways to read. Hankerchieves can be changed after some time. Some possibilities are fast, slowly, prolifically, sleepy, angrily, in love, etc.

11. Listening to words: students can be given flashcards with words that will appear in a story or in a song. Whenever they listen to the word they have been assigned they throw their hankerchief to the air. It is a beautiful scene to see all of them flying in the air. Make sure you say every word many times to make children pay close attention. I usually say all the words in my last sentence.

12. Listening to similarities: students are given a hankerchief each. Then in pairs they face each other, one starts saying one sentence at a time about personal facts or opinion. Then if the other person has the same fact or the same opinion, this person throws the hnkerchief to the other and repeats the sentence that was said, and then continues the game by saying sentences until the other person repeats it and throws the hankerchief. Students go switching who is doing the talking until they have swapped hankerchiefs a certain number of times.

Bonus activity: have them dancing! 

 Here you can see me with  two wood crosses and eight hankerchieves. Tie one to each edge and you can have a bunch of birds flying or ghosts dancing.







Thanks to Pravita Indriati from Indonesia for the pictures of her students learning with the flying hankerchieves!

Which was your favourite activity?
Do you have any other idea on how to these beautiful flying hankerchieves?

Hope to meet you at a congress and to be able to give you personally a set of flying hankerchieves!

Sending you a big hug,

Juan

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Learning English Affectively with Taboo Cards

  

"Whenever a taboo is broken, something good happens."

Henry Miller

I simply love playing with cards and flashcards because the number of ways in which they can be used is countless. When we, as teachers, explore and create novel ways of playing with language we allow learners to live language playfully as well. This fascination with play and language led me to write a post you might have read called "Fifty affective ways to use flashcards", in which I explored how students can live language affectively and make it their own. 

Today I explore the very famous taboo cards that probably many of you have already seen around, played with your friends, or maybe even have already used in class. Taboo is a card game in which players have to describe a thing without using the most common words associated with it. These words are considered them taboo and shouldn't be said. 

Taboo was originally designed for native English-speaking adults and one can notice that it requires a good command of language in order to play it properly. I have in this post adapted, created, and organized a list of 30 different ways in which taboo cards can be used. Enjoy it!

1. Avoiding forbidden words: in this traditional version, the player has to describe the word in red but he/she can not say the words that are in green. As you can imagine this requires a lot of language command, which is not something most students can do. In this original version, it is important to model and brainstorm with students some strategies that can be used to convey meaning when one does not know a certain word.

2 Using all the words: in a simpler variation one player has to say all the words that are in green without saying the one in red. The other player has to guess the word on top. Guessing is very easy and the real challenge is in being able to use all the words. This scaffolding builds confidence and promotes fluency.

3. Brainstorming words: in this variation one player says the word on top and the other player has to brainstorm words until he is able to complete all the words that are in the list. If words are hard, the challenging player can give the first letter of the words that are missing. The last word is usually the hardest!

4. Delivering a  speech: in a harder variation from the previous one, the challenging player says "tell me everything you know about watches" and then the other player has to build sentences talking about the topic until he/she uses all the words in the card, which are hidden from him/her. The challenging player signals and counts as the words in the card are said by the other player. A time limit can be added to add some tension.


5. Leading words to be said: here the topic is given and both players form a partnership to say the words. One player gives hints in order for the other to say the word. Let's say one player wants the other to say wrist, he/she can then say "it's where you wear it" or leave a gap for the other person to complete such as "you wear your watch around your ... ". You can have a pile of cards and count the number of cards a pair or group is able to do during a pre-established amount of time.

6. Spelling words: one player reveals the topic and he starts spelling the words that are listed. The other player has to try to discover the words before they are totally spelled.

7. Drawing words: one player reveals the topic and draws the words that described in the card for the other player to guess and write these next to the drawing that was just made. In a harder variation the topic is not revealed in the beginning.

8. Acting the words: a pair creates a small sketch and another pair has to discover the words that were represented. The acting group should really emphasize the written words and gets points if the words are correctly guessed. Here again the topic can be revealed in the beginning or not.

9. Writing a poem/ rapping the words: students can write a poem or create a rap containing all the words. The topic can be the title, part of the chorus, or even not be mentioned at all!

10. Brainstorming extra words: another way to play with taboo cards is to have students in small groups collectively saying and writing all the other words that they think go together with the topic word.

11. Checking the dictionary: students use their phones to check an online dictionary and see if the words that are listed are part of the description of the word used in the dictionary.

12. Googling words: students can google the topic word and then check if all the words in the card are found in the first three search results. Another google possibility is to type the five words and see if the topic will appear in the result.


13. Creating a crossword: students can create a crossword for the their card connecting the words in a grid and creating definitions for each one of them. A booklet with all their crosswords can be photocopied and given for all students to solve.

14. Playing the multiple hangman: the objective is for the challenged player/group to guess the topic word. In order to do this they play multiple hangman with all the describing words at the same time. Once they go figuring the words then they can guess the topic. The topic is not part of hangman and can be inside an envelope. If they guess it it wrongly the game is over.

15. Guessing with one hint at a time: one player has to guess the topic being only given one hint at a time. If they risk and it's wrong they lose their card or their turn. The player that guesses the topic keeps the card. This one was inspired by an old Brazilian TV show called "Which is the song?".

16. Making a conversation: a pair creates a conversation in which words appear in the same order in the conversation exchanges. Each exchange should have only the word that is listed without any of the other ones.

17. Unscrambling words: one player gives the topic and scrambles the letters of the listed words. The other player has to unscramble and discover the words. A harder variation is to give the scrambled words without saying what the topic is.

Bar histogram showing interviews.

18. Getting statistics: each student gets one card student talks to three other students one at a time and asks them to talk about the topic. While listening, this student marks down the number of times that the listed words are said. He/she does not interfere or reveal what the words are. Once the three conversations were held, this students reveals the statistics to the rest of the class. Here students can even be taught how to build an histogram like the one you see in the picture on the left.


19. Column Dictation: One player gets three cards and reveals the three topics. Then he/she dictates randomly the words that are in the three cards. The challenged player has to write them under the correct topic. Then players check the answers and discuss about the words that were hard and could fit more than one topic.

20. Interviewing the topic: one player or a group makes one question with every word that is listed. One person responds as being the topic. This is great fun as we have improbable situations where concepts, fruits, and professions speak!

21. Crossing cards: can you build sentences about a topic using the words from another card. This variation gets students to be playful and invent situations in which words can be combined.

The pyramid composition looks like this!

22. Writing a pyramid composition: the top sentence has the first word, the one below the first and second words, until the last one has all the five words. The composition can be done graphically centralized in a page.

23. Choosing the best words: students are asked to rate the words given in the list and put them in a list according to how relevant they think they are to describe the topic. Other words can be suggested to be included in the list.

24. Listening the words: one player makes a short composition or deliver a speech about the topic using all the words. The other player has to read it or listen to it and try to find the words that were listed. Tell students to pay attention to how words are said.

25. Making their own taboo cards: you can have students write their own cards inside a topic you are studying. Model how they can be written to make sure they are good for playing. Once you have them made you can play with them in any of the other ways described here in this post!


Most of these activities can be done both in speaking as well as in writing. I have in all activities preferred to have students in pairs as a way of maximizing student speaking time.

To get started you can:
Making the cards with the students,
Find lots of ready made cards on the internet,
Or buy the following games which have easier language for young learners.






Which is your favourite activity?
Do you have any idea that is not here?
Have you ever played taboo with your students?


Send you all a big hug from Tokyo,

Juan


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Puppeteering again at Hanazono Kindergarten!

Hanazono Kindergarten in Gifu, Japan

Some moments in life have really touched me with sheer joy.  One of these precious memories certainly was telling stories and puppeteering at the two Hanazono Kindergartens in Gifu last year. These performances were truly a challenge for me as my audience was composed of more than three hundred Japanese young language learners aged from three to five. All at the same time! 

Butterflies in my stomach. 

Guess what? I loved it! 

Buddy and I felt super loved before, during, and after both of our presentations. We were welcomed with lots of warmth and excitement by every single person we met at school. Children shouted hellos, teachers served us tea, and our pictures were in the hall. Buddy and I were kindly introduced to the kids, children enjoyed the kamishibai stories, and everybody laughed a lot with our puppeteering. After the show children sang and danced a marvellous thank you song, I got the most amazing medal, and had some delicious cake. We truly felt as kindergarten pop stars!  

As I planned to come back to Japan, I hoped to be able to return to Hanazono to have a similar experience again. As you have probably guessed, fame is highly addictive. 

But would I have the same feelings? 

Could I run the risk of losing that great memory that I had experienced there? 

It was even better! 

Taking the classic photo before my second show at Hanazono Kindergarten in Gifu, Japan in 2014.

I felt much more confident as I knew the children, the school, and had been successful in the past. Many children  remembered Buddy and I guess me too. The difference was that this year I had the whole fifty minutes with Buddy instead of alternating telling kamishibai stories with some puppeteering sketches as I did last year. This represented a real challenge as I could run out of time or maybe lose the momentum with the kids. 

This year children were to teach Buddy how to sing the songs they know in English. I also chose three sketches that I knew children would love. These were Buddy farting and pooping in his potty, teasing him with a huge inflatable hammer, and having Buddy flying over the kids with a balloon. With these three powerful acts I was ready! 

Children greeted us joyfully, laughed loudly at our jokes, and participated giving lots of commands. Everything went well and Buddy and I have now double Hanazono memories!                                                                                                                                                                                                    I gained lots of practice and confidence in my puppeteering skills with large groups and I feel now very empowered to get even better at it. ( Puppeteering can also be highly addictive, beware!)                                                                                                                           

I plan to invest in my professional development as a puppeteer to be able to come up with a much more elaborate experience for children all over the world. Buddy is also very excited about all this! 

Last year we got a medal from the children and this year it was the same. 

Can you notice any difference? 

Here you can watch a clip that I have prepared for you with some of the best moments of these two performances. Enjoy it!

I would like to thank Mark Kulek who has made these magic moments possible not once, but twice. Mark is the founder and director of Gifu Kids which is a lovely school for kids in Gifu as the name says it all. Mark has also had the privilege of teaching these lovely children at both Hanazono Kindergartens for the last eight years. 

Mark is now a friend who I admire both personally and professionally. 

What are your best memories with young language learners? 

Have you ever had similar challenges to mine that you simply loved? 

Send you a big puppet hug,

Uribe Sensei

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Puppeteering interviews with Queenie Tan!

During last Young Learners' Day at TESOL France I had the great pleasure to meet  Queenie Tan and her assistant Jennifer.  Queenie is a well-known author, podcaster, and early childhood educator who lives in Hong Kong and has dedicated herself to educating parents and teachers on how they can become more affective and effective parents and teachers. She has a website and there you can learn more about her books, listen to her podcasts and interviews and much more.

Queenie, Buddy the Frog, and Jennifer in Paris. 

Buddy and I were not interviewed once, but twice in Queenie's show! But how did that happen?

Well, Queenie first interviewed us on how teachers can teach using puppets and then many of the parents that follow her parenting channel liked our interview so much, that they asked us to come to Queenie's parenting channel to talk about how parents can have quality time with their children living imagination and creativity with puppets.


In the first interview Buddy and I shared how teachers can get started in puppeteering and how language development, emotional intelligence, and proactive discipline can be fostered through puppeteering.

Here you can listen to our first interview with Queenie Tan! (audio only)

In the second interview the three of us talked about how parents can use puppets to play with therir children and therefore create memorable moments.

Check here our second interview with Queenie Tan!

Wish you great puppet moments with your children and students!

Which part did you like the most?
Do you have any question that you would like to ask me or Buddy the Frog?


Send you a big puppet-hug directly from Japan!

Juan


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Check also this video with more puppeteering hints!

Fifty country riddles for the young at heart

I was recently in Konya, Turkey with a great team of teacher educators from SELT Academy giving an initial teacher training program to Algerian teachers who are going to teach in Turkish schools. I have already shared the alphabet riddles we enjoyed during our a  30-minute van ride to school. Today I share another topic we really had a great time creating and challenging each other: country riddles!


1. What country might break? China.

2. What country is in a rush? RUSH-ia 

3. Which country wants more food? HUNGRY. 

4. Which country hurts? S-PAIN.

5. Which country is oily? GREASE.  

6. Which country is spicy? CHILI.

7. Which country is not hot? CHILLY.

8. Which country can melt? ICE-land. 

9. Which country likes to sing? SING- apore

10. Which country goes well with toast? JAM - aica.

11. Which country can you eat? Turkey. 

12. Which country is the name of a woman? Georgia. 

13. Which country is bossy? BOSS-nia. 

14. Which country helps you to cook? Ja-PAN.

15. Which country has a color in its name? GREEN-land.

16. Which country went to the past? I- RAN.

17. Which country is going to the future? GONNA (Ghana).

18. Which country has gone crazy? MAD-agascar.

19. Which country is what teachers do at night after tests? THEN MARK. 

20. Which country is real? Israel. 

21. Which country is heavy to carry? E-STONE-ia. 

22. Which country has a bird in its name? CROW-atia. 

23. Which country always wins in chess? TCHECK. 

24. Which country likes zombies? Zambia. 

25. Which country likes basketball? Jordan. 

26. Which country is made of metal? CAN-ada.

27. Which country is white? PALE-stine.

28. Which country gives you a good tan? TAN-zania.

29. Which country goes well with cheese? Ba-HAM-as.

30. Which country has a friend in its name? Ne-PAL. 

31. Which country wanted to be an Italian city? ROME-nia. 

32. Which country is really loud? BANG-ladesh. 

33. Which country used to be oh, boy? Oh,MAN. 

34. Which country needs some fresh air? MOLD-ovia.

35. Which country likes to go to cassinos? Ti-BET.

36. Which country likes to play ball? BALL-ivia. 

37. Which country is scary? BOO-lgaria. 

38. Which country has more than one man? Ye-MEN. 

39. Which country has lots of poles? POLE-and.

40. Which country is calling Tee? HEY-tee.

41. Which country has a man's name in its name? TIM-or.

42. Which country is used to lift heavy objects? U-CRANE. 

43. Which country has to do with Tom Cruise's daughter? SURi-name. 

44. Which country has paradise in its name? Sw-EDEN. 

45. Which country has women's underwear in its name? BRA-zil. 

46. Which country has lots of fish? FIN-land. 

47.Which country is square on all sides? CUBE-a. 

48. Which country makes a lot of noise? BELL-gium. 

49. Which two countries have a part of our body in their names? ARM-enia and CHIN-a. 

50. Which two countries have the same name in Portuguese and in English? Peru and Turkey. 


Can you think of any other country riddle? 
Which was the best? And the worst? 


Send you funny hugs,

Juan

Do you know why I am very polite in my blog ? Because I was born in Ar-GENT-ina.
Ok, I know this was a bad one! 



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Thank you

Check also alphabet riddles for young language learners!