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TWENTY QUESTIONS
Ask your student to choose a word that youve
recently used, perhaps something from the last
lesson. Lets say youve been looking at the topic
of clothes, so ask your student to choose an item
of clothing. You have to guess the word by asking yes/no questions, for example:
Is it casual?
WORD SNAKE
Write a word on your online whiteboard. Now,
ask your student to write another word, but starting with the last letter of your word. For example,
if you wrote elephant, your student must write a
STORY TENNIS
Start to tell your student a story, perhaps
adapted from one you have just read. Your stu-
Take it in turns like this until you have a completed story. This can be used either as a speaking or writing activity.
GROWING SENTENCES
Write a verb on an online whiteboard, or type it
into Skypes text conversation box. For example,
the word eat. Your student needs to add a word
or two (e.g. a pizza) to make a phrase or sentence. You can either add another word yourself
or you can ask your student to add another word
to the sentence. Each longer sentence should
make sense and be grammatically correct.
For example:
Eat.
Eat that pizza.
Eat that pizza quickly.
Eat that delicious pizza quickly.
I want to eat that delicious pizza quickly.
I want to eat that delicious cheese pizza
quickly.
I want to eat that delicious cheese pizza
quickly said my sister.
PICTURE DICTATION
Find a simple picture (a line drawing works very
well with this activity) with a lot of objects and/or
action. This could be from the Internet or, if you
are using one, a coursebook, but we prefer doing a quick line drawing ourselves.
Describe the picture to your student. Your student draws the picture, either on a piece of paper (which they can show to you on a webcam)
or on an online whiteboard. You might say things
like theres a large dog running past a tree, the
book is between the cup and the jar or the policeman is standing on top of the wall.
After they have finished drawing, your student
can compare their drawing with the one you
were describing. Alternatively, you can ask your
student to describe the picture back to you
have they missed any details? If you want, you
can reverse the activity,
SENTENCE COMBINING
This activity focuses your students attention on
both meaning and language structures. It basically involves matching two halves of a sentence.
Think of some sentences, perhaps linked to a
topic or language feature you have just been
studying. Here are some examples using the future perfect:
They will have found a cure for cancer by 2050.
We will be living on Mars in 2050.
I will have retired by 2050.
Now, split the sentences in half, and type them
into separate text boxes in an online whiteboard.
Mix them up:
They will have found
on Mars by 2050
We will be living
by 2050
HOT SEATING
JUMBLED TEXT
This is a role play activity. Either you or your student take on the role of a famous person or character, perhaps someone recently in the news, a
historical figure, a celebrity or someone who
works in the same field as your student. The
other person asks the one in role questions
about his or her life and activities.
Find a text from a story, a dialogue or a chronological text such as a list of instructions. Break it
into chunks (e.g. a sentence or a line of text) and
paste each chunk in a random order, on to an online whiteboard. (You can do this by copying and
pasting each line or sentence separately into the
whiteboard).
JUMBLED SENTENCES
Your students task is to put the text back together in the correct order. This requires them to
think about the meaning of the whole text, and to
think about how individual sentences in the text
are linked.
DICTOGLOSS
Find or make up a short text, similar to something youve been working on in class (i.e. using
the same grammatical features or similar content). Read the text to your student at a normal
reading speed. Your student must write down as
many words from the text as possible. Now read
it a second time. Your student should try to add
more words to their list.
Using this list of words, your student should work
on their own for 5-10 minutes and replicate the
text that you read out.
When theyve finished, ask them to read it out. (If
you are a fast typist you could type their text into
an online whiteboard as they read it.)
Finally, the two of you compare your students version of the text with the text you read out, noting
the differences between the two. (This spot the
6
difference is crucial because it forces your student to focus on the language they dont know.)
What tends to happen in a dictogloss is the student focuses on the most meaningful words
when they create their word list, rather than
grammar words like articles and connectives.
The comparison activity at the end forces them
to notice the grammar.
VANISHING CLOZE
Type a short text (3 or 4 sentences), based on
something your student is familiar with, into an
online whiteboard. Ask your student to read it out
loud.
MONSTER CLOZE
This is the vanishing cloze in reverse! Paste a
short text (perhaps one youve just been reading
together) into an online whiteboard and cover up
every word individually. (Make sure you also
have the text written down somewhere)
Your student needs to guess the words in the
text. If they guess a word correctly, uncover it. If
the word isnt in the text, you could draw a hangman graphic. In fact, the activity works just like
hangman, except your student has to guess
words instead of letters.
You should find that your student can guess content words (e.g. pilot, doctor) quite easily, but will
struggle more with more grammatical words (e.g.
the, are).
MEMORY TENNIS
This game works well with vocabulary sets such
as food, clothes, drinks or places. Start the chain
with a sentence like:
I went to the supermarket and I bought some
milk.
Your student needs to add an item to the chain
that makes sense, so they would say:
I went to the supermarket and I bought some
milk and some apples.
You continue the chain. If one of you breaks the
chain, the other person wins the point.