This activity is good for activating existing vocabulary or revising vocabulary studied in

previous lessons.

Procedure:

Choose a vocabulary topic (this can be vocabulary you have recently studied or a topic
you want to introduce). Tell students to write a list of 10 words they associate with this
topic. To make the activity shorter, reduce the number of words.

Pre-teach / revise structures for definitions e.g. Its a thing which / that.... You use it for...
You find this in.... Its an animal / object / place... Its the opposite of... etc.

Tell students to look at their lists and give them time to think of how they can define
these words (3 -5 mins).

Now students work in pairs (or groups of 3) to define their words. Their partner must
guess the word they are defining.

A faster moving, fun alternative to this activity is a team game.

Change the vocabulary to lists of famous people / books / films / objects.

Each team writes a list for another team (students can also 3 or 4 words each on strips of
paper to draw out of a hat)

Pre-teach / revise structures for definitions e.g. Its a thing which / that.... You use it for...
Its a film / book / object.... He/ Shes an actor / a politician.... Hes British / American /
Spanish...

Each team nominates one person to define the words to their team
Each team has 1 minute to define as many words as possible.
2. Oral Storytelling
Have students sit in a circle. Begin telling a story by speaking one sentence aloud.
The student on your left should add to the story by speaking a second sentence aloud. The
student to his or her left should speak the next sentence aloud, and so on. Keep the story
going around the circle one sentence at a time until it comes to a logical conclusion.
Remind students that each sentence should build on the one before it. Its easy for
students to add in something offbeat or random to try to be silly, but the goal of this
lesson is to create a logical story. One way to keep the story on track might be to record
it. For beginning ESL students, consider speaking sentences out loud and asking them to
add one word at a time. They could even draw or hold up pictures to add to the story.
This group activity helps students develop listening comprehension and speaking skills.
Students have to be able to follow along with the story, listening closely to what the
people before them just said, and they have to think critically to build a correct sentence
of their own.
 In addition to language skills, you can choose topics for the story that revolve around
cultural symbols, like the White House, or about cultural norms, like timeliness. For
example, you could start the story with the sentence, My name is President Barack
Obama and I live in the White House.