This game helps students learn and consolidate new vocabulary. As homework, ask the students to find a new, useful piece of vocabulary in their dictionaries and to write down this word and its definition on a slip of paper. In class, ask the entire class to stand up. Each student finds a partner and reads his definition to the partner, who tries to guess the word. When both students have read their definition and tried to guess the partner's word, they swap pieces of paper and find a new partner. Students continue in this manner for 20 minutes before sitting back down and writing five sentences with words they have learned. Circulate and offer help where necessary.
This game provides students with practice using the second conditional. Write on the board, "Why would you..?" and ask the students to supply you with 10 unusual activities, for example, "eat a snake" or "swim with sharks," which you also write on the board. Students work in pairs to ask the questions, for example, "Why would you swim with sharks?"and answer them, for example, "I'd swim with sharks if I was on holiday in South Africa. After 15 minutes, stop the game and ask students to tell the class what they found out about their partners.
This game is useful for practicing tag questions. Ask the students to write down three things that they think they know about other students in the class but are not completely sure of. For example, "John likes fish." When most of the students have finished, ask them to change their sentences into questions using question tags, for example, "John, you like fish, don't you?" Circulate as the students work, helping with sentence formation where necessary. Students now stand up and ask the appropriate students their questions. Pay particular attention to the students' intonation, which should be rising on the question tag.
This game provides students with practice using "used to." Write on the board the prompts, "like to do," "like to eat," "go on holiday," "do in the evening" and "do on the weekend." Arrange the students into pairs. Students ask their partners questions about their current lives and their lives when they were children using the prompts on the board. For example, "What do you like to do?" and "What did you use to like to do when you were a child?" After five minutes stop the activity and ask students to find a new partner to ask the questions to. After a further five minutes, stop the activity once more and ask students to tell the class what they have learned about their partners.