Demonstrate the activity by telling students a story from your own life. Then prompt individual students to provide one sentence of your story to the class in his own words. Divide your students into pairs or small groups and explain that they will now practice telling and retelling their own stories. Provide a list of potential subjects to get the students thinking. Some examples might be an embarrassing moment, a time that they were very surprised, the happiest day of their life or a fun trip they have taken. Give the students a few minutes to think of a story and write down a few notes if they want. As one student tells her partner a story, the other student takes notes. Once both partners have told their stories, students change partners and retell the stories they have heard in their own words. If there is time, have students change partners multiple times and retell the most recent story they have heard.
Think of a real life situation your students may encounter. Some examples are asking directions, eating in a restaurant, or meeting a person for the first time. Write some important vocabulary on the board. For example, if students will be role playing eating at a restaurant, you might write the words, "check, drink, menu, dessert" and "How is everything tasting this evening?" Explain the students' roles and encourage them to use as many of the keywords as they can. Give students enough time for their conversations, but bring the activity to an end when they begin to struggle for things to say.
Divide students into groups of three or four. Explain to the class that you are going to describe an object. Each group must then convince you why they need the object more than the other groups, including what they intend to do with it. The group that makes the most convincing argument will be rewarded with the object. You can do this activity with imaginary objects such as a race car or musical instrument, or use real objects that you can give them such as candy or small toys. You can be the judge yourself, or have students vote on which group most needs the object. Allow the activity to build momentum, encouraging students to generate more convincing and creative arguments.
Divide students into two groups. Create four columns on the board: people or occupations, adjectives, objects and places. Have students brainstorm words for each category. Now each group has to try to stump the other by forming a question from the words on the board. An example question might be, "What can an astronaut do with a rusty chainsaw in a forest?" The other group must answer the question, an example of which might be, "He could cut down trees in order to create a landing area for his spaceship." Repeat the activity and watch the students have fun.