Engaging Classroom Activities for Language Development
Tongue Twisters
Goals
- Practice speaking
- Improve the pronunciation of words
- Improve forbearance
Age and Rationale
6-8 years old. Children begin to develop their speech and diction at a young age, and tongue twisters can help them stretch the muscles that are necessary for speech. This helps them develop clear pronunciation and speech patterns.
Step-by-Step
- Write some English tongue twisters on the board or on pieces of paper to distribute to students. Ask them to read the tongue twisters aloud, then faster, then three times in a row.
- Ask the students if they have any tongue twisters in their first language. Have a go at saying them yourself. This usually causes a good laugh and makes the activity more two-way and interactive.
- Now ask the students to have a go at creating their own tongue twisters.
Assessment
The teacher takes note of the students’ development. In the end, assess if students have learned the tongue twister.
Domino
Goals
- Improve grammar and vocabulary
- Work on pronouns (he, she, it)
- Create meaningful sentences
Age and Rationale
8-10 years old (in this case). Words can be adapted to any age.
Step-by-Step
- Work in groups of four.
- Use a domino set, but instead of numbers, use words. Include words like: “he is”, “she is”, “it is”, “very beautiful boy”, “friendly girl”, and “lovely dog”. The game consists of choosing the words to create complete sentences.
- The winner is the student who completes the most sentences.
Assessment
The teacher is an observer, solves doubts, and verifies that the sentences are correct.
Digital Tool: Voki
Goals
- Improve grammar and vocabulary
- Improve cooperative work
- Improve reading comprehension
- Create fill-in-the-blank tall stories for their friends to complete
- Work on the parts of speech
Age and Rationale
8-10 years old. Besides being great fun, they are an excellent way to reinforce students’ knowledge of the parts of speech. It is good for students to work on the parts of speech at this age.
Previous Work
Voki is a digital tool that allows the teacher to explain content, propose an activity, etc. In this case, the teacher proposes an activity using Voki.
Step-by-Step
- The students work in pairs. They open Voki, and a character presents the activity (in this case, the character is an alien). The alien explains his story and asks the students to write their own fill-in-the-blank tall tales.
- The students write a story about aliens, leaving a missing word in each blank space.
- Another classmate reads and completes the story created by their classmates.
Assessment
Students will correctly mimic the format of the fill-in-the-blank tales as they create their own. They will identify the parts of speech that fit into the “blanks” in their stories. We can evaluate with a rubric.
Bombay TV
Goals
- Improve creativity
- Improve grammar and vocabulary
- Control the number of words written with what was said orally
Age and Rationale
10-12 years old. This activity is very fun for any age, but it is not useful to use this digital tool until a higher cycle. At these ages, they already control grammar and vocabulary; therefore, we can add more goals.
Step-by-Step
- Individually, students open the Bombay TV page. The teacher explains that they are film directors and that they need to create a dialogue.
- The teacher gives the students a piece of paper with a topic (for example, love, fight, dance, etc.).
- Each student will select the video they like for their topic.
- The students will present their video in front of their classmates.
Assessment
The teacher will have a rubric and evaluate the following: creativity, the relation of the topic with the selected video, and grammar and vocabulary.