Karina

**Fun Activities to Improve English Skills**

=Students can improve their English skills while having fun. These interactive activities have as a main goal to help students with grammar, vocabulary, listening, speaking, and writing in a enjoyable way.=

= = ** Ativities **

= Spanish-English Matching Word =

It is a card game consists on writing a word in two cards: one in Spanish and a second one in English. We can use as many cards as we want. The cards are laid face down on the table, so the players cannot see the word written on the cards. The players are allowed to flip face up only two cards each turn. If the words do not match, players turn the cards back until someone guesses the maching pair of cards. The object of the game is to turn over pairs of matching cards. ====This game can help to develop vocabulary and pronunciation by stimulating conversation. We can use this game to help learn numbers, arithmetic, measurements, months and ordinals, days, time, irregular verbs in the past, past participles, phrasal verbs, opposites, negation, synonyms, antonyms, suffixes and affixes. There are also everyday life topics like family, housework, weather, health, making a living, holidays, and finances that can be used. This educational game can be stimulating and very challenging, too. This game can be also found on different websites such as []====



= Spin it! = ====In this game, we have a spinning wheel with different sections or categories for different topics for example verbs, colors, numbers, book or novels titles, according to the topic needed to be studied. And the teacher or person in charge will have like 10 different questions for each section, but the question will also provide a clue word in a second language according to the students needs for a better understanding of the question. The teacher get to choose how many sections according to the need. It is very fun and the students can even help making and designing the wheel. Each student in the class gets to spin the wheel and if he or she answers right the question gets to spin the wheel again. If the student does not answer the question right, the teacher can ask to the class to answer, and whoever gets the right answer gets to spin the wheel too. It is a fun way to make students to interact in the class and specially expose them to the important points of an specific topic. There some websites that offer this game on line such as [|ttp://www.eslgamesworld.com/Revision/Level1/play.html]==== []#!

= Jeopardy = = = ====This jeopardy quiz show rocks! It is a fun way to learn. The teacher puts students into two teams represented by different characters and play. Students earn points, 100 - 500 for questions answered. Choose a topics and proceed. The team that accumulates more points at the end wins. This game it is used a lot in classrooms and it can be used with different topics. It is a very useful tool to review specific questions, and we can also address the question in different languages to improve language skills. Students get to interact in the group and consult each other in order to get the rigth answer. This game can be used as a tool to teach grammar, vocabulary, reading, speaking, and pronounciation.==== ====The table can be easily made by cards aligned on a board or it can be done on the computer as a power point. It is easy to used and depending on the age of the students, the teacher can assign a student to lead the game.====

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= Word Chain = ====In this activity, the teacher gives a word and asks a student to spell it, and then a second student should say a word beginning with the last letter of the word given, and it goes on so all the students get to participate. The game continues until someone makes a mistake which can include incorrect pronounciation, misspelling, or repetition of a word. The last one remaining in the game is the winner. This game can be made difficult by limiting the words to a certain category for example food, tools, or nouns, verbs, etc. With this activity, students get to practice spelling, vocabulary, and pronounciation.====



= = = = = Draw it! = ====In this game, all the students are required to draw, and each of them are given a sheet of paper. The teacher or one student sits at the front of a room. He/she describes a person and the rest of the class draws the person being described. It is more interesting if the person being described is in the classroom. Once the student has finished describing that person then he/she reveals who it is and each student shows his/her drawing. The laughter from this is hilarious as the impressions tend to make the character in question look funny. It is also a good idea to allow the students to explain their pictures. It is a very simple activity, but it is very fun not just for the students but also for the teacher. It allows the teacher to evaluate students' comprenhension, listening, spkeaking, and pronounciation skills.====

= = = = = Funny Stories = ====This time, the teacher will give out a word, and the first participant will make a sentence with it. The next participant will add another sentence that will correlate to the previous trying to make a story to flow. Students can't take more than five minutes to make up the sentence or repeat ideas, if so they are left out in the game. It is incredible to see how creative students are. Sometimes we came up with really good stories, and some other times, we came up with very funny ones. Students enjoy this type of activities.====

= = = Reported Speech Circle = = = ====

==== ====It is a simple activity for students to practice their reported speech, but it can work with other topics too. The teacher needs to explain the rules to the class. If the topic is reported speech, principles and rules of turning direct speech into indirect speech need to be explained. For the activity, the students gather into a circle, and the teacher or any student can make a simple statement for example "I speak Spanish." and the statement can even be in a different language. The student can use a beanbag, a ball, or even just point to the next participant. So the pointed student needs to turn the statement into indirect speech. The student should say, "Teacher said she spoke Spanish." Then, another student is pointed and has to report what the previous student said, and the student will say "Maria said the said the teacher said she spoke Spanish." All the class will participate and work slowly round the group making the sentence longer and longer.==== ====Once the students are familiar with this, the use of a beanbag becomes handy. After making a statement then toss it to a random student who has to report your statement. That student then tosses the beanbag to another student who has to make reported speech about the reported speech about the statement and so on.====

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References
 * Bo Hu. (2011). Effective Oral English Activities For The ESL Classroom. Retrieved from [|www.minds.wisconsin.edu]


 * Davis, Randall. (2012). ESL Cyber Listening Lab. Retrieved from []


 * ESL Insider. (2010). Best ESL Games. Retrieved from []


 * Kelly, Charles & Kelly, Lawrence. (2010). Interesting Things for ESL Students. Retrieved from [|www.manythings.org]


 * Martinez, Karin. (2011). ESL Partyland. Retrieved from [|http://www.eslpartyland.com]


 * Peregoy, SF & Boyle, OF. (2008). Reading, Writing, and Learning in ESL. Boston: Pearson Education.


 * TEFL Games. (2012). Retrieved from []


 * TEFL World Wiki. (2010). Retrieved from []


 * Saunders, Ell. (2005). The Internet TESL Journal. Retrieved from []


 * Vocabulary. Co. I l. (2010). Retrieved from []


 * Vogt, MaryEllen & Echevarria, Jana. (2008). 99 Ideas and Activities for Teaching English. Boston: Pearson Education.