Top Five Recycling Activities

The variety of topics in commercial English learning textbooks provide learners with a large number of new vocabulary items on different subjects. However, since most coursebooks jump from one unit to another in a relatively short time, learners don't have adequate time to practice the items they have encountered and retain them in long-term memory. Learners need to encounter the new words, phrases, and chunks several times to be able to remember and use them appropriately. 
To overcome the problem of forgetting words quickly, English teachers are recommended to conduct recycling activities that ensure working on previously taught vocabulary over a number of sessions. I often include a recycling activity in my lessons as a warmer, time filler, or end-of-lesson activity. Warmers and time-fillers are best to be related to previous lessons to give learners the chance to work on the same language items in different contexts. My students often appreciate and enjoy any recycling activity that has a game-like feature. End-of-lesson recycling activities usually relieve tension after some serious work during the lesson.. 

Here are my top five recycling activities that you may find in ELT books with different variations.

Taboo: Prepare a list of vocabulary items you want to review. Put students into groups of four and give them a set of cards with a previously learned word on each. Below each target word, there are usually three taboo words the person who has the card can't use. Instruct students to put the pile of cards face down. One student takes a card and defines the target word to the rest of the group. The other students should guess the word on the card to win it. If no one guesses the word, the card goes to the bottom of the pile. Students take it in turns to pick up a card and define the word. The one with the most cards wins at the end. See here a set of taboo cards for intermediate level learners. With low-level students remove the taboo words or only include one and have students use whatever words they know to define the target word. Click here to get a set of taboo game cards for elementary. 

You should provide students with useful language for the game such as:

It’s something that you use to…

It’s someone who …

It’s an adjective, noun, verb, adverb, etc.

It’s the opposite of … /similar to

Playing taboo recycles vocabulary items and engages students in using their language skills to negotiate meanings of words. Yet, the game doesn’t test if students can use the target words in correct sentences. for this reason, I have students put the cards face down again on the table. Now each student takes a card and has 30 seconds to form a statement using the word on the card. The other students decide if the sentence is correct or not and if they are in doubt, they can consult with the teacher. If the sentence is incorrect, the card goes to the bottom of the pile and another student takes a new card. Again, the one with the most cards wins. if time doesn't allow, students could do either activity. 

Anagrams: An effective and easy activity that involves cognitive work is anagrams. It is a game-like activity, in which students unscramble words from randomly written letters. Write a list of vocabulary items for revision on the board with their letters in jumbled order (such as utelerc, nrasmei – for lecture, seminar). Get students work in pairs to unscramble the anagrams. The pairs who finishes first wins, and they are asked to come up to the board to write the words for the others to check the correct spelling. You can involve students with more productive tasks using anagrams; Click here to read more about it. 

Hot seat: it is a guess game similar to taboo but done with the whole class. Divide the class into two or three groups. Have one student from each group come and sit with his/her back to the board. Write a word on the board for the teams who have to define, explain, or give synonyms/ antonyms of the word to the students in front to guess. The student (facing the teams) who guesses first gets his/ her team a point. Next, those students go back to their seats and other two students (depending on the number of teams) come to sit in the front with their backs to the board. Continue the activity until each student in each team has a turn to sit in the front and try to guess a word. The team with the most points wins.

Bingo: A simple, fun game that involves all my students for the sense of completion it has is Bingo. It’s also one of the easiest activities to set. Write a list of 16-17 words to review on the board. Have students draw a grid with nine squares. Then they choose nine words from the list and write them in the squares.

Tell your students that you are going to give definitions of nine words from the list. Each time a student thinks you have given a definition of a word in his/her grid, he/she crosses it out. The one who crosses out all the nine words first shouts BINGO and wins. Once the game is over, you may want to facilitate a productive task using the words on the board. Get students write about five sentences using words from the list. Next they exchange the sentences with their partners to check and give feedback on the language and content. 

Find someone who: This mingle activity could be used to practice or review any

vocabulary or grammar items. Prepare 12 to 15 statements using vocabulary or concepts that relate to your previous unit of study. For example, if you taught a unit on technology, prepare statements such as the following:

Find someone who

…uses social media networks for more than three hours a day.                            

… has used online banking recently.

…plays online games.

…writes on a blog.

Announce that students will ask each other questions. Instruct students to find others who can answer their questions with “yes”. They should write a different name next to each statement. Pass out the worksheet and elicit the correct question form for each statement on the list. Now students mingle around the class asking their peers and write that person’s name on their checklist sheet and go on to the next question with another person. A student can write a person’s name only twice. Encourage students to ask follow-up questions for each statement to make the activity more conversational. If you have only one student, change the phrase "find someone who" to "remember someone who".
 

Do you use any other interesting recycling activities? Share your ideas with us. 

Posters in Speaking Class

Last week, I had a speaking class with my pre-intermediate students about environmental problems. In their speaking book, there are three pictures about different environmental problems which they have to identify and discuss the causes of each. Having done this, I asked them to choose one problem from the pictures and prepare a poster about it (I owe this idea to Emma and Gary Pathare) including a title and main points. To make it more challenging, I asked them to include a drawing and solutions to the problem in the poster. 

In fact, I was reluctant to have my students prepare the poster; I was wondering if it would ever appeal to my adult students. However, I gave it a shot; and to my surprise, they were quite interested and worked in pairs enthusiastically. While working on the posters, I monitored them and threw out some suggestions and corrections to keep them on track. With a time limit of 15 minutes, they produced interesting, unique posters with meaningful drawings. 

Now the posters were ready, I allocated five minutes to the students to prepare a short informal presentation about their posters. One representative from each pair came to the front and talked about the problem, causes, and solutions and most importantly explained the drawing. The whole class listened attentively and gave feedback on the posters. Finally, the class voted for the best poster which included a title, clear key points, and a beautiful, meaningful picture. 

The task was a success as it deviated the students from the coursebook for a while and involved them in planning, discussing, drawing, and presenting. I was blissfully happy to see them use the target language in a creatively productive way. 

Using posters in class is easy and involving. Other topics you can use the poster activity with are: holidays, hobbies, dream house, etc. which are high frequent topics in many coursebooks. As a follow-up activity, you would ask your learners to prepare a poster about their dream house, for example, using related lexis and structure from their main lesson.   

Try the poster activity in your class and let us know how it goes. 

Using Anagrams for Recycling Vocabulary

An effective and easy recycling activity that involves cognitive work is anagrams. It is a game-like activity, in which students form words from randomly written letters. Choose 10 to 12 vocabulary items from previous lessons and write them on the board with their letters in the wrong order (such as utelerc, nrasmei – for lecture, seminar). Get students work in pairs to unscramble the anagrams. The first pairs who finishes wins, and they are asked to come up to the board to write the words for the others to check the correct spelling. 

Reviewing words in isolation is of little effect on communication. It is better to connect the target words with other words to form phrases or chunks which are more easily stored in the memory and more important for communicating fluently. So, if the list of words is about sports, ask students to write the verb that occurs with each sport. Or if the list is about shopping items, ask students to write an appropriate adjective/verb/ article adjacent to each word. Allocate 3-4 minutes for this task. Students can complete this task individually or in pairs. Next, they compare their lists with new partners/pairs before you nominate different individuals to come to the board and write their lists. Other students can add different collocations too. 

An addition task to exploit the words and to engage the students in a production task is to have them write a short story or dialogue which includes at least seven words/phrases from the list. This production activity offers a great practicing opportunity of the target language. Set a time limit of 10-12 minutes to conduct this task. Students work individually or in pairs while you circulate and monitor. Once students have finished, they exchange their papers, read and edit their partner’s work. Finally, nominate a few students to read aloud their stories to the class.

An alternative activity to the story task is to ask students to write five sentences, each of which contains a word or phrase from the list. Alternatively, they can write five questions using a phrase in each to ask their partners.

Any of the above recycling activities can be executed individually according to the time available for recycling exercises.