All You Need is Paper (and a little love) ESL/EFL activities

Here's an activity I did with a fourth grade bilingual group. They were studying the plurals ending in -ies and -ves. I pre-made the trunks and the leaves just to save time but you can have them create everything. They were each given black paper, two trunks and 10 leaves. They were then instructed to look in their books for words which made their plural using one of these forms. We had studied these plurals the previous class. They were supposed to write the words on the leaves and then glue them to the branches. They worked together and compared their words to make sure they were right.

Everybody knows how to play tic-tac-toe. I used this game to review superlative with my teen students but it can be used for just about anything. All you have to do is adapt it to what you're teaching. A friend from work gave me the idea to use popsicle sticks (thanks Candice). You can use small paper squares for the exes and circles. It would be best to have students write the words on the paper themselves. The more they do the better. In this picture I used bottle tops, which I am forever saving. After they played the game a few times, they had to come up with sentences in the superlative of the words they used to play. I placed each tic-tac-toe set in plastic bags and handed them out to pairs. If you have time, the class can rotate around the room and play all the sets; each one had different words on them.

In this activity, students "receive" actions from other students and later have to produce passive voice sentences to describe what happened during the activity. This will show them why the passive voice is sometimes given preference over the active voice to explain events. You'll need paper slips and tape .  There are suggestions for the commands for each slip at the bottom; however, please remember to use two or more copies of the same commands but also not all of them. Keep only one copy of a few commands to make sure the group will practice singular and plural passive voice.  Here are the steps: 1) Teacher checks the vocabulary from the slips, then has students stand up and make a circle. 2) T uses pieces of tape to stick a slip of paper to the back of each student ( printable picture ). In order to keep interest in this activity high, T shouldn't allow them to see what the slips contain before the activity. Ss must be told to "do whatever they re...

This activity is great for teens or adults. Show your students an image. I have a board on Pinterest with loooots of fantastic art that can be used to engage sts. Pinterest is a great place to save and organize things you will use one day. Hand out slips of paper; if you have a group of 6 to 10 sts give them 2 slips per st. Tell sts to write a word on each slip related to the image. It can be what they see or what they feel. Don't tell them yet what they're going to be doing with the slips. After they are done, collect the slips. Oraganize your class into groups; you can decide how many depending on the number of sts you have. Hand back the slips, an even number to each group if possible. Then, each group has to come up with a story based on the picture you showed them, using the words on the slips. They have to use all the words they have. Give them the time they have to come up with their stories. Depending on what you're teaching, you can also determine which verb tens...

This is an activity for studentss to practice the use of prepositions. Have them go around the school and take a picture of an object. Tell them to work individually so others don't see what they're taking a picture of. It's better if you set a time limit, maybe use a timer, or you know, they might come back the next day. Anyway, when they get back to class, project the objects or just show their phones to the class and ask: where is this? They have to answer, for example: it's the water fountain next to the girls' bathroom or it's the table in front of the library or even, those are the flowers in the garden. Easy, simple and it works. You're welcome.

I didn't really know what I could call this activity but I guess Drawing Heads is exactly what it first starts out to be. Let me tell you what I did. We were studying clothes and the kids were all 6 or 7 years old. I handed out paper and asked them to use the entire size of the paper to draw their heads. When they were done, I taped the Heads to the board, gave each student a pen and asked them to draw the rest of their bodies. They then had to describe what they were wearing to their friends. Very simple but they had a lot of fun on the board and could change what they were wearing. You can also use this and instead of just having them draw whatever clothing they want, you dictate what they should draw. You can have them add belts, boots and buttons. By the way, that's me in the striped pajamas.

This is something kids love to do. Plus, it's veeery easy to prepare. Guess what you need to do it... that's right, Paper! Oh, and a pen which can't be that hard for you to find somewhere. :) Well, here goes. Get some of the vocabulary your students are practicing and write one word on the top right hand corner of a sheet of paper. I recently did this with clothes, so I wrote pants, dress, gloves, shirt and shoes, one word on five different sheets and taped them up in different parts of the room. You can add more words to my list and even do this with actions like: swimming, sleeping etc. Next, tell your students you're going to be playing a song which they have to get up and dance to till you stop the music. When the music stops they have to run to one of the papers and draw whatever's written on the sheet. Give them a minute or two to draw and then start the music again. I usually make sure everyone has had a chance to draw each word. You can keep these up ar...