So this is Christmas. And once again I am looking for some interesting materials to use in my lessons. But I don’t want to recycle as the students often remember very well what we did last year or the year before. Lucky kids, as I can hardly remember what I did yesterday :-).
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In my opinion, vocabulary is the most important part of language learning. If you know some words and no grammar, you can communicate. However, if you know a lot of grammar and no words, communication is impossible.
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In this post I would like to give you a chance to enrich your students vocabulary with words for describing items of clothing. There is an infographic, a film and an online quiz to help you teach over 30 words connected with clothing. I hope you find this post useful.
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Clothes vocabulary – film
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Here is a film to present and teach vocabulary connected with clothes. All the words are displayed, and pronounced by a native speaker. The video consists of two parts. In the first part the students see the clothes, and the word and they hear the native speaker pronounce the word. Their task is to repeat the words. In the second part of the video they only see the clothes, and their task is to say the correct word before they hear the speaker.
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Clothes vocabulary – infographic
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To make sure that your students can practise the vocabulary at home too, print out the following infographic and hand it out.
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Clothes vocabulary – online quiz
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The following quiz is in HTML5 and will play on all mobile devices. It consists of two parts. In the first part, you should match the words with the correct pictures and then click on the correct piece of clothing.
In the second part of the quiz, you have to write the words you see in the picture. If you pass any of these parts, you will be rewarded with a game.
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[su_button url=”https://engames.eu/Clothes/Clothes vocabulary test (Web)/index.html” target=”blank” background=”#f8d23c” size=”6″]Clothes vocabulary – quiz[/su_button]
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Clothes vocabulary – Links
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You can find some great materials to teach clothes vocabulary at the British Council site.
Placement tests are extremely important if you do not know your students well and you need to know what to teach them. Further, these tests can be used to measure whether your students made any progress during a certain period of time.
Placement tests are often professionally produced and sold for a lot of money. And as nearly every publishing house sells placement tests, they are probably in demand. However, there are very few placement tests available for young learners of English.
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Noticing this gap, I decided to design a placement test for young students. The test is aimed at children aged 8 – 10. They should have studied English for 2 or 3 years for about 3 hours per week.
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Placement test
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The test contains 40 items. The students should choose the correct word for each of the pictures from the line below. They should write the number of their answer in the box nearest the picture. You will need to print the placement test in colour as it is not possible in some cases to choose the correct answers without seeing the pictures in colour.
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How to interpret the results?
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You can either give the test to the students at the beginning of the school year and then compare the results with the same test at the end of the year and see the progress.
Or you can use the following interpretation:
- 40-35 The student knows everything from the textbooks Happy House 1, Happy House 2 and Happy Street.
- 34-20 The student knows everything from the textbooks Happy House 1 and Happy House 2.
- 19-10 The student knows everything from the textbook Happy House 1 and should move to Happy House 2.
- 9-0 The student should start with the textbook Happy House 1.
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More placement tests
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If you do not teach young learners and you need a placement test, you can find a free one here.
If you would like to know how many words your students know, you can try the vocabulary placement tests here.
Or if you would like to have your proficiency level checked professionally, you can find information at the British Council site.
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You can find some information about the Oxford online placement test here.
Weather is one of the most common conversational topics in Britain. Therefore, if you know the basic vocabulary, you can talk to 60 million people. With 60 million conversation opportunities, it is well worth the little effort you need to put in.
To make it as enjoyable as possible, there are several activities to help you learn all the words: a pictionary, a worksheet, a video and an interactive test.
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Weather – infographic
[/su_heading] [su_spacer]You can learn the vocabulary using the following infographic or pictionary:
To get the pronunciation right, listen and repeat the words in the following video:
After you learn the words, it is time to practise using the new vocabulary. First, you can try the following worksheet. Try to solve all of the puzzles.
[su_spacer] [su_heading size=”26″]Weather vocabulary – quiz
[/su_heading] [su_spacer]The following interactive quiz is made in HTML5, so it will play on all mobile devices. Therefore, you can practise all of the words wherever you are.
If you would like to display the quiz on the entire screen, click the button below:
Weather vocabulary – further resources
[/su_heading] [su_spacer]You can find a lot of information about weather at British Council site.
I like the following songs about weather:
Telling the time is something I have to teach every year. And to be honest I have not been very successful. Even gifted adults struggled.
And this year I faced even bigger challenge. I was supposed to teach this to a group of challenged children who cannot tell the time in their MT. So I prepared some new materials and … And I did it.
And here is how.
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Telling time – mind map
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We started with the following mind map. I asked the children to learn the words for each time.
Then I demonstrated telling the time in English using one of the PAST times. I told them that they have to start with the minutes and then add the clock. The WOW moment came and I was really happy. Then I showed them how to work with the blue phrases. They soon understood that they have to add 1 to the number of clocks.
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Telling time – classroom activities
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Of course it is nice to understand something but only practise makes masters. So here are several activities we have tried in our class.
First, we played bingo. I dictated the times and the students crossed them out. The winner (3 times in a row) shouted Bingo.
Another variation of the same game is that the students tell the time. Ask each student to choose one time on his card and tell it. The others listen and if they have it on their cards they cross it out.
Telling the time – bingo cards
The other activity is a pair work. Each student gets a card and they dictate their times to their partner.
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Telling time – computer activities
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If you want to provide home practice for your students you can use the following activities. First, you can ask your students to choose the correct time according to what they hear:
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[su_button url=”https://engames.eu/tell_the_time/Telling time (Web)/index.html” target=”blank” background=”#f08cf5″ size=”6″]Telling the time – listening[/su_button]
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In the second quiz students are asked to write the time correctly. Both quizzes are in HTML5 so they will play anywhere.
[su_button url=”https://engames.eu/tell_the_time/Telling time_produce (Web)/index.html” target=”blank” background=”#f08cf5″ size=”6″]Telling the time – produce[/su_button]
You can find another interesting game to practice language connected with time at British Council time.
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Telling time – share
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Do you like the activities? You can share them on your blog or website. Or if your classroom does not have the internet connection you can use these activities too. The only limitation is that you must not sell the activities.
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When I started teaching the English alphabet I was really sure that it will be fun and easy to achieve. My students had no problem learning the alphabet itself, but when they should have used it, they were making a lot of mistakes. I have tried everything. We tried using finger alphabet, some information gap exercises where spelling was necessary and so on. However, all these activities had very poor results. Seeing my failure I decided to create an audio-lingual computer based activity. It is a simple drill but I believe that those who will pass the test will be able to spell correctly.
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Alphabet – introduction
[/su_heading] [su_spacer size=”30″]As I write above learning the alphabet from A to Z was no problem. The students were greatly helped by several alphabet songs and games. The best ones came from British Council pages on alphabet. We really enjoyed these.
To help my students more I have created the following mind map. I hope you will find it useful too:
Alphabet – audio-lingual quiz
[/su_heading] [su_spacer size=”30″]I tried to find some recordings with spelling but I was shocked that I managed to find only two of them in different textbooks. So I had to created some myself. I asked a native speaker to spell 25 different English words and these I put into the following quiz. You should listen and then write the words you hear. It is not easy and the passing score is really high. Will you succeed?
At the end there is a game for you. Both the quiz and the game are in HTML5 so they will play on any mobile device too. [su_button url=”https://engames.eu/vocabulary/alphabet/Alphabet (Web)/index.html” target=”blank” background=”#f08cf5″ size=”6″]Alphabet – Audio-lingual quiz[/su_button] [su_spacer size=”30″]
Alphabet – Treasure hunt
My students love this game. Even more so, if I bring a reward for the winners.
Start the game and display the grid. Call the students to say a pair of letters and then click on the appropriate square. If they do not hit the treasure blue square appears. Call the students randomly. The one who finds the treasure gets the reward.
There are two slides with the grid so, you can play two games.
[su_heading]Alphabet – share
[/su_heading] [su_spacer size=”30″]If you do not have an internet connection you might find the following files useful. You can upload the files to your own site or use them off-line.
There are many different states and nationalities in the world and we cannot know all of them. However, it is necessary that you know your own nationality and the name of your state. Moreover, I think that you should know at least the names of the most populous countries. That is why I have created the following post. There is a video presentation of 15 countries and nationalities. Then there are these states presented in a mind map and several quizzes to practice the new vocabulary.
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Countries and Nationalities – video
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Here is a video presentation of all the countries and nationalities taught in this post. Each country and nationality is pronounced by a native speaker and there is their flag.
Next you can listen and sing the following song and try to solve the quiz here. If you succeed you can play a tic-tac-toe game against the computer.
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Countries and Nationalities – mind map
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After watching the videos above you can ask the students to fill in the following mind map with the correct states and nationalities. If you do not want to teach the nationalities, you can ask your students to fill in the name of the state and all the things they can say in English about each state. (e.g. Italy, pasta, Rome).
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Countries and Nationalities – games
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Here you can find all the states and nationalities in the wordsearch.
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And finally, here is a game Teacher invaders to practise all that you know.
Adaptive learning has been the new buzz word in Language teaching community for some time. It sounds so promising. Students will learn only those things they do not know and they will practise what is needed for them to remember. And of course everything will be computer based and the students will be able to learn at the moments they feel like it.
Sounds great, however there are many pitfalls. I recommend the text on Adaptive learning and teaching at http://the-round.com/resource/a-short-guide-to-adaptive-learning-in-english-language-teaching/. To show you how such an adaptive learning activity could look, I have created a simple adaptive learning activity on Dates.
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It is really simple, because it will repeat the thing the student does not master only once. Ideally the programme should offer a different explanation (based on your mistakes) each time you fail to learn something. Here I mostly offer the same explanation, but I have tried this in one case.
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Dates – activities
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The aim of the adaptive learning activity is to teach ordinal numbers from 1 to 12 and the months.
Thus at the end the students will be able to form Dates in English using the ordinal numbers from first to twelfth (plus twenty-first, twenty-second and twenty-first). If you want to teach the all the dates go to the following post on DATES .
Here is the adaptive learning activity. As it is in HTML 5 it should work on any device. Just follow the instructions and if you learn all the dates you will be give a chance to play a game. Enjoy.
If you would like to see the adaptive learning activity on the full screen click the button:
[su_button url=”https://engames.eu/dates/DATES_html5 (Web)/index.html” target=”blank” background=”#f08cf5″ size=”6″]Dates – adaptive learning[/su_button]
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Dates – Share
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At some schools there is a problem with the internet connection. That is why you can download the following file and use the activity offline with your students. Moreover, you can upload the activity to your site and share it there. No strings attached 🙂
I have already published a post on numbers. However, there I expected that you know the basics and that you need to learn a bit more about them. This post is different. Here, I would like to start at the very beginning and present the basic numbers from 0 to 99. To achieve this there is a mind map, two quizzes and several worksheets dealing with these.
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I hope that you will find the article interesting and useful.
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Numbers – mind map
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In the following mind map I try to depict all the way in which we form the numbers from 0 to 99.
Be careful not to leave out the hyphen. If you write the number without it, then the number is wrong!!!
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Numbers – worksheets
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In this section I would like to share several worksheets to practise the numbers in a fun way.
The first one is a worksheet with two colourful crosswords. Print out the pdf file and solve the puzzles.
Numbers_crossword
The second worksheet contains four different tasks. There is a crossword, a spiral crossword, a wordsearch and a hidden words task. Once again, the file is in pdf, so you have to print it out to be able to solve it.
You can find more interesting worksheet at Alenka’s site.
The third worksheet is for teachers. It contains a bingo game. Print out as many cards as necessary and then call out the numbers and decide who wins.
I play a slight variation by asking the students to read one of their numbers.
Numbers 0 to 99_bingo_cards
Numbers 0 to 99_bingo_cards_call out list
If you are a teacher you might like to have a dictation file.
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Numbers – games
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This part contains two quizzes and games to practise the numbers.
In the first quiz you have to write the numbers in words. If you pass the quiz you will have a chance to play a game to practise your vocabulary. Good luck!!!
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The second quiz is a listening quiz. You have to listen and choose or write the numbers you hear. Especially the last part is really difficult. If you pass, you can play the game calle Math pop. Good luck!!!
There are some words you cannot live without in any language, and greetings certainly belong among those words and phrases. In this post I aim at introducing and teaching nine basic greetings for elementary students. To achieve this goal I there is a nice mind map and several games to practise these words.
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Greetings – mind map
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In this mind map there are the basic greetings ordered according to their frequency in British English. So the most frequent word in British English is “HI”.
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The letters in the circles show how formal or informal the given expression is. If it is informal we use the greeting with people we know well and our friends. With other people we use the formal greetings.
Notice that HELLO is both formal and informal. This greeting is often used instead of GOOD MORNING etc. and no one thinks you are being impolite.
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Greetings – games
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It is time to practise the greetings and learn them. The first game is in HTML 5 and it will play on any mobile device you use. It is a simple crosword. Click on any square and at the top of the crossword there will appear a clue. Then just type your answer. You can print out the crossword too and then solve it on a paper. It is up to you:
[su_button url=”http://www.envocabulary.eu/crossword/?puzzle=greetings” target=”blank” background=”#92eef5″ size=”6″]Greetings – Crossword[/su_button]
The other two games are in Flash and therefore they will play just on your desktop. The first one is called Teacher invaders and you have to answer all the questions with the correct greeting and then shoot all the invaders. Good luck.
[su_button url=”https://engames.eu/greetings/Greetings_invaders (Web)/index.html” target=”blank” background=”#92eef5″ size=”6″]Greetings – Teacher Invaders[/su_button]
The second game is called half a minute and it is suitable for classes with an interactive whiteboard. When you start the game there will appear the jumbled greeting and students have to write it on their paper and then one of them can type it into the computer. However, you have to do this in 30 seconds. Have a good fun with it.
[su_button url=”https://engames.eu/greetings/Greetings_halfamin (Web)/index.html” target=”blank” background=”#92eef5″ size=”6″]Greetings – Half a minute[/su_button]
Recently we have published a placement test based mostly on grammar. Some of our readers commented that a vocabulary placement test might be useful too. That was why we have tried to create a test which would show you how many words you know. A part of the test is partly based upon the test by Paul Nation, however the first part is completely original.
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This test is for beginners and elementary students of English. Here you can find out, how many words from the 2,000 most common words in English you know. So, if you answer all the questions correctly, you know all the 2,000 most common words in English. If you answer only 50% of the questions, you know 1,000 words. Your aim is to score as much as possible.
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Vocabulary placement test – beginners
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The following test contains 60 items. Your task is to drag the most suitable word to a given picture or into a given gap. You can guess because there are many extra words which make correct guessing virtually impossible. Once you finish the resulting score tells you how many words you know.
If you want to do the test in a full-screen mode click over here for the HTML5 version:
[su_button url=”https://engames.eu/placement test/Vocabulary placement test_beginners (Web)/index.html” target=”blank” background=”#92eef5″ size=”6″]Placement test vocabulary HTML5[/su_button]
If you want to do the test on your computer and you prefer flash, click on the button below:
[su_button url=”https://engames.eu/placement test/Vocabulary placement test_beginnersflash (Web)/index.html” target=”blank” background=”#92eef5″ size=”6″]Placement test vocabulary flash[/su_button]
If your score is close to 2,000 it is clear that you know more words. If you want to find out how many, you can try our Vocabulary placement tests for pre-intermediate and more advanced students (coming soon on this website.)
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Vocabulary placement test – share
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If you have a website where you would like to share this test, you can embed it there by placing the following code into it:
<iframe src="http://www.envocabulary.eu/placement test/Vocabulary placement test_beginners (Web)/index.html" width="560" height="500" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
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Vocabulary placement test – comments
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We welcome any comments you might have, because they help us improve the posts here. We try to implement your comments into the activities immediately and we try to answer them. For example, there are nearly 20 comments to the Placement test post and thanks to you we were able to improve several questions, so now the test is much more reliable than it was before. Therefore do not worry and comment. THANK YOU.
Means of transport is one of the topics you cannot avoid. Nowadays people travel a lot and they often have to do it on daily basis. And thus it is one of the most natural topics for a conversation in a class. Here you can learn the names of several means of transport and you can learn to speak about them fluently. To help you achieve this there is a mind map, a video, several worksheets and two games.
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Means of transport – song
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Start the lesson with the following song. It is fun and you can ask your students to count how many different means of transport they heard in the song:
The correct answer is 13.
In the following exercise, you can try listening again and tick all the means of transport you hear.
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Means of transport – vocabulary
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After introducing the vocabulary, it is time to learn it. The following worksheet contains three activities for you. There is a crossword, a spiral crossword and a set of jumbled words. Print the worksheet out and try to complete the activities.
[su_button url=”https://engames.eu/vocabulary/means_of_transport/means of transport crosswords.pdf” target=”blank” background=”#17ad38″]Means of transport – worksheet[/su_button]
If you are a teacher, it might be a good idea to include the BINGO game in your lesson. There are 18 different BINGO cards for you to print out. You can either call out the words yourself or you can ask your students to write 3 sentences which contain one or two of their words. Then each student reads one of their sentences and the others cross out the words they hear. Do not forget to set the winning combination before you start the game.
[su_button url=”https://engames.eu/vocabulary/means_of_transport/means of transport bingo cards.pdf” target=”blank” background=”#17ad38″]Means of transport – BINGO cards[/su_button]
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Means of transport – mind map
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This part is the most difficult one. While the previous activities were for elementary students of English, this one is more suitable for pre-intermediate and intermediate learners. Print out the following mind map and then watch the video and complete it.
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At the end of the video there is a task to speak about the given topics for the set times. You can, or better you should, use your mind map with your notes. If you can speak about the means of transport, the following games will be a piece of cake for you.
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Means of transport – games
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The first game is quite easy. Complete the quiz and if you pass you can play the game called Tower defence. The game and the quiz are in HTML 5 so they will play on your mobile device.
[su_button url=”https://engames.eu/vocabulary/means_of_transport/Means of transport_matching (Web)/index.html” target=”blank” background=”#ad1776″]Means of transport – Indiara game[/su_button]
The second game is slightly more difficult. Your task is to complete the sentences from the video, so if you are not sure what there was, play the video on means of transport again. If you pass the test you can play the Indiara game. Good luck.
[su_button url=”https://engames.eu/vocabulary/means_of_transport/Means of transport_quiz (Web)/index.html” target=”blank” background=”#ad1776″]Means of transport – Tower defence[/su_button]
Recently I published a post on TV programmes vocabulary. In this post I would like to add a few activities to help the teachers prepare a great lesson on this topic and to give students a few more activities to practise the vocabulary.
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Unlike in the previous posts, there are several worksheets which you can print out and use. There is a song and a gap fill, a bingo worksheet and a worksheet with five more activities to practise the vocabulary connected with TV programmes. And of course there is a mind map to help you remember the new words better.
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TV programmes – song
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I love using songs at the beginning of a lesson. Especially if they are popular, they can serve as a great starter. If you are just a learner of English, you can try the interactive quiz below.
For this lesson, I am going to use the song Throw Away your Television by Red Hot Chilli Peppers.
Complete the lyrics:
I you need the lyrics for your classroom or a you simply prefer paper materials, here are two pdf files.
TV song_red hot chilli peppers
TV song red hot chilli peppers – key
At the end of the song I will elicit the topic of the lesson by the following questions:
What will be the lesson about?
What will we learn?
Once I get the topic of the lesson out of the students I move to the other part of the lesson.
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TV programmes – Vocabulary presentation
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There are three ways to go about presenting vocabulary. I would use the video from the previous post on TV programmes vocabulary and the following mind map.
If you do not like any of the materials above, all the new vocabulary is listed in the worksheets too.
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TV programmes – Vocabulary practice
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The practice is based upon the following worksheets. Print them out and follow the instructions:
If you have already presented the students with the video and a mind map, start with the second exercise. Students should put the words into the correct form and complete the sentences. Once they complete them, discuss the questions in pairs and then as a whole class.
The other exercises are quite simple and quite fun. Ask the students to do as much as they can in 10 minutes. You can give them the answers at the end of the activity or you can check their answers.
Once we do the worksheets, I give my students a chance to use the new words creatively. Ask them to write 3-10 questions using the new words. Help the struggling students by giving them the simple example What sports programmes do you watch? and show them that they can create 12 questions by replacing the words sports programmes with other TV programmes vocabulary.
When the students write the questions give them a chance to ask you their questions. Answer the questions and at the same time you have a chance to correct the most striking mistakes.
After a while ask the students to discuss the questions in pairs.
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At the end of the lesson I try to put a game. This time I have prepared the Bingo game for my students. Print out the following worksheet and cut it. Shuffle the cards and give each student one. Ask them to work in pairs and say the names of the TV programmes they have on their cards. They can ask you if they are not sure.
If you are sure that the students know all the words there are two options for you. You can either read the words yourself or I ask each student to say one of the words. Remember to state the winning combination before you start the game.
And that is the end of the lesson. If I count correctly, the lesson will take about 40 minutes.
Everyone watches TV sometimes. Thus, to be able to speak about what they watch students need some specialised vocabulary. The aim of the following post is to introduce and teach 13 names of TV programmes.
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To achieve this, we have prepared the following activities: a video, a mind map, a pictionary and two games to practise the vocabulary you have learnt.
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TV programmes – video
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Watch the following video and repeat the words. Go through the video as often as you feel necessary to remember all the words for the TV programmes.
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TV programmes – graphically
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If you find the video to fast here is a pictionary. You can study the vocabulary from the following picture:
You can learn the vocabulary here
Once, you feel that you know all the necessary vocabulary, it is a good idea, to print out the following mind map and complete it with all the words you remember. Try to add the names of some real TV programmes you watch too. For example write a comedy programme to the picture of Laurel and Hardy and write there Friends, too.
Write the words you have learnt and examples of the programmes you know.
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TV programmes – games
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Now you have a chance to practise your knowledge in a playful way. The first quiz is fully in HTML5 so it should play on your mobile devices too. Try to solve the quiz by matching the words and the pictures and by writing the appropriate words to the pictures. If you pass you will play the game called angry Farmer. My best result has been 25. Will you be better than me?
[su_button url=”https://engames.eu/tv_programmes/TV programmes_quiz (Web)/index.html” target=”blank” background=”#17ad38″]TV programmes – HTML 5 quiz[/su_button]
The second game is going to play only on your desktop as it is in flash. The name of the game is Half a minute and your task is to unjumble the words. Good luck.
[su_button url=”https://engames.eu/tv_programmes/TV_programmes_half.swf” target=”blank” background=”#17ad38″]TV programmes – Half a minute game[/su_button]
In my last post I try to teach 11 common similes in English. However, as some students still feel that they need more practise, I have decided to produce this post too. This post contains a visually appealing demonstration of all the 11 similes, a short film to learn the phrases and a dictation exercise.
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Similes – picture
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You can see all the similes in one picture. Go through them and try to remember the phrases.
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Do you know these similes?
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Similes – video
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In the following video you can see and hear all the similes. In the first part you are asked to repeat the phrases. In the second you have to produce the phrases on your own.
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Similes – dictation
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In this task you will hear the similes used in simple sentences. Listen and write the sentences. If you succeed you can play the game Angry finches. Good luck
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Similes – practice
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If you know all the similes print out the following mind map and complete it with the similes. You should keep the printout and use it for future reference.
Complete this mind map with the similes you remember
A year ago George Woolard published a book called Messaging. There he suggests that learners of a foreign language should learn the whole phrases and sentences. By learning the whole chunks the students will later be able to produce the language quicker and more precisely.
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I think that I can agree with this proposition. However, there is a problem. It is much more difficult to commit to memory long sentences than short words. That is why this method will probably never spread much.
Fortunately there is one area in English that follows the Messaging principle and at the same time does not overwhelm our memory. These are similes. As they consist of well known words and they have got their rhythm they are easy to remember.
In this post I am going to introduce eleven common similes which will be presented in a mind map. Then you can learn the phrases in a presentation and once you know all the similes you can test your knowledge in two quizzes. If you pass the quizzes you can play the games Car race and Angry Finches.
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Similes – mind map
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First study the similes in the following mind map once you know the phrases, cover the text and produce the similes looking at the pictures only.
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Similes are easy to remember.
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Similes – presentation
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Go through the following presentation and try to remember the phrases. If you have remembered the phrases using the mind map, you can skip this exercise.
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Similes – games
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In the first game you should match the beginning and the end of the phrase. If you match more than 60% of the phrases correctly, you can play the game Car race. Good Luck.
In the second quiz you have to complete the sentences with the missing words. Each gap contains exactly one word. If you pass the test (you need 80% this time) you can play the Game Angry FINCHES. This game si fully supported by mobile phones.
In this post I would like to introduce about 20 new words connected with towns. These words are neccessary if you want to speak about the place where you live or stay.
The vocabulary is for elementary and pre-intermediate students and it covers different basic features which can be found in towns and cities.
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This post contains a video with the correct pronunciation and example sentences. Then there is a mind map to help you organise the vocabulary and learn it. In the last part there are several games to give you an opportunity to practise the town vocabulary.
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Town vocabulary – video
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Watch the video and repeat the words you hear and see. Try to understand the example sentences and later try to repeat them too:
If you feel that you need to practise the words, watch the video several times.
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Town vocabulary – mind map
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Now you should try to complete the following mind map with all the words from the video. The words are listed in the bottom right corner of the mind map:
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Town vocabulary – games
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The first game will test your vocabulary knowledge. There are several quizzes and then, if you succeed, you can play a game. The game is called Hot race.
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[su_button url=”https://engames.eu/town_vocabulary/townfeatures (web)/index.html” target=”blank”]Town vocabulary – quizzes and games[/su_button]
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Many of my students feel that listening is the most difficult skill. Therefore, I have prepared the following dictation activity. You will hear several sentences and your task is to write the sentence you hear. If you are successful, you will get a chance to play the game Rock, scissors and paper. (Of course, you can skip the game, if you do not want to play it. Just click on the NEXT button and you will get another dictation.)
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[su_button url=”https://engames.eu/town_vocabulary/towns_vocabulary_dictation (web)/index.html” target=”blank”]Town vocabulary – dictation[/su_button]
To say dates in English is quite simple. However, as there are two ways to do this, students often get confused and mix both of them together. I hope that this post will help them clarify this extremely important area. [su_heading]
Dates – mind map
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To be able to say dates in English correctly, it is necessary to know the ordinal numbers. Most of the ordinal numbers are made by adding the ending -th.(If you have a problem with this sound, I strongly recommend this BBC video) However, as always, there are several exceptions to this rule. The rules are explained in ther upper right corner of the mind map.
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Notice the way the change of spelling of the words twenty and thirty. In English there are only two ways to say dates. You can either start with the month and then say THE and the ordinal number, or you can say THE + the ordinal number + OF + the month. Do not mix the two ways!!! [su_heading]
Dates – games
[/su_heading] Once you have studied the mind map, it is time to practise everything. In the first game you have a chance to practise all the ordinal numbers. Your task is to shoot all the invaders and from time to time write the given ordinal number. There are all the ordinal numbers which you will ever need to say date.
[su_lightbox src=”https://engames.eu/dates/ordinal_numbers_invaders.swf”][su_button] Ordinal numbers – Teacher invaders [/su_button][/su_lightbox]
In the second game, called On target, your task is to choose the correct way a given date is said. I believe that if you play this game twice or three times you will learn the correct way to say the dates.
[su_lightbox src=”https://engames.eu/dates/dates_on target game.swf”][su_button] Dates – On target [/su_button][/su_lightbox]
If you come to this site using a mobile device you might hate the fact that most of the games do not play there. That is why I am trying to add a few HTML5 games to play even there. Here is one of them.
Find the ordinal numbers: [su_lightbox src=”https://engames.eu/games/wordlook/ordinalnums/index.html”][su_button] Ordinal numbers – Find the words [/su_button][/su_lightbox] [su_heading]
Dates – conclusion
[/su_heading] All the materials in this post have been tested in the classroom and they have been improved on the basis of students’ reactions and suggestions. I hope that you will find them useful. If you study dates, you might need to improve your NUMBERS too. You can find a post on numbers here.
In this post you should learn to read and write numbers in English. To help you with this I have created a simple graphical presentation and three games. I hope you will find them useful and that it will help you learn English better.
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Numbers – Mindmap
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Have a look at the graphic and read the instructions how to read and write the numbers. Each explanation includes several examples which are listed bellow, next to the planet.
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Numbers explanation
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Numbers – Games
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In the following section you can find several games to practise numbers. The games are ordered from the easiest to the most difficult.
The first game is called Half a minute and your task is to write the number within half a minute. In fractions use a slash (/).
[su_lightbox src=”https://engames.eu/Numbers/numbers_halfamin.swf”][su_button] Half a minute – game [/su_button][/su_lightbox]
The second game is called Teacher invaders and your task is similar to the previous game. You should write the numbers correctly andsave the Earth against the Teacher invaders.
[su_lightbox src=”https://engames.eu/Numbers/numbers_invaders.swf”][su_button] Teacher Invaders – game [/su_button][/su_lightbox]
The last game is the most difficult one. It is called On Target and you should choose the correct way that a number is written in words. When we played the game at school the students got only 40% of the answers right. Will you be better than them?
[su_lightbox src=”https://engames.eu/Numbers/numbers_ontarget.swf”][su_button] On target – game [/su_button][/su_lightbox]
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Conclusion
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I hope that by now you know the ways to read and write numbers in English. If you want to learn more English vocabulary, you can try here Animals, Furniture or Plants. Each of the posts contains a video, a mind map and several games to practise the words. Enjoy
My friend keeps asking me whether there is a logical way to see if he should use DO or MAKE. I always told him that there is not and that he should learn the phrases by heart. However, when he asked me for the third time I sat down and created a logical division for him. It is not foolproof but it is better than nothing. So I hope you will find it useful too.
Make and do – mind map
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Make and do – games
As there is nothing more to explain, here are two games to practise the language.
Make and do – Hoop shoot
In this game it is your task to choose the correct verb and then stop the circles as close to the center as possible. Good luck.
[su_button url=”https://engames.eu/make_do/make_do_hoopshoot.swf” target=”blank” background=”#f56b68″ size=”7″ desc=”The game is in Flash”]The HOOP SHOOT GAME[/su_button]
Make and do – Teacher invaders
In this game your task is to write the right word (MAKE or DO) to complete the phrases. And then … SHOOT THEM ALL.
[su_button url=”https://engames.eu/make_do/make%20and%20do_invaders.swf” target=”blank” background=”#f56b68″ size=”7″ desc=”The game is in Flash”]The INVADERS GAME[/su_button]