Tag: games to learn vocabulary

Jason R. Levine produces some of the best videos for teaching and learning English online. You probably know his super famous rap on irregular verbs. However, for this post we agreed to create materials for another one of his videos. You will find materials here for his video on collocations with the verb HAVE.

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In the post you can find the following activities: a video with the song (by Jason), the lyrics worksheet, an infographic with all the collocations, an interactive quiz and a game. If you go through all the activities I am sure that you will know most of the collocations.

Watch the video and complete the following worksheet with the lyrics.

This post covers only the first two verses of the song so stop the video after the two verses.
Have collocations song

Go through the following infographic. If you have a monolingual class, ask them to translate the collocations. If you teach an international group, explain only the more difficult phrases.

Then ask the students to work in pairs or small groups and to ask and answer the questions in the outer circles.

Both of the following games are created in HTML5, so they will play on all mobile devices.
The first game is called Quiz Goose Science, and your task is to click on the dice in the upper right hand corner. When you do, your avatar moves. If you finish your move on a question mark, you will be given a question. If you answer correctly, you will move ahead. If not, you will be moved backwards.
You can play against either the computer or other people.

To play on the full screen click the button:
Game – full screen

The second game is an interactive quiz. Your task is to answer all the questions as well as you can. If you pass the quiz you will be rewarded with a game.

To play on the full screen click the button:
Quiz – full screen

I would like to thank Jason for his cooperation, and I hope we will publish many other posts together. In the meantime, you should check out the following videos by Fluency MC:

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This is the third post which contains ten new words for intermediate students. The words are among the 4,000 most frequent words in English. This selection of words is based on Paul Nation’s list of words. If you have missed the first post on vocabulary, you can find it here. The second post Learn 10 words in 21 minutes is here.
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[showmyads] I hope you will find it useful and that you will learn the new vocabulary. To achieve this, there are a worksheet, a mind map with the words, an interactive exercise and a video with the correct pronunciation.

First, you should study the words in the following infographic. I try to give the definition of the word, a clue to remember the word quicker, and some example sentences. Be careful with the memory aids, though. They work perfectly for me, but it does not mean that they will work for you. If you feel they are unhelpful, just skip them. I honestly hope these will help you learn the vocabulary better and quicker.

To get the pronunciation right, listen and repeat the words with the native speaker.

You can practise the vocabulary now in the following interactive quiz. The quiz is in HTML5 and it will play on all mobile devices. If you pass the quiz you can play the game Indiara as a reward.

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[showmyadsa] Interactive quiz – full screen

If you cannot do the quiz above or you prefer working on a paper, you can print out the following document and practise the vocabulary there.

Vocabulary part 4_ws

Vocabulary part 4_key

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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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.

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).

Here you can find all the states and nationalities in the wordsearch.

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[showmyadsa] And finally, here is a game Teacher invaders to practise all that you know.

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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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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.

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.

Means of transport – worksheet

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.

Means of transport – BINGO cards 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.

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.

Means of transport – Indiara game

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.

Means of transport – Tower defence

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.

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.

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.

The practice is based upon the following worksheets. Print them out and follow the instructions:

TV programmes

TV programmes_answers

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.

TV programmes bingo call card

TV programmes bingo cards

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.