Black Sheep
This can be used for any grammar point / vocabulary exercise and is basically
an 'odd one out' exercise.
For a class of 40 I prepared 40 cards (with words, phrases,
etc. written on them), divided into 10 groups of 4.
In this case we were practicing present progressive.
Examples of three groups are as follows:
I'm washing my hair
I'm brushing my teeth
I'm listening to music
I'm cleaning the windows
I'm smoking
I'm drinking beer
I'm singing at karaoke
I'm getting fit at the gym
I'm laughing
I'm watching 'manzai' on T.V.
I'm crying
I'm telling a joke
The students were taught the simple question, "What are you doing?", and
in their groups they asked and responded to one another with what was written
on their cards. They then had to decide which sentence was the 'black sheep'.
Finally, each group had to repeat their phrases to the entire class and the class
had to decide which group member was the black sheep. This led to lots of noise
and sheep sounds and general revelry. Sorted.
We found this to be a good consolidation of the verbs they had learnt in
the previous lesson, and also gave us a good idea of what had gone in
and remained there. It also taught them the idiom "Black Sheep".
For classes
with a better memory for grammar and vocabulary than my rowdy lot, picture cards
would work just as effectively and would encourage the students to form their own
sentences (i.e. describe picture instead of just reading).
