Ingredients:
- just a set of words that you are working on
- flashcards, wordcards, a page of the coursebook with all of the vocabulary to be introduced and practise
- a board to display the category or a powerpoint to display them in an online less
Procedures:
- Introduce and drill the vocabulary as usual, with flashcards, electronic flashcards or realia
- When the kids feel comfortable enough with using and prounucing the word, move on to the second part of the presentation / controlled freer practice that this activity is
- Display the question and ask the students to answer it. When we just get started with this activity or if the group is small, we do it together as a class, later on, the kids do it in pairs for a moment or two.
- The whole activity is a categorising task, according to the kids’ preferences and opinions.
- I started doing it with my online students and the questions were presented in the form of colourful clouds on the slides, hence the name of the activity.
- All of the options that I have come up with and used with my kids include: I like / I don’t like, It’s interesting / it’s boring, I’ve got it / I haven’t got it, It’s made of metal / plastic / paper, It’s easy / it’s difficult, I always and I never, It’s big / small, Tell me more about…
Why we like it?
- It is a low-key, (almost) no-prep activity.
- It gives the kids an opportunity to use the new language together with the familiar structures, in a few different ways.
- It is not quite creative but it is personalised because the students categorise the words according to their ideas and preferences.
- The lower levels (i.e. pre-A1) can only categorise the words, the higher level kids (from A-1 upwords) can provide a simple justification for their choices.
- The most productive of them is ‘Tell me about’ but it might not be feasible with all of the topics and vocabulary sets.
- It is not very challenging so all the students can complete it.
Happy teaching!