High School Activities

Writing Prompts

See Writing Prompts. Topics useful in writing classes.

Phone Conversations

One of my JTEs recently made up an elaborate story for their phone lessons, She told them we (the two ALTs at our school) were unable to attend class that day because of a BOE meeting and that to practice phone calls her friend in Tokyo who works for a hotel said the students could call her. So the two of us sat in an empty classroom receiving calls on our cells from kids for 2 class periods. They really had no idea it was us and were so nervous. We could hear the cheering when they finished their call. We pretended to be hotel workers and they had to make a reservation for a room and dinner. It was pretty funny. I think they got graded on it more like a speaking test.

Another idea - I can't remember the details but I gave everyone in the class a phone number. One student stood up and called out/pretended to dial the number and the student with that number had to answer. Just makes it a wee bit more exciting since you don't know who it's going to be and all the students have to listen in case its them.

Jeopardy

See Jeopardy

Pick a variety of topics, six or so, and make up some basic questions. Ask the questions in English, and make the students answer in English.

Giving Advice

First review vocabulary they will need for the lesson 'I think you should... You had better not...' etc Then have the students look over an advice column. American Girl and Highlights Kids have great help sections with a variety of problems and the language isn't too difficult. http://www.americangirl.com/fun/agmg/help/ http://www.highlightskids.com/DearHighlights/h11mainArchive.asp#school

Have the students read some of the letters and identify what are the main problems, then come up with some advice. They can write it out or say it out loud depending on the type of class. After wards they can read some of the suggestions that were written in an agree or disagree with the replies.

Giving Advice Roleplay In pairs, one student is a teacher and the other is a parent. The parent feels that their child's grades are not high enough. The teacher is upset because the child often comes unprepared to class, or does not come at all. They are in a meeting to talk about what can be done.

In pairs or a small group, the students pretend they are friends who haven't seen each other in a long time. They can make up detailed back stories if there is time, i.e. they are old high school friends who haven't seen each other since they went to university... Tell each student that they must choose a problem (they don't like what they are studying, they want to change jobs...) and how they feel about it. They may need some time to work on this step. After get the students together and improvise a conversation. After they greet each other they each reveal that they have a problem and then they take turns giving advice.