THEORIES OF MEANING

 Prof.Abdelhamid Fouda 

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Here, we will briefly discuss the theories concerned with semantics.

1. The Theory of Naming; This theory, explained in Plato‟s dialogue Cratylus maintains that language is a 

communication system which works with two elements; the signifier, and the signified. Plato says that the signifier is a 

word in the language and the signified is the object in the world that it „stands for‟ or „refers to‟. Thus, according to this 

theory words and things are directly related. Traditional grammar was based on the assumption that the word was the 

basic unit of syntax and semantics. The word was a „sign‟ composed of two parts, or components: the form (signifier) 

and its meaning (signified).

There are some difficulties with this view, however. Firstly, it seems to apply to some nouns only. You may locate the 

signified (object) which the signifier (word) „chair‟ refers to. However, there are some nouns which do not refer to 

objects in this world: examples are Unicorn and Raxsh (Rostam‟s special horse in the Iranian epic written by Ferdousi). 

Secondly, there are other nouns that do not refer to physical objects at all. Thus, what are the objects which love and 

hatred refer to? Thirdly, with a noun we can draw a picture of the object that is denoted (referred to). But this is 

impossible with verbs. How should we show run, hesitate, and annoy? The same problem remains regarding adjectives 

and adverbs, as well.

2. The Conceptual Theory of Meaning: In the theory of meaning, just explained, words and things are directly related. 

But in the conceptual theory of meaning words and things are related through the mediation of concepts of the mind. 

Ogden and Richards (1923) saw this relationship as a triangle: 

Thought (or Reference or Meaning or Concept)

the symbol = the linguistic element; the word, phrase, sentence

the referent = the object in the world

thought or reference = concept

Thus, according to this theory there is no direct link between the symbol and referent – the link is through reference 

or thought (our concepts). The problem with this view is that we do not precisely know the nature of the link or bond 

between symbol and concept.

The conceptual theory of meaning or mentalistic theory is maintained by Chomsky. He believes that intuition and 

introspection must play a crucial part in our investigation of language.

3. The Behavioristic Theory of Meaning: The term context of situation is used by two scholars, first by an 

anthropologist called Malinowski, and later by a British linguist called Firth. Both of these scholars stated meaning in 

terms of the context in which language is used. These two maintained that the description of a language is not complete 

without some reference to the context of situation in which the language operated. A more extreme view sees the 

meaning of the linguistic elements AS the situation in which the word is used. Bloomfield, the structuralist, maintained 

this behavioristic view. He explained his view through his famous account of Jack and Jill.

As we know, Bloomfield is a follower of Skinner‟s school of psychology called behaviorism. However, Skinner‟s 

model has been severely criticized by Chomsky, a proponent of the conceptual theory of meaning.

Feminist Criticism (1960s-present)

 Prof.Abdelhamid Fouda 

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Feminist criticism is concerned with "...the ways in which literature (and other cultural productions) reinforce or undermine the economic, political, social, and psychological oppression of women" (Tyson). This school of theory looks at how aspects of our culture are inherently patriarchal (male dominated) and "...this critique strives to expose the explicit and implicit misogyny in male writing about women" (Richter 1346). This misogyny, Tyson reminds us, can extend into diverse areas of our culture: "Perhaps the most chilling example...is found in the world of modern medicine, where drugs prescribed for both sexes often have been tested on male subjects only" .

Feminist criticism is also concerned with less obvious forms of marginalization such as the exclusion of women writers from the traditional literary canon: "...unless the critical or historical point of view is feminist, there is a tendency to under-represent the contribution of women writers" (Tyson).

Common Space in Feminist Theories

Though a number of different approaches exist in feminist criticism, there exist s⁹ome areas of commonality. This list is excerpted from Tyson:

Women are oppressed by patriarchy economically, politically, socially, and psychologically; patriarchal ideology is the primary means by which they are kept so

In every domain where patriarchy reigns, woman is other: she is marginalized, defined only by her difference from male norms and values.

All of western (Anglo-European) civilization is deeply rooted in patriarchal ideology, for example, in the biblical portrayal of Eve as the origin of sin and death in the world

While biology determines our sex (male or female), culture determines our gender (masculine or feminine)

All feminist activity, including feminist theory and literary criticism, has as its ultimate goal to change the world by prompting gender equality.

Gender issues play a part in every aspect of human production and experience, including the production and experience of literature, whether we are consciously aware of these issues or not .

Feminist criticism has, in many ways, followed what some theorists call the three waves of feminism:

First Wave Feminism - late 1700s-early 1900's: writers like Mary Wollstonecraft (A Vindication of the Rights of Women, 1792) highlight the inequalities between the sexes. Activists like Susan B. Anthony and Victoria Woodhull contribute to the women's suffrage movement, which leads to National Universal Suffrage in 1920 with the passing of the Nineteenth Amendment.

Second Wave Feminism - early 1960s-late 1970s: building on more equal working conditions necessary in America during World War II, movements such as the National Organization for Women (NOW), formed in 1966, cohere feminist political activism. Writers like Simone de Beauvoir (Le deuxième sexe, 1972) and Elaine Showalter established the groundwork for the dissemination of feminist theories dove-tailed with the American Civil Rights movement.

Third Wave Feminism - early 1990s-present: resisting the perceived essentialist (over generalized, over simplified) ideologies and a white, heterosexual, middle class focus of second wave feminism, third wave feminism borrows from post-structural and contemporary gender and race theories (see below) to expand on marginalized populations' experiences. Writers like Alice Walker work to "...reconcile it [feminism] with the concerns of the black community...[and] the survival and wholeness of her people, men and women both, and for the promotion of dialog and community as well as for the valorization of women and of all the varieties of work women perform" (Tyson)

Ready, set, Kahoot!

TCLP Teacher Profile- Howida Hassan

TCLP Teacher Profile - Passant Aly

100 Best Ice Breaker Questions In Ranking Order (2021 Update)

 Prof.Abdelhamid Fouda 

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We've put together the ultimate list of 100+ ice breaker questions conveniently categorised & ranked for different contexts.

Modern organisational life, regardless of culture, is characterised with essential teamwork. Yet, we often find ourselves neglecting the integration of ways to break down barriers, get acquainted and build trust.

However, awkward silences and uncomfortable hellos don’t just disappear off their own accord. This is when you need a long list of quick and easy icebreaker questions to get the ball moving and to get your team feeling comfortable with each other.

Designed to be fun, interesting and proven to accelerate team development, ice breaker questions are the perfect way to get your team shivering with excitement.

Below, you’ll find 10 categories of questions that contain all of our favourite ice breakers, each with the questions in ranking order. We’ve covered everything from fun icebreaker questions, to one’s related to the job, to some old fashioned ones and then to some more creative ones.

Chapters

Fun Ice Breaker Questions

'Get To Know You' Icebreaker Questions

Personal Ice Breaker Questions

'If You Could' Icebreaker Questions

Success, Ambition and Passion Ice Breaker Questions

The Worst Icebreaker Questions

"Do You Prefer?" Ice Breaker Questions

"Would You Rather?" Ice Breaker Questions

Ice Breaker Questions Specific To Work

One Word Ice Breaker Questions

Bonus Icebreaker Questions

Frequently Asked Questions

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Thousands of teams around the world play QuizBreaker as a fun way to learn more about each other and bring their teams closer together.

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If your team is working remotely at the moment then you should check out our guide on virtual team building activities. In there you'll find 100 ideas with instructions that you can try with your newly remote team.

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1. Fun Ice Breaker Questions

First things first, the crucial one thing is that ice breaker sessions are fun. So, kicking off to a lighthearted start, these are our favourite fun and easy icebreaker questions for you and your team to try.

1. Are there any interesting things your name spells with the letters rearranged?
2. If you were a potato, what way would you like to be cooked?
3. Would you go to space if you knew that you could never come back to earth?
4. Have you ever been mistaken for someone famous?
5. What animal would you chose to be?
6. What is the most embarrassing thing you’ve ever done?
7. What is the strangest gift you have ever received?
8. What kind of reality show would you appear in?
9. Which of Snow White’s seven dwarfs describes you best (Bashful, Doc, Dopey, Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy or Sneezy)?
10. What song describes your life right now?

2. 'Get To Know You' Icebreaker Questions

These icebreakers are simple, yet effective, questions designed to encourage employees to get to know each other a little better. They involve everyone and can be used with new team members or for teams who know each other very well.

11. How many languages can you speak?
12. What's your middle name?
13. What is your favourite strange food combinations?
14. What’s your favorite place?
15. Where did you grow up?
16. What’s your favourite hobby?
17. If you could be anywhere in the world right now, where would you be?
18. Are you a listener or a talker?
19. What was your last song on your spotify?
20. Are you a back seat driver?

3. Personal Ice Breaker Questions

Sharing our hopes, dreams, wishes and desires helps us to understand each other and form deeper relationships. These icebreaker questions are best suited to teams who know each other on a basic level but want to take their workplace relations one step further.

21. Describe your dream holiday if money was no limit?
22. Where do you want to retire?
23. Complete the sentence “I wish everyone could…”
24. Describe your dream wedding if money was no object?
25. What would you do if you knew you could not fail?
26. What is your goal by the end of the decade?
27. What is your dream job?
28. When you were a child, what was your biggest dream?
29. What talent would you most like to grow and develop?
30. Where would you build your dream home?

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4. 'If you could' Icebreaker Questions

These icebreaker questions encourage people to think their toes, be pushed outside their comfort zone and get creative. Again, these lighthearted and fun questions will get your team feeling relaxed and inspired to get to know each other.

31. If you could have any super human power, what would it be?
32. If you could audition for a talent TV show, what song would you pick and why?
33. If you could give a piece of advice to your younger self, what would it be?
34. If you could be a kitchen appliance, what one would you be and why?
35. If you could be in the Guiness book of world records, what record-breaking feat would you attempt?
36. If you could have an extra hour of free time everyday, how would you use it?
37. If you could take 3 things to a desert island what would they be?
38. If you could have an endless supply of food, what would it be?
39. If you could speak another language, what would it be?
40. If you could only listen to once album for the rest of your life, what would it be?

5. Success, Ambition and Passion Ice Breaker Questions

There is a great deal of pressure on employees to perform well in businesses. Getting to know what drives their success early on and in a different way to help you to motivate them.

41. Describe an experience in your life that changed your values?
42. Is it ever OK to waste time?
43. Tell us one big problem you’ve had to solve this year?
44. Using just one word, name something that drives your success?
45. What three things would you like to accomplish this year?
46. What new, or additional, skill do you think you need now to progress further?
47. What is the reason you get up in the morning?
48. When was the last time you did something for the first time?
49. When you were six years old, what did you want to be when you grow up?
50. What would you do if you have all the money in the world?

6. The Worst Icebreaker Questions

All the other questions we present to you will be focused on fun, development and humour. Yet, it is important to focus on the lower times and to be reflective. If you feel comfortable enough with your team to ask these icebreaker questions, then we feel that they will aid your team in creating deeper workplace bonds.

51. What is the first lie you ever told?
52. What is your worst personality characteristic?
53. What is the worst food you ever eaten?
54. What is the worst advice you’ve ever given?
55. Describe your worst day ever
56. What is the worst trouble you go into as a kid?
57. Describe the worst movie you’ve ever watched?
58. What is the worst pick up line you’ve ever heard?
59. What is the worst holiday you’ve ever been on?
60. What is the worst grade you ever got?

7. "Do You Prefer?" Ice Breaker Questions

Use these simple questions to lighten the atmosphere and add a little humour to your meetings. Our top tip is that you could make these ice breakers into a friendly competition. For example , everyone puts their hands up if they prefer beaches and their hands down if they prefer pools. You could offer prizes for the winners, or just use the competition to keep the ice breaker games engaging.

61. Do you prefer the pool or the beach?
62. Do you prefer books or films?
63. Do you prefer nights out or nights in?
64. Do you prefer mornings or nights?
65. Do you prefer summer or winter?
66. Do you prefer cats or dogs?
67. Do you prefer fruits or vegetables?
68. Do you prefer sweet or savoury?
69. Do you prefer to dress smart or casual?
70. Do you prefer cardio or weight lifting?

8. "Would You Rather?" Ice Breaker Questions

Lets face it, we’ve all played this when intoxicated at a college party and found it hilarious. We can only suggest keeping it PG when playing it in the office, but we’re sure it’ll bring the same humour to your work team as it did to your college parties. “Would you rather?” icebreaker questions are a different and exciting way to find out people's preferences, values and likes.

71. Would you rather be able to run at 100 miles per hour or fly at 10 miles per hour
72. Would you rather be an olympic gold medalist or an astronaut?
73. Would you rather fart or burp glitter?
74. Would you rather travel back in time to meet your ancestors or would you rather go to the future to meet your descendants?
75. Would you rather be funny or clever?
76. Would you rather have no arms or no legs?
77. Would you rather lose your sight or hearing?
78. Would you rather have invisibility or flight?
79. Would you prefer to always be slightly late or always be an hour early?
80. Would you rather always be cold or always be hot?

9. Ice Breaker Questions Specific To Work

Lighthearted icebreaker questions are all fun and games. However, when it’s time to get down to the business of team building, we’ve also got you covered. Try these work related ice breakers when trying to create a professional environment or when forming new teams.

81. If you could immediately gain one skill, what would it be?
82. Where do you see yourself going in the company?
83. What do you think the most important thing is for a workplace to have?
84. What do you admire most in a work colleague?
85. What coffee do you drink in your morning meeting?
86. What do you think you contribute most to the workplace?
87. If you could open an office anywhere in the world, where would it be?
88. What is the longest you’ve ever stayed in one job?
89. What was the worst job you've ever had?
90. What was your first job?

10. One Word Ice Breaker Questions

These are perhaps the quickest icebreaker questions. However, they are arguably the least insightful and the least fun. Nonetheless, stick a few of these in to make the ice breaker activities feel less like an interrogation...

91. Describe the sun in one word?
92. Describe your in-laws in one word?
93. Describe the person to your left in one word?
94. Describe yourself in one word?
95. Describe your breakfast in one word?
96. Describe your house in one word?
97. Describe England in one word?
98. Describe your weekend in one word?
99. Describe your fashion trend in one word?
100. Describe your car in one word?

11. Bonus Icebreaker Questions

100. Have you ever had an imaginary friend?
101. Who is your favorite cartoon character?
102. What was your favorite subject in high school?
103. Who would you want on your team in a zombie apocalypse?
104. What's your favorite family tradition?
105. Who was your childhood actor or actress crush?
106. Describe your dream house
107. Are you a dog person or a cat person?
108. What's your favourite ride at a theme park?
109. What year would you visit if you had a time machine?
110. What's your current cellphone wallpaper?
111. What's your go-to dance move?
112. Name one thing still on your bucket list
113. What's your favorite breakfast cereal or breakfast food?
114. What would your entrance theme song be?
115. Have you ever been bungee jumping?

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Frequently Asked Questions

• What are other good icebreaker type questions?

They are plenty of different questions you can ask when you are learning more about your colleagues and new employees. In fact we have an awesome list of "would you rather" questions and ["get to know you" questions] that would be a great addition to any icebreaker activity.

• What are icebreaker questions?

Icebreaker questions are used to begin an activity or meeting. They are used to introduce new people in an informal approach. They are normally more personal questions to learn more about one another.

• How do you respond to icebreaker?

There is no right or wrong way to respond to an icebreaker question. But we suggest keeping it straight to the point and on the shorter end. You don't want to have long winded answered that might lose your audiences attention.

• Where does the term icebreaker originate from?

Phrases.org states the orgin of "icebreaker" come from: "These ships, known as ice-breakers, were equipped with strengthened hulls and powerful engines and were employed in the exploration of polar regions.

Soon after these ships were introduced the term 'ice-breaker' began to be applied to social initiatives intended to get strangers acquainted with one another. In 1883, Mark Twain used the phrase that way in Life on Mississippi."

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Wrapping Up

So, there you have it.

100 of the best icebreaker questions that encourage conversations and help with team bonding & team building.

Feel free to mix and match the questions from different sections, this will keep your ice breaker sessions different and interesting.

However, be mindful that your icebreaker sessions are kept short and sweet - no one wants to spend all day doing this! You’ll probably find it useful to set a time limit - we recommend setting aside the first five minutes of any meeting for ice breaker questions. And then, it’s time to get down to business.

Congratulations, you've made it to the end of our epic list of icebreaker questions. Once you've gotten through all of these there really shouldn't be any ice between you left! Perhaps it's now time to try out some other team building activities.

If you want to go deeper with the ice breaking then you should also check out our list of the best ice breaker games.

• Heather Har

Twitt

75 ESL Teaching Ideas

 Prof. Abdelhamid Fouda 

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• iteslj.org
• The Internet TESL Journal Archives
• Projects
• Activities for ESL Studen

Introduction

These are the ideas included in Hall Houston's Random ESL Idea Generator. If you have a JavaScript-enabled browser, you can use the generator to get a randomly-selected idea from this list. Perhaps you will find it useful to print out this list and refer to it from time to time.

The Ideas

1. Alter the pacing of your class. If you rush through your class at full speed, slow things down and take time to ask your students personal questions based on the materials you are using. If you tend to proceed at a snail's pace, prepare some additional activities and push yourself to accomplish more than you usually do.
2. Ask a student to demonstrate a dance, and assist the student in explaining the movements in English.
3. Ask students to name as many objects in the classroom as they can while you write them on the board.
4. Ask students to present to the class a gesture that is unique to their own culture.
5. Ask students to write one question they would feel comfortable answering (without writing their name) on an index card. Collect all of the index cards, put them in a bag, have students draw cards, and then ask another student the question on that card.
6. Ask your students if there are any songs running through their heads today. If anyone says yes, encourage the student to sing or hum a little bit, and ask the others if they can identify it.
7. Assign students to take a conversation from their coursebook that they are familiar with and reduce each line to only one word.
8. At the end of class, erase the board and challenge students to recall everything you wrote on the board during the class period. Write the expressions on the board once again as your students call them out.
9. Begin by telling your students about an internal struggle between two sides of your personality (bold side vs. timid side OR hardworking side vs. lazy side), providing a brief example of what each side says to you. After a few minutes of preparation in pairs, have students present their struggles to the class.
10. Bring a cellular phone (real or toy) to class, and pretend to receive calls throughout the class. As the students can75 ESL Teaching Ideas only hear one side of the conversation, they must guess who is calling you and why. Make the initial conversation very brief, and gradually add clues with each conversation. The student who guesses correctly wins a prize.
11. Bring a fork, knife, spoon, bowl, plate and chopsticks (if you have them) to class, and mime eating some different dishes, letting students guess what they are. Then let your students take a turn.
12. Bring an artifact from the student's culture to class, and ask them questions about it.
13. Bring in some snacks that you think your students haven't tried before, and invite the students to sample them and give their comments.
14. Call on a student to draw his or her country's flag on the board, then teach him or her how to describe the flag to the class (It has three stripes...).
15. Choose one topic (food, sports) and elicit a list of examples (food - chicken, pudding, rice). Then have your student come up with the most unusual combinations of items from that list(chocolate-beef or wrestling-golf).
16. Collaborate with your students on a list of famous people, including movie stars, politicians, athletes, and artists. Have every student choose a famous person, and put them in pairs to interview each other.
17. Come to class dressed differently than usual and have students comment on what's different.
18. Copy a page from a comic book, white out the dialogue, make copies for your class, and have them supply utterances for the characters.
19. Copy pages from various ESL textbooks (at an appropriate level for your students), put them on the walls, and have students wander around the classroom and learn a new phrase. Then have them teach each other what they learned.
20. Copy some interesting pictures of people from magazine ads. Give a picture to each student, have the student fold up the bottom of the picture about half an inch, and write something the person might be thinking or saying. Put all the pictures up on the board, and let everyone come up and take a look.
21. Describe something observable in the classroom (while looking down), and tell students to look in the direction of what you described.
22. Draw a map of your country or another country that your students know well. By drawing lines, show students where you went on a trip, and tell them about it. Then call on several students to do the same. The trips can be truthful or fictional.
23. Draw a pancake-shape on the board, and announce that the school will soon be moving to a desert island. Invite students one by one to go to the board and draw one thing they would like to have on the island.
24. Draw a party scene on the board, and invite students to come up and draw someone they would like to have at the party.
25. Empty a bag of coupons onto a table, and have students find a coupon for a product that they have no need for.
26. Experiment with how you write on the board, altering your writing style, the size of the letters, the direction you write, and the color of the chalk/pens.
27. Explain to your students what it means to call someone a certain animal (dog, pig, fox) in English, and then ask them what these mean in their languages.
28. Fill the board with vocabulary your students have encountered in previous classes (make sure to include all parts of speech), and get them to make some sentences out of the words.
29. Find out what famous people your students admire, and work together with the class to write a letter to one of them.
30. Find out what your students are interested in early on in the semester. Go to the Internet from time to time to collect articles on these subjects for students to read during the class period.
31. First, instruct your students to write on a slip of paper the name of one book, CD, or movie that changed them in some way. Collect the papers, call out the titles, and ask the class if they can guess who wrote it. Finally, let the writer identify him or herself, explaining his or her choice.
32. Give each student a piece of chalk/pen and tell them to fill the board with pop song lyrics. Then put them in pairs, and get them to use the words on the board to create a new dialogue.
33. Give students a reward (such as a candy or a sticker) each time they take the artificial language in your textbook and turn it into an authentic question or comment about someone in the class.
34. Hand a student a ball of yellow yarn. Have him toss it to another student, while saying something positive about that student and holding onto the end of the yarn. Continue in this manner until there is a web between all the students.
35. Hand each student an index card, and tell them to write down a sentence that includes an error they have made this week, along with the correct version of the sentence. Next, tape all of the index cards on the board for students to look over.
36. Hang up four different posters (example - one of a world map, one of a famous singer, one of a flower, and one of Einstein) in the four corners of your room. Tell students to choose one corner to stand in, and talk about why they chose that poster.
37. Have each student make a list of the five most useful phrases for tourists visiting an English speaking country.
38. Have students come to the board one by one, draw a poster for an English language movie (without the title) they think the other students have seen, and let the other students guess which movie it is.
39. Hire a musician (flute? harmonica? banjo?) to play for a few minutes of your class period.
40. In small groups, have your students design a billboard for something other than a product (wisdom, humility, friendship, etc.).
41. Inquire to see if your students have any unusual talents (can wiggle their ears, can bark like a dog), and encourage them to demonstrate.
42. Instead of saying "Very good!" all the time, vary the ways you praise (and correct) students as much as possible.
43. Instruct your students to find something in their wallets/purses/pencil boxes, and tell the story behind it.
44. Invite your students to stand up and explore the classroom from new angles (look in drawers, under desks, behind posters, on top of cabinets). Then have students report their findings.
45. Just a few minutes before the bell rings, call on your students to choose the ten most useful words they came in contact with during this class period, then have them narrow it down to the three most useful words.
46. Pass around some magazines, and have each student choose an ad that he or she likes. Give students an opportunity to explain their choices.
47. Play a listening activity from your book an additional time with the lights turned off.
48. Play a recording of instrumental music and have some students draw on the board what the music makes them think of.
49. Play five very different sounds from a sound effects tape or CD, and assign students in pairs to create a story based on three of the sounds.
50. Play music that enhances certain activities (quiet music for a reading activity, dance music for an energetic TPR activity). Ask your students for their reactions.
51. Prepare colored letters of the alphabet on cardboard squares and put them in a bag. Students must draw a letter from the bag, and work together to create a sentence on the board. Each student must raise his or her hand to make a contribution, but the word the student calls out must begin with the letter he or she chose. Put the expanding sentence on the board, adding words only when they the grammar is correct.
52. Prepare several paper bags, each with a different scent inside (perfume, cinnamon, cheese), pass the bags around the class, and let students describe what they smell.
53. Print phrases such as "in the library" "at an elegant dinner with the Royal Family" "in a noisy bar" "in a dangerous neigborhood" on separate strips of paper, put them in envelopes, and tape them to the underside of a few students' desks/tables before they arrive. Write on the board a useful expression like "Excuse me. Could I borrow a dollar?" When students arrive, tell them to look for an envelope under the desks/tables. The ones who find envelopes must say the sentence on the board as if in the context written on the page. Other students must guess the context from the student's tone of voice and body language.
54. Produce a list of commonly used sentence-modifying adverbs on the board, such as suddenly, actually, unfortunately, and happily. Then launch into a story, which each student must contribute to, with the rule that everyone must begin the first sentence of his or her contribution with a sentence-modifying adverb.
55. Provide each student with a list of the current top ten popular songs. Play excerpts from some or all of the songs, and choose some questions to ask your students, such as: Did you like the song? Have you heard this song before? How did the song make you feel? What instruments did you hear?
56. Purchase a postcard for each member of your class, writing his or her name in the name and address space. Turn them picture side up on a table, have each student choose one (without looking at the name), then he or she will write a message to the person whose name is on the other side. If a student chooses the postcard that has his or her own name on it, the student must choose again.
57. Put students in pairs and ask them to guess three items in their partner's wallet/purse/pencil box.
58. Put students in pairs. Tell them to converse, but to deliberately make one grammatical error over and over, stopping only when one student can spot the other's intentional error.
59. Put students into small groups to create an application form for new students to the school.
60. Put the students in small groups, and ask each group to plan a vacation for you. They must plan where you will go, what you will do, who you will go with, and what you will buy. When they are finished, have each group present their plans.
61. Review a phrase or sentence that you want students to remember, by holding a competition to see "Who can say it the loudest/the quietest/the quickest/the slowest/in the deepest voice/in the highest pitched voice?".
62. Set up a board in your classroom where students can buy and sell used items from each other by writing notes in English.
63. Supply each student with a copy of the entertainment section of the local newspaper, and tell them to choose somewhere to go next weekend.
64. Take a particularly uninteresting page from your coursebook, and put students in groups to redesign it.
65. Teach on a different side of the room than you usually do.
66. Tell each student to report the latest news in their country or city to the class.
67. Tell your students to practice a conversation from their coursebook that they are familiar with, but this time they can only use gestures, no words.
68. When they are practicing a dialogue, have students play around with the volume, intonation, pitch, or speed of their voices.
69. Write "Tell me something I don't know." on the board, then ask students questions about things they know about and you don't, such as their lives, cultural background, interests, and work.
70. Write a common adjacency pair (Thank you./You're welcome OR I'm sorry./That's alright) on the board. Ask students if they know of any expressions that could replace one of the ones you just wrote. Write any acceptable answers on the board.
71. Write a number of adjectives, such as mysterious, happy, peaceful, sad, angry, and frustrated on the board. Call out a color, and ask your students to tell you which adjective they associate with that color.
72. Write a word on a slip of paper and show it to a student. This student must whisper it to the second student. Then the second student must draw a picture of what he or she heard, and show it to the third student. The third student, then, writes the word that represents the picture and shows it to the fourth student. Then the fourth student whispers it to the fifth student.... and so on. This continues until you get to the last student, who must say the word to the class.
73. Write an idiomatic expression (such as "It beats me." or "I'm fed up.") in big letters on the board. Call on a few students to guess what it means before you tell them.
74. Write down the names of about five very different people on the board (a small baby, a rude waiter in a restaurant, a fashion model, a stranger in a crowd, and a grandfather). Give students a common expression, such as "Good morning!" or "Sorry!", and ask students how they might say it differently when talking to a different person.
75. Write your name on the board vertically, and add a suitable adjective that begins with each letter of your name. The next step is to invite students to do the same.