Fillers
1. Circles on the board
This is a very learner-centred activity as learners are responsible for what goes on the board and
there is a lot of learner interaction.
Learners look back at the vocabulary theyve recorded over the last few weeks. They shout out
the words they think are useful.
The teacher writes about 30 words anywhere on the board, but not in order. The teacher divides
the class into two teams.
Each team member must be certain of the meaning of all the words on the board, so they ask or
answer questions from the rest of their team to check. Set a time limit for this stage. Nominate a
learner from each team to come to the board. Give each learner a different coloured board
pen. At the same time, team members from both teams shout explanations for the words on the
board to their pen-holders. When the pen-holders realise which word it is, they can circle the
word. The team keeps shouting explanations until the teacher says CHANGE and another
member becomes the pen-holder. The winning team is the team with the most circles.
Rules:
You CAN shout out Its a noun Its a verb etc.
You CAN shout explanations for any word anywhere on the board.
You CAN say Next if you dont understand your team members explanations.
You CANT say Its the word in the corner / underneath etc.
You CANT put a black circle around a word that already has a red circle around it.
[ filling in 30 minutes with an activity that may have no connection to previous lessons]
2. Dont say it!
Put learners into pairs. Give 10 counters (chips) to each pair. Each learner then has five counters.
In the pair, learner A has one minute to ask learner B a series of fast questions on any subject
he/she likes. Learner B replies, but must not say Yes or No. For every yes or no learner B
accidentally says, a counter must be given to A. When the minute is finished, its Bs turn to ask
the questions. Repeat these until A and B have both had a few turns asking questions. The player
with the most counters is the winner.
filling in 5-10 minutes with an activity that has no connection to previous lessons
3. Balloon debate
There are many variations on this favourite English language teaching activity. For example, get
learners to shout out the names of jobs, e.g. fireman chef banker games designer film
director taxi driver. (If you have 12 learners, you need 6 jobs, 14 learners you need 7 jobs
etc.)
Check that learners understand what each job is.
Allocate a job to each pair of learners, e.g. You two are firemen, you two are chefs.
Then draw a hot air balloon on the board. Tell learners that they are in the hot air balloon but its
sinking and someone will have to jump out to save the rest.
Each pair has time to prepare notes about why they are really useful to society and why they
should stay in the balloon.
After the preparation time is finished, split the pairs up. Put 1 fireman, 1 chef, 1 banker, 1 games
designer, 1 film director and 1 taxi driver in one balloon, and their pairwork partners in the
other balloon. Then the argument begins!
Monitor the learners arguments and collect errors to put on the board for later discussion.
[filling in 30 minutes with a review activity]
