Teaching For Exams? Have fun! Word Formation... Bingo!

⚠️UPDATE⚠️
This blog post has been shortlisted for this month’s TeachingEnglish blog award 💖🥇

Hi  again my fellow EFL teachers!
Are you in trouble with training your students for English language exams? Don't worry! Here I am with a new, fun game you can play with your students!

This time I'm focusing on:

Cambridge First Certificate
Reading and Use of English part 3
This task is called word formation and it focuses on candidates' knowledge of how prefixes, suffixes, internal changes and compounds are used in forming words.

So many affixes, which don't always follow a rule, drive my students nuts. Thus, I created this simple, but fun game!

What you need:
a 3x3 grid [students can make their own grids during the lesson]
pencils/pens
What you have to do:

If you make copies beforehand, write a suffix (e.g. -ist) or prefix (e.g. ir-) on the top of each box and write a grammar category (e.g. person noun), whether the word is negative/plural at the bottom of each box. Otherwise, you can write the affixes and the other information about the word formation on the board and ask students to copy them on their papers.

Rules of the game:
1) Once all the students have their grids,
E.g.

the teacher says a word
E.g. football
2) The teacher says a grammar category
E.g. noun person
3) The learner writes the noun person for football in the right box. --> Footballer 

4) When the learner has completed all the boxes, s/he shouts out BINGO!

The list of words for the grid above are:
- football (person noun)
- society (adjective)
- survey (person noun)
- polite (abstract noun)
- maintain (abstract noun)
- relevant (negative adjective)
- journal (person noun/plural)
- patience (negative adjective)
- happy (manner adverb)

5) To make it more challenging add a few more words to the list which don't fit in the grid. Students need to realise that they must not write anything when the teacher calls out that word + grammar category. Remember to tell them before you start playing!
E.g.
- kindness (negative adjective --> UNKIND)
- politics (person noun --> POLITICIAN)

IF YOU'RE LOOKING FOR MORE GAMES TO PRACTISE THIS PART OF THE EXAM, TAKE A LOOK HERE.

Teaching for Exams? Have fun! - Key-word transformations with a twist

One of the most tricky and challenging parts of the Cambridge First Exam is Use of English part 4. Students always complain about how difficult it is and prefer to skip it rather than taking the bull by the horns.
If you don't know about this part of the exam, here you are the description from the Cambridge English website.

KEY WORD TRANSFORMATION: Each question consists of a sentence followed by a ‘key’ word and a second sentence with a gap in the middle. You have to use this key word to complete the second sentence so that it has a similar meaning to the first sentence.

I do think that students need to learn to face their weaknesses and practice makes perfect. On the other hand, in their shoes, I understand that training for an exam must be boring so I decided to match a fun game with this exercise.

KEY-WORD TRANSFORMATIONS WITH A TWIST

What do you need? Worksheet(s) of Key word transformations 

A spinner board (optional)

A Finger Twister board

KEY OF THE COLOURS (for those who don't have a spinner board)

GREEN - LEFT HAND - THUMB

ORANGE - LEFT HAND - INDEX FINGER

PINK - RIGHT HAND - LITTLE FINGER

BLUE - RIGHT HAND - RING FINGER

RULES

1) Students work in pairs

2) Students in turns rotate the spinner board. The arrow indicates a finger and colored circle. OR Students in turns call out a colour and number.

3) The teacher boards the corresponding transformation.

4) The student needs to answer the question.

4a If the student answers correctly, they don't put any fingers on the board.

4b If the student makes a mistake, they have to put their finger on the corresponding circle according to the spinner/ the number and color they have previously called out.
4c The teacher gives the chance to another student to answer correctly. If they can answer correctly, they take off one of their fingers from the finger twister board.

5) The winner is the student with fewer fingers on the board, that is, the one who has made fewer mistakes.

My students have never had such fun doing this exercise. :)

Teaching for Exams? Have Fun! UNO Card Game

UPDATE: This blog post has been shortlisted for the 'Blog Award for Innovative Teaching Ideas' by Teaching English British Council.

Hello EFL teachers,

I am back with a new post for the "Teaching for Exams? Have Fun!" series!




I wanted my students to revise the following target language for their Cambridge First for Schools exam:
- phrasal verbs,
- collocations,
- grammar,
- idioms.
I didn't want to make them feel bored, though.

What did I come up with, then?

A card game, yes a card game!

Do you know UNO? If you don't, have a look here .

If you do, keep reading!

The rules of the game are the same as those of UNO except for the following additional rule: students need to make up a sentence using the target language on the card they are about to place.


If your students are training for the Cambridge First for Schools you can download my own deck of cards from this link or if you wish, edit them according to your needs (link)!

P.S. I played this game with a class of 6 students, if your class is larger you can divide them into small groups.  For example, for a 20 student class you can make up 2 groups of 10 so you only need to print out two decks of cards.

Cambridge FCE/FCE for Schools: Speaking Paper Tips

Some of my students are going to take the Cambridge FCE exam at the end of the month so I created for them this handy visual graphic with some tips to follow during the exam. I hope you and your students will find it useful!

You can also find a PDF printable version here.