Purpose: to review vocabulary

Preparation Time:  5 minutes - the time it takes to decide what vocabulary you

wish to review with learners

Materials:  colored chalk for blackboard or colored markers for whiteboard;

itmight be helpful to have picture dictionaries on hand or other visuals to prompt

 learners’ memories about vocabulary

Preparation: think about how you want to get students ready to do the activity; for example, you could model it first by doing a mini-version.  Write a short list of words on the board and talk about different ways to group the words (see procedure below).

Procedure:

1. Ask the students to call out all the words they know related to a given topic, such as weather or transportation.
2. Two student “scribes” write the words on the board as the class calls them out.
3. When all the words are on the board, ask the students to group them in as many different ways as possible.  The scribes can use colored chalk or markers to circle related words.  For example, if the topic is transportation, all 4-wheeled vehicles, such as trucks, cars, taxis, and buses, could be grouped.  Motorcycles and bicycles would be in another group.  Streets, bridges, traffic lights and signs might be another group.

Variations:

·        The words can be written on strips of paper or post-its and affixed to the board.  The strips of paper can then be moved around on the board to form different groups.