Low on resources? No photocopier? Time to fill? Here are some activities which need no other material than a pen and board and pen and paper.

Manual mouse clicks
Write the words you want students to revise all over the board. Tell the students that the board is the computer screen, and that the pen in the cursor. Ask a student to direct you to a word by saying left, right, up, down. Once the pen is over the word, tell the student to say click! This changes the word into its meaning; unfortunately there is no html on the board so you have to rub out the word and write its meaning in its place! Do this a few times so the students get the idea. If a student clicks on the meaning, it becomes the word again. Let the students do it together in pairs, with paper, pencils and rubbers, with one student holding the pencil and changing word into its meaning (or vice versa), and the other directing and ‘Clicking’

Board cleaning .
Write the words you want your students to learn on the board and their meanings or a picture to explain it. Take a piece of paper and clean one word with. Now tell students to pass the paper around the class, saying the word and meaning as they do this. Do the same with other words. Eventually when you have all the words in circulation, stop the activity. Tell students to come up to the board in turn and write whichever word is repesented by the paper they are holding. When all the words are up, there should be the same number as when you started.

A minute to win it!
Think of a word you want to revise. Put students in teams of 3 or 4, write the first letter on the board, ‘D’ and tell them to call out all the word they can think of starting with that letter. If they have not found it in 15 seconds, give them the second letter ‘E’. Students call out all the words beginning with ‘De’. If they haven’t found it at the end of 30 seconds give them the third letter eg ‘N’, and after 45 seconds the fourth letter eg ‘T’ They should be able to guess ‘Dentist’.The team that finds the word in the shortest time is the winner.

Letter moves
This is based on five positions; two letters and three blanks. The players take it in turn to move letters. The aim is to reposition one letter each turn, so it does not make part of an English word. For example, suppose the starting position is H,C, blank, blank, blank. The first player moves the ‘C’: ‘H, blank, C, blank, blank’ The second player moves the ‘H’ ‘blank blank C blank H’ The first player moves the ‘C’. ‘C blank blank blank H’. The second player sees that this could make the word ‘CATCH’, and so is the winner. The only rule is that letters cannot be put in the exact same relative positions twice. Vary the number of positions/letters as required.

Threes
Choose a long (twelve plus word) sentence, for example:‘It was late when I got home last night, and everyone was asleep.’ Write the words alternately in three boxes on the board:

1 It when home and asleep
2 was I last everyone
3 late got night was

Now mix up the words within the boxes.

1 It home asleep when and
2 everyone was last I
3 was late got night

Put students in groups of three, number each student 1, 2 and 3. Then ask them to make the sentence by taking it in turns to say one word from their box. Encourage them to experiment until it sounds right. Leaving the capital letter on the first word will help them start.

Blocked views.
Write the words and meanings that you want students to learn on the board. By standing directly in front of a student, you nominate the student to answer a question and block his view at the same time, thus forcing him to rely on memory for the word you ask. Several students can be appointed as ‘view blockers’. Students who cannot remember the meaning of the word asked can change roles with blockers.

Vocabulary graph.
Write the words you want to teach/revise on the board, about 15-20 words. These should be concrete nouns only, and it may be a good idea to select suitable words specially for this activity. Draw a graph on the board and label the axes ‘size’ and ‘value’. Choose one of the words and plot it on the graph, for example, ‘diamond’ will be well up on the ‘value’ axis but near the bottom of the ‘size’ axis. ‘Tree’ would bigger ,but less valuable. Ask the students to guess which word it is from the position on the graph.

Next, clear the the classroom floor as much as possible. Tell the class that the graph has been transferred to the floor, and show where the axes are, eg along two walls of the classroom, at right angles. Stand somewhere on the graph and ask which word they think is represented by the position you are in. Get two or three volunteers to do the same as you, then ask two students to choose words and stand on the graph at the same time. When the words have been guessed, elicit comparisons such as ‘a car is bigger than a dog’ ‘ a car is worth more/is more expensive than a dog’. This should be clear from the relative positions on the graph. Finally, give each student a different word on a piece of paper, and tell them to find their places on the graph. They stand on the graph and make comparisons with their words and the words of the students who are standing near them.

What to do if your pen runs out...
Finally, if your pen has run out of ink, write without ink, ie in the air. Write words, sentences and ask students what they are. Change the words in the sentences eg rub out ‘Cat’ and write ‘dog’, move words around to make questions eg ‘you can- can you’. Make mistakes and ask students to correct them. Point to a space on the board and ask which word you wrote there. Tell them the full stop has fallen on the floor, pick it up and put it back in its place. Ask them if they can read your handwriting and check this with individual words. Ask them to spell the words. Mime all this as if the words were really on board. Have fun...

Simon Mumford

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