Three low-prep repertoires: go beyond comprehension with a text, run mingles well, and add randomness to drills with a dice.
Ten things to do with a text (Humphreys)
Critique the message · read aloud or retell with partners supplying missing words · redraw and describe · write from the title only, then partners guess it · remove a paragraph for students to write · upgrade key phrases (synonyms, fixed expressions) · act or mime with fading prompts · write exam questions on it.
Mastering the mingle (Houston)
Before: prepare the room and rules. During: join in. After: summarise the language. Variants: music; two facing lines with one-minute swaps; half the class moves; team races. Uses: Find someone who…, names in week one, guess the question, compliments.
Dice (Zapart)
The roll picks an animal to mime (“You are a big angry cat”), a true/false sentence, a linking word to finish a sentence starter, “There is / There are”, or a question word for group discussion.
Limits
- A short taster of an IH Journal article; no research cited; experience-based.
Apply in my context (Claude)
- Upgrade-the-phrase plus write-from-the-title are good additions to Prepare reading lessons. Combine with Output tasks after reading boost vocabulary retention.
Connections
Round-ups, gapped boardwork and reformulation · Ten paper activities for recycling vocabulary sets