Student-made Playing Cards for Oral Phrase Practice

Eoin Jordan and Sarah Butler, UK

Eoin Jordan and Sarah Butler both teach at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University. Eoin’s main research interests are World Englishes, English pronunciation and vocabulary acquisition. Sarah’s interests are student autonomy, study skills and professional development. E-mails: eoin.jordan@xjtlu.edu.cn, sarah.butler@xjtlu.edu.cn

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Quick guide
Introduction
Procedure
Variations
Conclusion

Quick guide

Keywords: Lexical chunks, card game, speaking practice
Learner English level: Intermediate to advanced
Learner maturity: High school to adult
Preparation time: Five minutes
Materials: Small cards or cut up paper

Introduction

This article describes a versatile and easy to prepare activity that can be used in speaking lessons where target phrases are practiced through pair-work or group-work conversations. It can help to ensure that students attempt to use the phrases that they are least familiar with, rather than repeating those that they already know well.

Procedure

Step 1: After introducing the theme and purpose of your chosen activity (for instance, practicing how to interrupt politely or how to manage a discussion), present students with a list of target phrases that you want them to use. Check that they are clear on their meanings and how each language item should be employed. Then ask students to pick out several of the phrases that they feel they rarely use when speaking.

Step 2: Give the students sets of blank cards, and then instruct them to write down one of the phrases that they selected in the previous step on each of their cards.

Step 3: Show your students the conversation scenarios that you want them to practice in pairs or small groups. Tell them that, as they go through the conversations, whenever they use a phrase on one of their cards, they should ‘play’ that card onto the table in front of them. Instruct them that their goal is to play all of their cards ahead of their partner, and that when both of them have laid down all of their cards, they should swap their hands with each other and start again.

Step 4: Monitor the students while they are engaged in the activity and note down any problems they are having for class feedback later. As faster students are nearing the end of their lists of conversation topics, stop the activity and pick on some of the more successful pairs or groups that you observed to demonstrate their conversations in front of the class.

Variations

The card creation aspect of this task could also be adapted to timed writing activities. Students could be asked to select useful phrases that they rarely use, or inappropriate phrases that they overuse, from a list and make cards of them. These could then be kept to one side during a timed writing exercise and taken out at the end to check if they had in fact used (or avoided using) them.

Conclusion

This activity proved very effective in encouraging students to use unfamiliar language that they would otherwise avoid in conversation activities; thus focusing them on the forms they needed to practice the most, rather than just on conversational content. Practice such as this is likely to contribute to the range of expression that students are capable of producing in spoken English.

Please check the Methodology for Teaching Spoken Grammar and English course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Methodology and Language for Secondary Teachers course at Pilgrims website.