Bored Game

Robin Usher, Hungary

Dr Robin Leslie Usher Ph.D wrote a doctoral thesis `Jungian Archetypes in the work of science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein`, 1992. He has been a teacher of English language and literature since 1994. He has taught in Hungary, Poland, Russia, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Oman and Libya. He is a science fiction writer, 'All For Naught Orphan Ufonaut' in Shelter of Daylight, Sam's Dot Publishing (2010). He published in the British SF academic journal Foundation, `Male And Female He Created Them Both: Beyond The Archetypes` (112), and the Hungarian Institute for Educational Research`s Educatio, `Learning To Study`. E-mail: robika2001@yahoo.co.uk

I was recently invited to Azerbaijan as a teacher trainer with KASPI Liseyi for a month and discovered a simple way of enthusing any class containing students preparing for Cambridge KET, PET or FCE examinations, although the method is applicable for any group of learners with an ELT professional to assist. All that`s required is a theme. Usually teachers have a book to work from, so I`ll assume a students` book and/or workbook, which contains some thematic material; for example, `Things In The Bathroom`. Ask the class to take a sheet of blank paper, or find an empty page in their notebook, then draw a square somewhere on the board and write START in the center. Join the first square to another and that to a third and so on until you have as many squares connected as you can reasonably allow yourself in the space available. From START you must write in each square that follows therefrom some instruction or rule that affords the students an opportunity to practice their English as they role play, which can be facilitated between two students by each deciding what side of a coin they represent themselves by and tossing it to decide whose turn it is to move, or something resembling a dice, which is in fact available as a `tool` with certain Smart Board software. If a dice is available it facilitates a board game between two and more, otherwise two approaches the maximum that can play with a coin. Explain to the students that they`ll also need a token of some sort to represent themselves as they move about the board, or give them something you`ve already prepared that they can use as a symbol of their personality, before inviting the students to devise their own role play game from whatever material they`re working on from their books, for example, `Things In The Kitchen`.