Reply To: Advice or experience about tutoring English

[Elwood Mathy]

In addition to the above, just have fun with it. Give them some direction and activities and let them speak. I have some games that you can use for virtually any grammar or vocabulary lesson.

Guess My Character – Each person writes the name of a TV character, movie character or real famous person on a piece of paper without telling the others or letting them see. You exchange papers and hold them on your forehead. Ask yes/no questions for 5 rounds. Each yes gets you another question. No means it’s someone else’s turn. After 5 rounds you can ask open-ended questions. The object is to guess who the character is.

Assumption – Each player takes turns being quiet while the other players assume that something is true about them. At the end, the player says who was right or wrong. Again, it can be tailored to any grammatical structure or vocabulary lesson.

Convergent Words – Start with 2 words that are totally unrelated — fish, airplane for example. Two people in your group count to 3 and say a word. The idea is to eventually say the same word. Those who didn’t say the first words will participate with the next words. There are 4 of us and I say fish, airplane. You and another student both say water, and that round ends. Or pretend you say water and he says air. The other 2 students use those words to try their hand at saying the same word. 2 Truths 1 Lie. Easy conversation game that kids love. Have everyone say 2 true things and 1 lie about themselves. Everyone else votes on which one they think is the lie.

In any games, correct the students as much as possible without interrupting the flow of the game. You’ll figure that out as you go.

Good luck!