10 Classroom Mood Boosters
‘Tis the season of the change, right before the full-blown spring! I don’t like this time, as I feel like a reptile who wants to shed its skin which is too tight for me. Alas, I’m not a reptile, so I have to suffer. The only good thing is, I can understand my students pretty well.
Moody March can be challenging in the classroom. You know what it looks like – you start the lesson, everything goes well, your students are exceptionally quiet… and suddenly you realise it’s not because they’re focused, it’s because they’re half asleep.
I already wrote a post on unzombiefying students (click!), but today I want to share with you 10 of my favourite mood boosters. I use them whenever I see my students getting sleepy and lazy. I’ve been using them for years and they never let me down.
Here we go:
Tongue Twisters. They challenge students to pronounce difficult phrases – and help improve pronunciation and have a laugh. Bonus points if you make a mistake (or pretend to make a mistake) and your students try to help you. If you want to learn more about spring energizers and get a free copy of some funny expressions, click here!
Story Cubes. Using story cubes sparks creativity and storytelling abilities. Start a story and prompt your students to continue, or divide your students into teams to come up with their own tales. If you want to read more about StoryCubes, click here!
Role-Playing. Assign roles and scenarios for students to act out, practicing conversational English. You can use simple scenarios, or you can choose a proper RPG. Oh, if you want to learn more about Role-Playing Games, click here!
Song Lyrics. Students, especially teenagers, love analysing song lyrics. That helps them improve listening skills and learn colloquial language. You may take a look at the summer playlist I created (click!), and – if your students feel like it – make Classroom Karaoke! Singing English songs improves pronunciation and rhythm.
Trivia Quiz. You may create a trivia quiz based on recent lessons or English-speaking culture. Better yet, you may encourage your students to make questions! They will feel far more engaged in the activity, and you may give bonus points to the team that came up with the funniest question.
Role Reversal. This activity is hilarious, and I love to use it, especially when we cover grammar. Let your students take turns teaching a short part of the lesson. They have a lot of fun pretending to be teachers, and at the same time they practice speaking and leadership skills. Plus, they review the material!
Themed Days. That’s a longer activity, as it takes the whole class. Discuss it with your students and dedicate a lesson to a specific theme, such as “Travel Class” or “Food Class,” to make learning more engaging. My dad (who’s a Maths teacher) used to make the 100th lesson a “Joke Lesson”, when he and his students would share jokes for the whole lesson. That was awesome (yes, my dad used to teach me Maths).
Flashcard Games. Using flashcards to play various games is easy and effective, especially when you make your students move a bit. You can take a look at my favourite flashcard games if you click here!
Brain Teasers. Share fun brain teasers or riddles to engage critical thinking skills. Google “lateral games”, “puzzles” or “riddles”, and you’ll be able to choose something appropriate for your students!
Classroom Sayings Jar. This activity takes more time, and is something that you can start at any moment of the course. Whenever somebody says something funny in the classroom and makes the whole class laugh, write it down on a piece of paper, and put it in the jar. When you see your students get tired, open the jar and pick one piece of paper. Your students need to remind the whole story and what was so funny about the saying.
As you can see, these ideas are really simple, but you can use them as short break activities whenever you see your students get tired and unresponsive.
Do you have your favourite activity to wake your students up? If yes, share it in the comments!
Have fun!
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