After all, lessons are more effective when students are interested, the topic is relevant and everyone is having fun.
Collocation
This one’s pretty basic: create two groups of cards with words/phrases on one side; students must find matching pairs and produce language based on the prompts. Basic learners might combine verbs and nouns (kick + ball, save + shot) to make a sentence, while advanced learners could be challenged to match British and American vocabulary (pitch + field, squad + team).
On One Condition
Practice the second and/or third conditional verb forms by getting students to finish sentences. Write six halves of a sentence, numbering them 1-6. Give students a die; the number they role corresponds to a sentence they have to finish (If I were at the World Cup, I would… or, If England hadn’t lost to Italy…).
Call My Bluff
Teach relative clauses, football slang and more by introducing the terms or phrases, then reading off two meanings for each – one is true and the other you make up. Students choose which is correct (howler, a bad performance or an extremely vocal goal keeper). If students are advanced, encourage them to submit their own bluffs.
Storyboards
Source and print 8-12 pictures of a recent match and have students tell their story of the game. This can be done for the present or past tense forms. Use the action of the game to show the difference between correct usages (Players were screaming at the referee as he pulled out his red card.)
Guess Who
Played just like the classic board game (google it if you’re not familiar) but with real players from the World Cup. One student describes a player’s appearance and others guess who’s being described (He’s slim, has green eyes and no hair. Ans: Michael Bradley). Watch out, creating materials for this one is time consuming. Make the board so that pics can be swapped in and out between themes.
Country Profiles
Find or create country profiles for World Cup nations. You can teach or practice comparatives and superlatives, ordinal and big numbers, stats and figures and much more. Tell a student or students to study one country. Provide students with enough time to prepare a report before they deliver it to the class. Then give a quiz about the information shared – students with the most correct answers win. If appropriate, candy, pens or maybe a replica World Cup trophy is awarded.
Not everyone likes football but good teachers know how to bring variety to their classroom. After choosing a theme like the World Cup, use these same activities and modify them for themes like cooking, travel or film.
With a few small tweaks, language points can be modified across skill levels and activities can be used with private, small or large classes.
May the best team win in world-class style, and may all students have fun.
A loyal and proud supporter of the USA in the World Cup, and a teacher trainer at TEFL Campus and Phuket resident since 2004, Eric welcomes all questions regarding teaching English in Phuket at: info@teflcampus.com.