Top 5 Activities for Large TEFL Classes

Teaching English is a challenge, teaching large classes is the challenge of all challenges!

Teaching English is a challenge, teaching large classes is the challenge of all challenges! By large classes, I’m talking 30 students and above. In fact in the TEFL world, generally anything above 20 is regarded as large and unproductive. In an ideal world everyone would teach smaller classes so students get the attention they deserve (and for the peace of the teacher’s mind and sanity!), but in some countries this is just not possible. So it’s our job being the ever so flexible and creative TEFL teachers that we are to make the best of what we have got. You will need to be super alert, resourceful and adaptable to cater to the needs of your students. Often you will be teaching mixes classes of different abilities and learning styles. You will need to find ways to activate quieter students and assess your students’ level. All the while you will have to keep the momentum and fun in the class to keep all of your adoring students in the English Zone…quite a juggling task isn’t it?

Here are some activities to point you in the right direction:

1. Name of Game: The Hot Seat

English Skills: Speaking, Listening, Vocabulary

Objective: Communicate words without saying them

• Put students into groups of 4/5. One of the students must sit with their back to the board, the other students facing the board.

• The teacher can draw or put a flashcard on the board (or write a word). The students have to describe what is on the card to help the student (with their back to the board) to guess what it is.

• For higher level students write a number of TABOO WORDS on the board. For example if a teacher shows the students a flash card of say ‘a teacher’, the taboo words that students cannot say could be ‘school’ and ‘student’. This forces the students to find other ways of describing the word.

2. Name of Game: Guess Who / Guess What

English Skills: Speaking

Objective: Form questions and identify a person or thing

• Choose a student leader for the class or individual groups
• Ask the leader to think of a famous person
• Group members have to ask yes/no questions to get information about the target celebrity
• When a group member receives a 'yes' to their question, they can ask one follow up question
• If the answer to a group member's question is no, the next student gets to ask a question
• The game continues until the students guess who it is
• Students can only guess who it is when it is their turn
• This game can be played as 'Guess What', in which case students are playing to identify an object, animal, etc (it’s a good idea to start with an object in the room until students get the hang of it).

You may choose to prepare a handout of possible questions to get things started and help weaker students. Some possible questions are: ‘Are you famous?’ ‘Are you a man?’ ‘Are you a woman?’ ‘Are you an actor?’ ‘Are you a singer?’

** Music can add to the fun and tension of this game. Add recorded sound effects such as a ticking clock, Jeopardy, etc. to create a better atmosphere for the game.

3. Name of Game: I Went to the Market

English Skills: Grammar, Speaking, Vocabulary

Objective: Use memory to reinforce past-tense structure and focus on correct use of articles

• Divide class into groups and select one group to help demonstrate the rules
• Teacher starts by saying, "I went to the market and I bought an apple."
• Student next to the teacher follows by saying, "I went to the market and I bought an apple and some eggs."
• The next student continues by saying, "I went to the market and I bought an apple, some eggs, and a potato."
• Play continues with each student repeating what previous members said and adding one item to the shopping list
• Start students off in their groups

Variation: you can change the game to practice all kinds of verb tenses and vocabulary!

4. Name of Game: Hold them up!

English Skills: Listening, Reading and Vocabulary

Objective: For students to revise vocabulary.

• Split the class into groups 4/5
• Before the activity, write a different word on a separate piece of paper for each team (the vocabulary you want students to revise)
• Have one student from each team sit in an allocated chair with the papers on a desk in front of them or on the floor
• Say one of the vocabulary words on the board (or you could give a definition for higher levels)
• Students have find the word on the board and hold it up!
• The student to hold it up first gets one point for their team
• Repeat until everyone has had at least one turn

Variation: Use pictures for young students who haven't learned the alphabet

Variation: You could split the class into three and write the vocabulary three times on the board (in three sections). Different students are selected each time and have to circle the word on the board.

5. Name of Game: Word Challenge

Number of Students: Teams of 4-10

English Skills: Listening, Speaking, Spelling

Objective: One team says a word and the other tries to spell it

• Have students get into teams of 4-10 people
• One person from each team does rocks, paper, scissors/rolls a dice
• Winner says a word and opponent tries to write the word correctly
• If they get it right, their team gets a point
• If they get it wrong, the person who said the word can write it out for a point for their team
• Have another person from each team play 'Word Challenge'
• Make an 'arena' in the middle of the class for two students to face off

Students will start to look up difficult words to stump the other team! Remember to do a follow-up assignment for new words used such as teaching the class the meanings and having students make sentences with the new words. N.B. This could be in a different lesson so you may want to take a note of vocabulary covered.

Top tip for teaching large classes: One method of teaching large groups like this is the ‘monitoring’ technique. To do this:

• Put the students into groups, with a balance of ages in each group
• Give the younger students a task to do such as colouring, a matching exercise etc, and teach the older ones first
• You then get the older students to go back to their groups and they are responsible for ‘teaching’ the others/explaining the task

I would also set up a points system for each team – when they win an activity they get a point for their team, doing homework equals one point. Perhaps failure to do homework means they lose one point.

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