This week’s Spotlight lesson is a Listen and Draw / Read and Draw activity on Hotels, which may naturally lead to a discussion on travel. Travel is a popular topic with students—they love to discuss where they’ve been and where they would like to go next! Expand their travel vocabulary with one of my favorite go-to games that makes learning vocabulary fun. A little competition is great for engaging beginner/low-intermediate or high-intermediate/advanced students and it also helps them remember the new words!
Use the green links below the vocabulary lists to download one or both of the PDFs. The instructions for playing are also below the lists!
Download Low-Intermediate Travel Vocabulary PDF
Download High-Intermediate Travel Vocabulary PDF
Instructions:
1. Choose the level that is applicable to your students and print out one or more copies of the vocabulary list. It’s up to you if you want to print out a copy of the vocab list for each student (to save the time of having to write the definitions on the board and having students copy them down) or just print out one copy as your reference while playing and writing it all on the board as you go or afterward (to save trees).
2. Write all the words (but NOT the definitions) in a vertical column on the board.
3. Divide students into two teams and have them come up with fun team names.
4. Use rock-paper-scissors (or something similar) to decide which team goes first.
5. Pick one student from the first team and read out a randomly chosen definition. If the students are learning new words, you can choose to let their teammates offer their opinions. If this is a review, the chosen student alone is responsible for the answer.
6. If the student guesses the word that corresponds to the definition, cross out the word and give that team $100 (by writing it on the board). If the student doesn’t guess correctly, someone from the second team can “steal” the answer for $50. If that student doesn’t guess correctly, the first team can try again for $50, and so on until someone guesses the correct answer.
7. It’s now the second team’s turn. Read out a second definition and give a student from the second team a chance to guess for $100 (and the first team a chance to steal if the guess is incorrect).
8. Repeat until all but the last word (for an odd number of words, as in the low-intermediate list above) or last two words (for an even number of words, as in the high-intermediate list above) remain on the board. In both cases, do not read out the definition(s) for the last word/two words (because it’s too easy to guess at this point). Instead, the student from the team whose turn it is must tell you the definition of the word! If he or she can’t, the other team gets to “steal” and try to come up with the correct definition, and so on until someone gets it right or you tell them the answer.
Note: This game works with any vocabulary list! Use it as a fun way to learn or review other words that you study in class.
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