Dice – teacher’s best friend?
Did you know there are 101 ways you can use a dice in an English classroom? Big ones, small ones, squishy ones or homemade ones – every teacher should have a bag of them in their classroom.
Anka Zapart, who has taught in Poland, the UK, Italy, Spain, Brazil and Russia, gives 10 activities which are enlivened with dice. The only thing you need to do is to get yourself a set of dice! Happy playing!
A taster is below, but for all the detail and explanation read the full article in the IH Journal here.
Can you clap your feet? (Class activity with a big dice)
Have you ever tried clapping your feet? No? You need to try it: it is possible and it’s fun!
Here is a game to teach the verbs of clapping, moving, shaking, dancing, and freezing – with the excitement of not knowing what will come up next on the roll of a dice!
Mime it (Class activity with a big dice)
With animal flashcards stuck to the board, on the roll of a dice your students are given that one to mime the actions of. For example, ‘You are a cat’ – then kids perform the action. The students can also make more complex sentences, i.e. ‘You are a big / small / angry / sleepy / happy cat’.
Do tigers eat meat? (Class activity with a big (homemade) dice)
For this, you need a special home-made dice with the images (fruit, grass, meat, corn, fish, and insects) and a pile of animal flashcards.
Students roll the dice and pick out one of the cards. Teacher asks a question or makes a sentence: ‘Tigers eat fruit’ or ‘Do tigers eat fruit?’, kids respond ‘Yes, it’s true’ or ‘No, it’s not true’.
Banana banana (Pair activity with small dice)
Each number on a dice represents a task ( for example 1=mime it, 2= draw it) Each pair of students have a dice, and on the board (or handout) are sets of words that you want to practise. Banana Banana comes when they throw a 6!
Linking words game (Pair activity with small dice)
On a worksheet (or board) are some starts to sentences, e.g. I can dance, I like music, I don’t like potatoes. Students pick out one of the sentence starters, roll the dice and finish the sentence using the assigned linking word. (roll a 1 = and use “because”, roll a 2 and use “so”, etc)
For beginner students the sentences and linking words are straightforward, for more advanced students they are more stretching.
Describe the picture (Pair activity with small dice)
You’ll need one dice per pair, and a picture (the same for the entire group or different pictures for each pair). Students work in pairs, roll the dice and take turns in describing pictures, starting from the sentences dictated by the dice. For example 1 = There is…, 2 = There are….
Question game (Small group activity with small dice)
If you have some vocabulary that you want to practise, this is easy. The teacher makes a list of the question starters on the board, for example: 1 = What? 2 = Where?
Students work small groups and take turns in rolling the dice and choosing the word to make a question for the rest of the group to discuss.
We hope you found this interesting. For all the detail and explanation read the full article in the IH Journal here.