Teach English in Gengda Zhen - Aba Zangzu Qiangzu Zizhizhou —

Teaching English is an interesting and challenging process. Every ESL teacher has his own selection of materials: games, techniques and tools for making the class entertaining and efficient. Games with flashcards have always been an easy way of vocabulary elicitation and material consolidation. Nouns, verbs and adjectives are easy to be elicited with the help of flashcards, but it is more complicated when it comes to adverbs or some abstract notions. Flashcards can be used for Engage stage - for motivating students to speak on the topic of the class, for Study stage- to elicit the vocabulary and for Activate stage for illustrating the situation or topic for discussion or a project. Before playing the games with flashcards it is important to have the cards done right: flashcards should be big enough so all of the students can see them clearly no matter where they are sitting in the classroom, A4 paper will be the best choice, flashcards should be laminated, so they can be used many times, images should be clear and bright so it will be easier to understand what it is on the flashcard. Let's have a close look at the games with flashcards. All of these games are frequently used at my classes with young learners. Game 1 'Knock-knock' spider. You will need : 5-10 flashcards related to a particular topic that you are teaching + one flashcard with a spider. All of the cards are flipped down and under one of the cards the spider is hiding. A student opens the cards and naming them until the spider appears, when the student has seen the spider- he/she should run away and sit on his/her chair. The next student starts the same task. Game 2 'Fruit Salad' . You will need: 6 flashcards ( 2 flashcards of apples, 2 - of pears and 2 - of oranges) for 6 students, 5 chairs. 5 students are sitting, 1 is standing, everybody is holding a card with fruits. The student who is standing says: 'I like apples' students who hold the flashcards with apples stand up and change their seats.The student who was standing should occupy the seat faster than the students who are switching their seats with apple flashcards. The one who doesn't have a seat can say: ' I like pears' and the game continues. Any kind of topic can be used for this game. Game 3 'Memory Game' You will need: 6-10 flashcards (depends on the age of students). Teachers puts the cards on the floor or sticks onto the whiteboard.The drilling exercise begins: Teacher names all of the cards one by one, after doing it one time teacher flips the first card down. Now teacher and students chorally name all of the cards including the first one covered. Before the third time teacher flips the second card and the choral repetition continues as many times as it is needed for flipping all of the cards. When all of the cards are flipped and students know their order, Teacher asks students to find a particular card. It's good to challenge yourself and give students up to 15 cards ( if their level is high enough). Game 4 'Rhyming cards' This game is for a higher level students. You will need: 8-10 flashcards of the words that are rhyming e.g.: pen-hen, car - star, walk-talk, eat-meet, hand- stand (words can be of a higher level of vocabulary) . All of the cards are placed chaotically on the whiteboard, the task is: find pairs of rhyming words and try to write a short poem using them. Game 5 'What's missing' This game is for young learners. You will need: 6-10 flashcards, that students are familiar with, sticked onto the board or placed on the floor. Give students 2 minutes to memorize all of the cards. One student is going out of the room for 20 seconds, another student/teacher removes one/two cards. The student comes back and says which card is missing. All of the games mentioned above can be adapted to certain levels of language and the needs of the class. From my opinion flashcard games are more appropriate for presentation of a new material or revision at the end of the class.