TEFL Resources and Lesson Ideas

Note: the ideas for most of these activities come from Jim Scrivener’s excellent Straightfoward Pre-Intermediate Teacher’s Book.

Suggested levels: elementary to advanced.

Aims: to enliven gapfill tasks in coursebooks.

The One-Minute Gap Fill

This can cause a few laughs from students. Present the gapfill in the usual way, but set a strict time limit of one minute for students to complete it; after this time, stop the activity and ask your students for their reactions. Was it impossible to complete? Was it OK? Negotiate with them a slightly longer time limit and offer a small prize (e.g., a paperclip) for the student who fills in the most gaps correctly. Students can check in pairs before checking with the whole class.

Correct the Teacher

Either board the answers in front of the class and invite them to correct your mistakes (make about three or four errors), or prepare a completed gapfill task with some errors; give one copy per student or pair of students, and invite them to make corrections. Note that this approach can also usefully be done with longer writing tasks.

Teacher Dictation

This is a good way of combining vocabulary or grammar gapfills with listening and writing practice.

Board the symbols for playing, stopping and rewinding a tape machine, elicit “play,” “stop” and “rewind” and get your students to say these commands loudly.

Tell your students that you are a tape machine and that they can control you by saying any of the three commands above. Say that you have a short dictation to give them and ask them to write down what you say. Explain that it’s a gapfill and that they should draw a long line when they hear you beep, whistle, or whatever sound you want to make. Start dictating the gapfill when students shout “play,” stopping when asked exactly as a tape machine would – even mid-word. It is important to listen for the students’ instructions (which can be encouraged by pointing to the tape machine symbols on the board) and obey them exactly.

Team Competition

This can be fun for longer gapfills.

Divide your class into threes: As; Bs; and Cs.

Ask As to write the missing words in multiples of three, starting at sentence one.

Ask Bs to write the missing words in multiples of three, starting at sentence two.

Ask Cs to do the same, starting at sentence three.

They can mark the sentences they will complete before they start the activity if they look like they might get confused.

Negotiate a time-limit (e.g., three minutes) with the students before starting the competition.

After three minutes, stop the activity and put the students into groups of three: one A, one B and one C per group. Each group checks its members work; then check as a class. Award a foolish prize for the team with the most correct answers (e.g., draw an animal on the board and invite the winning team to name it).