Chapter 14: ACTIVITIES THAT PROMOTE
speech, LANGUAGE, literacy & learning
Activities that promote language development and use in the classroom
Objectives:
 Brainstorm materials found in the classroom and environment
 Have activity ideas for promoting language in the classroom
14.1
Classroom Materials for Creating Activities
Activity:
Before reading on, what are some materials you have in your
classroom? On a separate piece of paper try to come up with a list
of twenty items you could use as teaching materials…
Was this easy? Hard?
Compare your list to that generated by Kenyan teachers below.
What had you forgotten?
What are some materials you have in your classroom?
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Paper, newspaper, old magazines, scrap paper
Pens, markers
Pencils, colouring pencils, crayons, paint brushes
Erasers
Clay, mud, dirt, sand
Chalk
Sticks, rulers
Leaves, seeds
Beads, buttons
Material scraps
Dolls
Empty packaging: blue band containers, cereal boxes, milk
packets, toilet rolls, empty cans, empty water bottles
Feathers
Bottle tops
Corks
Stones, pebbles, rocks, blocks, wood
Glue, tape, stapler
Games, toys
Books
Water
Boxes, bowls, cups, pans, spoons
Paint
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There are lots more!! In district trainings teachers were able to generate fifty
or more items on their material lists. As teachers we must think creatively
about how to use materials in our environment to support student’s learning.
Keep this list of materials in mind as you read through the following activities.
14.2
Classroom Activities
The remainder of this chapter contains activities that can be done in the
classroom. Some of them may not work for your group of students, but think
about the ways you may be able to adapt them to make them easier or harder
for your group.
The focus of these activities is on speech, language and communication, so
it’s important to remember that these activities may be DIFFICULT for your
students. Before beginning any new activity with children you may need to
build up the children’s self confidence regarding participation. The ability to
communicate effectively is an area of particular sensitivity to children, and
even to adults, as our communicative skills are such a fundamental part of
who we are. As a teacher you have a lot of influence over your pupils and you
have the power to make them feel good about themselves and their skills or to
feel like a failure depending on your interaction with them. A child who feels
like he is failing is far less likely to succeed than one who feels like he is
already succeeding.
As teacher it is your job to make the children feel good about themselves and
to give lots of praise and encouragement throughout these activities. You
should be particularly supportive during the ones the children find most
difficult.
** You should give a child 5 praises to every criticism **
Having said that, it is important to be sincere when praising a student. If a
child is trying hard but consistently getting the wrong answer acknowledge
their efforts. For example: “I can see you are trying very hard Abdul” or “that
was almost the right answer, try one more time” or “Juma is doing a great job
working independently.” It isn’t always so much what you say as the way you
say it! Support your children verbally.
When you are choosing classroom activities you also need to think about the
level of ability of the children and their areas of interest. As mentioned you
may need to adapt the activities given in this manual to suit the level of the
children you are dealing with (to make the task easier or harder) and you may
want to change some of the materials that have been suggested that you use
in order to make the activity more appealing to the students.
Children will be more motivated to do an activity if they are interested and
enjoying themselves. For example, if you had a child in the class who loves
animals and you want to work on his ability to follow directions, then you can
incorporate his area of interest into the task by giving instructions that involve
animals (e.g. colouring the giraffe red or selecting the small, pink elephant).
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If a child has any difficulties completing a task then try and break the task
down into small steps to see what exactly the child is finding hard. Work at
the level where the child may be able to get it correct 7 out of 10 times. As
they succeed on each step, increase the difficulty until they can do the task
you initially had in mind.
Don’t forget you can also work with an individual child who is having
difficulties within the larger group activity. Just make a conscious effort not to
ostracize the one or two students you may be paying special attention to.
As mentioned before, it is important that children do not feel like they are
constantly failing. Do not continue to repeat a task over and over again if
students are consistently having difficulties. It is up to you to teach it or
present it in another way to help them understand. Try to simplify the task,
help a child do the task hand over hand or support your verbal directions with
gestures/pictures or words. Perhaps the activity is just too hard and you need
to teach them the vocabulary necessary to participate first.
As you read through each activity consider how you might attempt to
implement these with your class group.
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Memory Game
Best played with an individual child or in a small group (2-3 children), this is a
game that can be adapted to give a child practice in any of the following
areas(and more):
 naming common objects
 naming verbs (action words)
 naming basic concepts (including ‘same’ and ‘different’)
 using singular and plural endings for words
 using visual memory
 turn-taking skills
 following rules and learning to win and lose appropriately (these are
important social lessons that need to be learnt).
Materials:
- matching picture pairs (choose the pairs depending on the skill area
that you are targeting with the child).
How to play:
1. Use the picture pairs cards that you need to target whatever it is that
you are focusing on with the child (if you are simply practicing social
skills and visual memory then use the common object picture cards).
2. The first time you play the game you can place the cards face-up in
rows on the table. Allow the child to look at the pictures and encourage
her to look at the fact that there are two of each picture. Tell her that
she needs to remember where the pairs are. Turn all the cards over so
that you can no longer see the pictures on them but keep the cards in
the same position as when they were face up.
3. You go first to demonstrate how the game is played: turn over two
cards, one at a time, naming each one as you do so. If the cards are
the same, you get to keep the matching pair and have another go,
turning over two new cards. If they are different then you need to turn
them over again so that they are face down, keeping them in the same
position on the table so that the child has an opportunity to memorize
where the cards are.
4. Make sure that you are using the language needed to help the child
learn whichever language skills you are targeting. For example, if you
are working on plurals then say ‘1 dog’ as you turn over one card and
then ‘2 dogs’ when you turn over 2 of them. Encourage the child to do
the same when it is her turn. Or if you are working on the concepts of
same and different, make sure that as you turn the second card over,
you either say ‘same’ or ‘different’ depending on whether the second
card matched the first.
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5. When you have turned over 2 cards that do not match it is the child’s
turn to turn over two cards. Make sure you encourage her to use the
target language as she takes her turn.
6. The game ends when there are no more cards left on the table. Each
player counts the number of pairs that they have collected during the
game and the child with the highest number of pairs is the winner. The
game can be played with 2 or more players but remember that the
more children that play, the harder it is for each one to remember
where the cards are (as they have to wait that much longer for their
turn) and the more likely it is that someone else will take the pair that
they were trying to remember by the time they get there turn again i.e.
it is easier to play with fewer children.
7. After the first game, you no longer need to have the cards face-up to
begin with as the children will know how the game works.
Note: Make sure that the child does not get to keep any pairs until he uses
the target language that you are working on. Do not lose sight of what you are
aiming to achieve by playing the game.
To make the game easier:
 use less cards
 always have the cards face up initially before turning them over (as you
did the first time you played)
 only have 2 players.
To make the game harder:
 use more cards
 do not turn the cards face up to begin with
 have lots of players.
Bingo
There are lots of different ways to incorporate Bingo in your lesson plans! It’s
a simple idea, but can be adapted to use pictures or words depending on the
level of individual learners.
Materials:
- A bingo grid for each child
- A small pile of bottle tops for each child (buttons, small stones or
squares of paper would also work)
1. Give each child a bingo grid. The smaller the grid, the easier the game.
Start with a 3x3 square. See below.
2. Each child will have a grid with different pictures in it. For example different
animals.
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3. The teacher calls out the name of an animal. If the child has that animal on
their grid they can place a bottle top on it.
4. The teacher continues to call out names until a child has covered all 9
squares. They are the winner.
What it teaches?
In this example Bingo is being used to teach children vocabulary. They are
learning to associate the animal name with the picture on their board.
To increase the difficulty some children could have written words on their
grids rather than the picture. Then they would have to learn to pair the spoken
word with the written word.
Alternatively, rather than just saying “giraffe” the teacher could say, “a tall
animal that eats leaves and has a very long neck.” By using clues, you are
helping children generate the vocabulary and expanding their knowledge
about each of the animals.
The great thing about Bingo is it is extremely versatile and can be used in lots
of different ways. I have seen teachers who use numbers in the squares. For
their less able students they will hold the number up so all the child has to do
is match the way the numbers look. For their children who are learning the
names of numbers they will call out the numbers. Even more advanced, some
teachers will put a simple addition or subtraction sum on the board and the
children have to answer it correctly to know the number that is being called
out.
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Nursery Rhyme Share
1. Choose a nursery rhyme and teach it to your students.
2. When your students know the rhyme have them act it out
Depending on the level of your students you can allow them to get into
groups and decide how they want to perform the nursery rhyme, or you
can help them and make it a whole class activity.
What it teaches?
Excellent in multicultural settings as you can choose whatever rhyme, poem
or song that fits with your curriculum and the children in your group.
Knowledge of rhyming couplets is a good predictor of later reading skills, and
memorizing rhymes gives students a sense of poetry, story, rhyme,
sequences, basic concepts, and song. Specific goals you are working on
could include: Phonemic awareness, syllables, first sounds, and rhyming.
Finger Print Animals
Materials:
- Paper for each child
- An ink pad
- Pens, markers, or pencils
1. Children dip their fingers in the ink pad and make fingerprints on the
page
2. When the ink dries they turn their finger prints into animals
3. Children can dictate stories to their teacher about their animals
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What it teaches?
Children enjoy the opportunity to be creative. When they get the chance to do
open ended activities like this they can often show you what they know. This
activity can be used to work on curriculum content (for example: in the boy’s
work above he made monkeys because they had been talking about monkeys
in class that day. The fingerprints could have been turned into fruits or
something different depending on lesson plans for the week.) When you take
story dictation about the picture this activity can also be used to help children
develop their narrative skills.
Lunch Talk
Materials:
- None. But this is an activity that must occur during a meal time.
1. During break or lunch time when the students are taking meals, the
teacher can practice using open-ended questions about the food the
students are eating. Focus on concepts represented in the food (i.e.,
shapes, colors, tastes, textures, categories). This activity can be done
during other times of the day also.
What it teaches?
Emphasizes open-ended questions and the use of daily activities to reinforce
language. Specific student goals may include: Increasing the amount and
complexity of student talking (encouraging them to use more complex
grammar and longer sentences), conversational skills and vocabulary.
Collage
Materials:
- Paper for each child
- Scraps of paper, cut out pictures from the newspaper or other collage
materials
- Glue
- Pens, markers, or pencils
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1. Children use the scrap paper or pictures to create a piece of art work
What it teaches?
This activity can be used to work on a variety of skills depending on how it’s
presented. If you cut up a large pile of pictures from newspapers you can
have children sort them by category and glue them (e.g. foods, sports,
occupations etc..) Alternatively you can work on colour and make single
colour collages. If you want to consider this a motor activity have the children
cut/tear up the paper for the collage or cut/tear pictures from the newspaper.
If you have older students, or students who function at a higher cognitive level
you may want to increase the difficulty of the collage activity. Try some of the
other collage activities as described below.
Story Collage
Using newspaper ad inserts, participants cut out and glue pictures that will
help them tell a story, then they will share it with the group.
What it teaches?
Emphasizes how materials readily at hand can be used to support vocabulary,
narrative, and creative language. Specific student goals might include
narratives, description and vocabulary.
Theme Collage
Like story collage, ask students to make a collage based on a specified theme
(things we can eat or sports or transportation). Have students discuss their
work with the class.
What it teaches?
Helps participants understand how categories and relationships can be talked
about in many settings. Specific student goals might include knowledge of
categories, themes, relationships.
Make a Toy
Materials:
- Empty packaging and/or paper tubes, paper plates, string,
newspaper, bottle tops,
- A stapler, tape, foil, wire or glue to assemble
1. Give the children ample amounts of recycled packaging. Allow them to
work independently or in groups to create a toy
2. When they are done, have them show the toy to the class and indicate
(via gesture/sign/speech) what their toy is and how it works.
3. Allow the class to ask the presenting child questions about their toy.
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** Be sure to have the class clap at the end of each child’s
presentation. There are no right and wrong ways for a child to respond
to this kind of activity. Even if they only did a small drawing be positive
about their participation.
What it teaches?
Emphasizes the language potential and creativity in easily accessible
materials Specific student goals might include: Increase amount and
complexity of talking with children, turn-taking, and question/response.
Concept Sort
Materials:
- Make picture cards!
-- You can do this by cutting pictures out of the newspaper and
gluing them onto index cards.
-- Alternatively you can make them using drawings/marker pens
Think about creating sets by category. For example make a set of
colour cards, a set of ‘things we wear’ a set of ‘things we eat’ or a set of
vehicle cards. Try and accompany the picture/object with a written
word wherever possible.
For example:
Your shape cards might look like this:
SQUARE
CIRCLE
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Your colour cards might look like this:
Black
Blue
1. Give the children small sets of card to work with. Have them sort the
cards into category piles
In the beginning you may give students a set to work with containing
only 2 categories. As they get better at sorting them, add more
categories.
2. When the children have sorted their piles, have them explain to you
WHY they made the choices they did. For example maybe given a pile
of cards containing vehicles they will separate all those with wheels.. or
they will separate animals with 2 legs from animals with 4 legs. If you
ask the children about their choices you can get to know where there
categorization skills lie. If children are having difficult sorting animals
from vehicles, talk them though it.
What it teaches?
Concepts such as shapes and colours (depending on the cards created).
Categories, similarities and differences, vocabulary
Odd-one-out/Pairs
Materials needed:
- A selection of picture cards or objects from various categories.
Think about including fruit (apple, banana, mango,
orange, pineapple), clothing (socks, t-shirt, trousers, hat, dress),
toys (teddy bear, dolly, toy car, pencils), animals (dog, cat, rat,
lizard), household items (spoon, plate, pot, cup), and/or furniture
(chair, table, bed, book case) etc.
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1. Put 3 pictures in front of the child, 2 from the same category and 1 from
a different category. Ask the child to tell you which one does not belong
and why. Start with an easy task e.g. with a picture of a banana, a
mango and a hippopotamus. After some practice you can make the
task more difficult by adding cards, or including more similar items (e.g.
by having pictures of a chair, a table, a bed and a cup).
Make sure that you mix up the order of the pictures so that the odd one
out is not always in the same place on the table (which would make it
too easy for the child- they are smart at picking up these kinds of
patterns in teacher behaviour!!).
2. Lay out 4 pictures – 2 from one category and 2 from another and ask
the child which ones go together and why. As the child’s skills improve,
increase the number of pictures to 4 pairs and so on. You can make
this into a memory game. Turn all the cards over, face down and take it
in turns to turn over just 2 pictures. When you get 2 from the same
category you get to keep the pictures and have another go. If the 2
pictures are not from the same category, you turn the cards face-down
again and it is the next person’s turn. Continue until all the cards have
been won. The winner is the person at the end with the most pairs.
What it teaches?
Categories (depending on the pictures used), similarities and differences,
vocabulary, inclusion and exclusion of category members
Sharing Characteristics.
1. Students are given two (or three if you want to make it harder) pictures,
words or actual objects that might be related by color, function, shape,
location, material (wood, paper, plastic), size, or quality (sticky, wet,
cold, hot).
2. Students are asked to determine how the objects might be related, and
explain their answers.
When you do this activity with your children, you will need to provide many
clues, models and assistance before children begin to make guesses
successfully and independently. Always accept the answer given. Children
will be concrete but will become more abstract with encouragement and
practice.
What it teaches?
Students can be reinforced for their creativity. This is a good way to discuss
enrichment vocabulary, which are not only categorized in terms of noun
(things you can touch), verb (things you do) and characteristics (number, size,
function) but are related to the current classroom themes.
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Scavenger hunt
This can be done in many ways. The basic premise of a scavenger hunt is
that you make a list and have your students find those items. Think through
the items you’ll have them find carefully.
Some teachers will have students find objects that all begin with the same
letter (e.g. ‘s’) as a way of introducing new vocabulary (so his words might be:
smile, spoon, sock, soap, stick). Other teachers will actually make a list of
‘clues’ of what they want children to find (e.g. find something red or find
something that opens and closes).
Materials:
- Make a short list of three to five items and write them on the board or
a piece of paper. Be sure to draw a picture of the items next to it.
- have the children either individually or as a group search for the items
- when they have found them come back as a group and talk about the
objects
What it teaches?
Depending on how you structure the activity you could be teaching receptive
language, receptive vocabulary, alphabet knowledge and sight words.
Charades
Once again there are lots of possible varieties on charades. In its most basic
form it is about having the students act things out.
1. Students are asked to pretend to perform an activity using at least
three steps, for example:
 Making chair,
 Getting dressed,
 Going to the market,
2. The rest of the students are asked to guess the specific three steps
pretended by the acting student. There will be some guesses that are
correct, but were not intended by the actor as one of the three steps.
What it teaches?
Temporal concepts: first, second, next, then. Routines, pretend play. Children
benefit from as much experience interpreting actions at different levels of
symbolism as the teacher can provide.
Water Play
Materials:
- Bring in an assortment of plastic containers, buckets and cups
- Water
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1. Allow the children to play with the water. Guide their play with
conversation. For example:
a. When a child is transferring water from one water container to
another, make predictions about how many cups of water will
take to fill the bucket.
b. Look at the different containers and talk about which ones are
bigger, which ones are smaller
c. Use words like wet, dry, more, less, lots, spill, fill, empty etc.
2. You could also add some other objects like stones, wood, and toys.
Talk about which ones float and which ones sink. Can the children
predict whether or not it will sink?
What it teaches?
Water play provides a great opportunity for working on foundation math and
science skills. There is opportunity for questioning, measurement, prediction
and testing hypothesis. Be sure to ask open ended questions to provoke
children’s thinking.
A Look at Rocks
This kind of classroom enquiry can be done with any number of things
besides rocks. For example: It might fit better in your curriculum to look at
leaves rather than rocks.
1. Start this activity by posing a large question to the group. For example:
What makes rocks different from each other?
2. Ask the students how they think you should go about trying to answer
this question. Write down their suggestions. Try and incorporate as
many of these suggestions as possible into the lesson plan
3. Take a rock collecting walk with the children around the school. When
each child has at least one rock come back to the classroom. Once in
the room give the children ample time to look at each of the rocks.
4. As a group talk about the similarities and differences of each rock. Be
sure to make a list with the children.
There are many aspects to explore – the surface area, the size, the
weight, the smell. The possibilities are endless! See which rock is the
favorite and why. Be creative.
5. think about having the children dictate stories about their special rock.
Where would they take it? If it was alive and living how would they
take care of it?
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6. Feel free to do some classifying and grouping with the rocks. Be sure
to place the collection where the children can access them.
What it teaches?
Concepts: rocks, sensory, comparison, classification.
Vocabulary: rock, surface, smooth, rough, weight, heavy, light, color words,
shape words, collection, examine, specimen, identify, edge, flat, round
Ramps and Construction
Materials:
- Do this lesson using the blocks in your classroom and assorted other
objects from around the room.
1. Gather the children in the block area and start this activity by posing a
large question to the group. For example:
What is a ramp? Does everything roll down a ramp?
2. Show the children how to make a ramp. Use flat blocks or a piece of
cardboard against the edge of a shelf/table or against a stack of blocks.
3. Provide materials for the children to construct their own ramp. Have a
variety of objects for them to use in this experience. A natural object
would be a small vehicle but come up with other classroom staples –
small blocks, stones, a ball, marbles, markers, rocks, small
manipulatives.
4. Model for the students how to make an object roll down the ramp. Give
the children one object at a time. Make predictions as to whether the
object will roll down the ramp or not. Help the children think critically
about why an object will or will not roll. Allow the children to
experience rolling the objects down their ramps. Revisit their
predictions. Keep this experience alive by talking to the children about
the angle of the ramp. Have the children change the angles with their
ramps. Make predications and re-roll the objects. Revisit the
predictions again. Did anything change? Was it easier for any of the
objects?
What it teaches?
When learners are physically engaged in an activity that makes them question
how and why something is happening, we know they are learning! Both this
activity and the rock one above are activities that promote science at the
primary school level.
Concepts: construction, motion
Vocabulary: ramp, motion, angle, roll, object names, fast, slow, move, incline,
slant, steep
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A Final Word:
The key to all these activities is in the adult’s interaction with the child..
As a teacher you are needed to prompt your students to think, learn, speak,
explore, write, read, question, problem solve, discuss and narrate. The quality
of the teaching is in the teacher’s interaction with the students. Their speech,
language and communication development is reliant on your ability to meet
them at their level and lead them gently to the next level.
Good luck, and remember.. it should be fun!
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