Teaching - Introducing The Amazing Lesson Plan Activity Multiplier!

The problem:
If teachers tend to go bald, its most likely from tearing their hair out in an attempt to find stimulating classroom activities for demanding age groups or classroom situations. What we propose here is how to avoid follicle transplants by using the amazing activity multiplier! The principle is presented here as I use it in language teaching, but it can be applied to any subject being taught.

What to do:

1. Draw up a grid on a sheet of paper and write the names of your favourite activities in separate boxes across the top of the page. Use specific activities rather than types of activities e.g. 'Chinese whispers', or '20 questions' rather than 'warmers'.

2. Write the same activities down the left hand column of the grid, again putting one activity in each box of the grid.

3. Now take any empty box on the grid, and see which two activities correspond to its row and column.

4. This represents a new 'hybrid' activity, and needs to be adjusted to fit to your exact needs.

Here is an example.

Lets take the following well established warmer activities:
• TPR (total physical response). This involves the teacher giving an instruction or description, and the students either do it, or act it out.

• Chinese whispers. This involves the teacher whispering a sentence to one student, that then has to be passed on down a line of students, conserving the information whispered in its original form.
• Grab the card. This is where a teacher places cards on a table (they
may have pictures or writing) and makes an utterance that corresponds to one of the cards. The first student to 'grab' the card wins it.

• Lip reading. The teacher gives students a target sentence, and they have to 'say' it to a second student, but without making any noise. The second student has to repeat the sentence by lip reading what their partner is saying.

We put them in a grid thus: TPR, Chinese Whispers, Grab the Card, Lip Reading across the top of the grid and TPR, Chinese Whispers, Grab the Card, Lip Reading in descending order down the left hand side of the grid.
The intersection between columns and rows are the 'new hybrid' activities created. So, lets see what we've got!

The intersection between Chinese whispers and grab the card for example. This would mean that the teacher sets up the class in the usual way to play Chinese whispers, but instead of the last student repeating the sentence back to the teacher, they would have to grab a card which corresponds in some way to the sentence being whispered.
To illustrate this, lets say the teacher whispers the sentence 'I play golf on Sundays'. This is whispered down the line of students, and the last one has to quickly stand up and grab a card picturing a man playing golf, and a card with the word 'Sunday' written on it. This is a new hybrid activity based on the two original activities.

The above grid has 13 activities to stimulate your imagination. Add more original activities, and you greatly multiply the resulting hybrid activities. The whole principle can be multiplied still further by adding different activities to the right hand column, and even to the bottom row! It's an exponential teacher suggestion machine!
Taking this approach allows a tremendous injection of variety and fun into a teachers' classes, and saves a lot on hair transplants! Amazing.