Image by Rezső Terbe from Pixabay
At this time of year, you can adapt your oracy games to include a seasonal twist. For example:
Snowball story
Students sit in a circle, with a bowl full of ‘snowballs’ in the centre. Each snowball is a piece of crumpled paper with a festive word written on it (for example, presents, chocolate coins, snowflakes, fairy lights, toys).
Begin the story with a seasonal sentence, for example: On a frosty December morning, something strange appeared in the playground…
Then, take a ‘snowball’ and throw it to a student. They open it up, read the word, and then use that word in the next sentence of the story. When they’ve finished, they take another snowball and throw it to someone else who hasn’t yet had a turn. The story continues!
Either create the ‘snowballs’ yourself in advance, or start the game by having the students fill the bowl themselves.
Festive ‘Just a minute’
A fun and challenging game!
Give students festive topics such as Wrapping presents, Reindeer training or Winter traditions around the world.
They have to then try to speak for one minute without hesitation, repetition, or deviation.
Other students listen carefully and challenge if they spot a rule being broken.
Try this game in pairs, trios or to the whole class.
Gift persuasion
Prepare a selection of festive ‘gifts’ (real objects, or pictures).
Organise students into trios, and randomly give out one ‘gift’ to each trio.
Give them five minutes to prepare a 30-second pitch to convince the class why theirs is the best gift. Remind them of persuasive oracy techniques including emotive language, repetition, three-part lists, persuasive tone, gesture, pause, rhetorical questions and so on. All three students have to say at least one sentence in their group’s pitch.
After the pitches, hold some votes to decide which one was the most persuasive, the most fun, the best language, the best physical oracy, and so on. Remind students to vote based on the pitch, not just their preferred gift.
