How Do I Get My Students to Speak?

Welcome to our blog everyone…… This time, we are going to discuss about an interesting topic about learning activity in speaking. Let’s just call this article How Do I Get My Students to Speak? Which is actually a presentation by Megan Lennon in Totally Terrific Tips for Teaching (T4) at an International English Workshop held by Lbpp-Lia Candi, at Grasia Hotel, on Feb 29 2012.


So we would like to share to you what was the presentation like by simply discussing the activity for speaking, which is by doing games. But first, here is further explanation, why games and activities are chosen.

a. First, it will make students active, by doing games in the class, teacher encourages his students to move, mingle with friends, share knowledge and socialize. When the students do all of that, they will be more active and active students are happy students. Else, they will learn maximally in this kind of state.

b. Often times, teacher caught students red handed when they play with their cell phone during the class. That’s why; doing games is an essential way to avoid that. By the time students participate in the games, they are concentrating on the activities and they will not do something else.

c. Game is actually an act of repetition or in other words, it’s a kind of drills. By using repetition, it will help students remember and study the material in a fun way.

There will be three parts of games we can use in particular section of learning. The first is games for icebreaker, second is games for learning new material and the last is games for introducing new vocabulary.

1. games for icebreakers

• 20 questions

Teacher keeps one word in mind and gives chance for students to ask questions to be able to guess the word. Students should keep on asking until they get the word. It doesn’t have to be in 20 questions, it can be more.

• Think pair and share

T plays music while S walking, T say a particular topic to be discussed. When the music stop, S find their partner by reaching eye contact with the friends standing close to them, then doing high five and talk about the topic.

2. Games for learning new material

• Action verb circle

T and S make circle & say sentences (focused on verbs) then practice it in turns. The last S says all the sentences.

• Magic verb spell

(Harry Potter vs Voldemort)
One S as Harry, one S as Voldemort. The other S as players. Voldemort spell charm to S “you are dancing” and the player do it. The player will stop when Harry comes and ask “what are you doing?” player should answer “I am dancing” to break the spell.

3. Games for introducing new vocabulary. 

• Taboo vocabulary games

One S sit in chair and some S stand surrounding him, giving clues for S who sit to be able to guess the target words

• Vocab circle chains

Use cue cards to get students recognize new vocabs by pairing up the questions and answer.


Alright everyone, I guess that is my simple description about some activities used in speaking. I do hope that it will be useful for you, thank you very much and best regards, byeee………..

Written by : Miss Didy

Posted in: International English Workshop