Classroom exercise

Classroom exercises cover a whole range of activities which, at best, help students review, practice and develop on what they already know, or at worst, just occupy their time while the teacher eats a sandwich.

Depending on the kind of course being designed/taught, emphasis might be placed on certain types of exercises over others, but in general, the more variety, the better. Needless to say, the criterion must be usefulness rather than variety just for the sake of variety. Any particular exercise might be designed to practice or reinforce one of the four skills: reading, writing speaking and listening. Alternatively the teacher might be trying to focus on some specific area such as grammar or vocabulary. In a fully rounded class the teacher would probably like to spend a little time on all of these areas and the activities should reflect this objective.

Some suggestions about creating a news-based class can be found in our article create a topical class.

The following alphabetical list contains some of the most common exercises: Some overlap is inevitable, for example, dictation involves both writing and listening skills, as does note-taking, and so on.

Comprehension exercises

 * true/false questions

Communicative exercises

 * discussion
 * role play
 * simulation
 * tango seating

Listening exercises

 * dictation
 * taking notes

Presentation exercises

 * presentations

Reading exercises

 * scanning
 * skimming

Vocabulary exercises

 * filling gaps/blanks
 * finding synonyms
 * multiple choice questions
 * word analysis

Writing exercises

 * note-taking
 * re-arranging sentences/paragraphs
 * summarising