编者按:很多教师一直苦恼于口语课堂的气氛不够活跃，而学生总是觉得无话可说，要想改变这种情况，提高学生学习口语的兴趣是至关重要的。本栏目精选了三个教学方案，列举了破解密码游戏、讨论热门话题和共享信息三种方法，探讨了如何拓宽口语教学的思路。

　　The secret code game

　　Ana Maria Mari

　　对于一个新的班级来说，这项活动能起到消除隔阂的作用，而且不受年龄和英语水平的限制。这项活动大约需要15到20分钟。

　　准备工作 教师准备一些糖果，在糖果的包装纸上写上秘密信息。也可以用折成不同形状的纸条代替糖果。 游戏步骤 首先，教师和学生打招呼，以缓和气氛。接着，教师告诉学生将要做一个叫做“隐藏的信息”的游戏，如果学生的英语水平比较低，教师可以在黑板上列出字母表。教师将糖果发给学生，并告诉学生，如果他们想要吃到糖果，就要找到糖果包装上的隐藏信息，而信息中的每个字母都代表着它前一个字母，比如，A代表Z。待学生理解游戏后，教师给学生两分钟的时间去寻找信息，第一个找到的人要把信息读出来并按照信息所要求的去做。教师要确保在游戏结束时每个同学都找到信息。此外，教师可以适时地给与学生帮助。

　　游戏的意义 这个游戏非常有助于学生之间建立良好的关系。对于新入学的学生，这个游戏可以使他们彼此熟识;在长假过后，这个游戏可以消除学生之间的陌生感。另外，这个游戏不仅适用于初级班，还适用于水平不等、成员较多的班级。

　　变通用法 对于更高水平的学生，教师可以将隐藏的信息换成功能词，如表示抱怨、道歉的词，还可以选择任意的话题，如爱好、家庭、动物等。

　　THIS is an ice-breaker / warmer for the first time a class meets. It is suitable for all ages and levels.

　　It should take 15 to 25 minutes.

　　Preparation

　　You will need lollipops, sweets with

　　wrappers, or slips of paper. Prior to the lesson write a secret message on the

　　wrappers or lollipops or another type of sweet. You may also write out the secret

　　messages on slips of paper that are folded into various shapes.

　　Procedure

　　*Greet and welcome students to their first lesson.

　　*Tell them you’ll play a game called

　　“Hidden message”. You can also say, if they are young learners, that you will

　　be playing a game called “Spies”.

　　*Then, if the class is lower level, get them

　　to say the alphabet and write it on the board.

　　*Give out the sweets or lollipops

　　wrapped with the slips of paper. This paper will have a hidden message which will

　　have to be worked out by students if they want to eat their sweets or lollipops.

　　Tell them that each letter used represents the previous letter in the alphabet

　　( Note: A comes after Z).

　　*Once students understand, give them two minutes to

　　work out their messages individually. The first one to find the hidden message,

　　should read it out to the rest of the class and carry out the instructions on

　　it.

　　*Continue around the class until everyone has deciphered their messages. Give

　　help as needed.

　　Why it works

　　his game helps students learn each other’s names

　　and builds a sense of community at the beginning of the school year. It also helps

　　students develop their fluency and truly “breaks the ice “if they have just come

　　back from a break or are just starting their studies.

　　This creative classroom aid is usable in multi-level, large classes with limited resources or adaptable

　　for elementary classrooms too.

　　Variations

　　Higher level students can be given hidden messages which review functions such as complaints, apologies, etc. The teacher

　　may include any topics he or she wants students to talk about such as hobbies,

　　family, animals and so on.

　　An information-sharing puzzle activity

　　Bob Gibson

　　第一步:

　　这是一个解谜游戏。首先，教师将学生分成若干组，将活动说明发给学生。接着，教师将印有信息的纸随机发给学生，每张纸上只能有一条信息。根据每组的人数，每个学生可以有两条以上的信息。

　　第二步: 教师告诉学生大多数信息都是有用的，但是其中也有些是用来迷惑他们的，他们要自己判断。教师还要强调每个人都应该和别人共享信息来解开迷底，如果谁对自己的信息有所保留，而这条信息稍后被证明是至关重要的，这个人将会受到同学的责备。

　　第三步: 教师可以让几个小组进行比赛。此外，教师在分组时应注意将沉默的学生和活跃的学生、男生和女生互相搭配。 第四步: 若想提高难度，教师可以在信息中加入语音学中的“最小对立体”，这取决于学生的语音水平。

　　Step 1

　　This is a puzzle activity. The introduction can be given to participants

　　on paper, or can be read aloud by the teacher or by a group member. Individual

　　information items, copied onto paper or a card, are distributed, randomly, one

　　by one. Depending on the group size, each participant may receive two or more

　　items.

　　Step 2

　　It’s only fair to warn the group that, while most of the information

　　items are useful, some are designed to confuse the issue. It’s up to them to decide

　　which are which. You should also stress that everyone needs to share all of his

　　or her information. If a participant holds back an item which later proves to

　　be vital, he or she is going to get some very black looks from the others.

　　Step 3

　　You can often cut the time required by having two or three smaller groups compete

　　to get the answer first. With smaller groups, you may need to check they aren’t

　　simply exchanging slips, or laying them out on a desk. In multi-group sessions,

　　it’s also best to try to balance the numbers of “quieter” and more outgoing students

　　in each group, and also to mix the sexes.

　　Step 4

　　To raise the challenge level, you can incorporate phonetic “minimal pairs” into the information items. These

　　will vary according to your students’ phonological problem areas in discrimination

　　and production.

　　Hot topic: Tourism

　　Lindsay Clandfield

　　第一步: 首先，教师准备一些内容为旅游的照片或是明信片。在给学生看照片之前，教师将学生分组并让他们就假日旅游进行集体讨论。最后，教师给学生看照片。

　　第二步: 这一步有三种可供选择的活动。 活动一: 教师朗读一篇文章，也可以将其发给学生，让学生记录文中提到的旅游者的活动。 活动二: 教师朗读文章中的一句话，也可以进行听写，让学生补充上下文，然后教师朗读原文或是将其发给学生。

　　活动三: 教师在网上找一些与活动二中的句子有关的图片，让学生描述图片的内容，然后听写原句。 第三步: 首先，教师将学生分成小组，并在每组指定一名发言人。然后，教师让学生以组为单位进行讨论。最后由发言人进行总结。根据学生的兴趣，此项活动可以变换为全班的开放性讨论，教师以提问的方式引发出一些不同的观点。

　　第四步: 教师将上一环节中的问题写在卡片上，将卡片发给学生，让他们进行讨论。学生在讨论之后进行总结。 第五步: 教师提出一个论题--导游证，并让学生设计一个导游证考试。此外，教师可以让一组学生对另一组进行面试，以角色扮演的方法让学生检测他们设计的考试。

　　Step 1

　　Collect some photos or postcards of tourists doing typical touristy things,

　　such as sunbathing, scuba-diving, etc. Before showing the photos, ask learners

　　to work in small groups and brainstorm the kind of things that tourists do on

　　holiday. Then show them your photos.

　　Step 2

　　There are three options for this step:

　　Option A: Distribute, or read aloud the text, and ask the learners to note the

　　tourist activities that are mentioned. Option B: Read aloud or dictate a sentence

　　from the text, and ask learners to try and work out the context. Then hand out,

　　or read aloud, the complete text. Option C: A number of news websites feature

　　photos of the sentence in Option B or similar scenes. In which case, you can ask

　　the learners to describe the photos and to speculate on where and when they were

　　taken. Then dictate the sentence.

　　Step 3

　　Organize the class into small groups.

　　Appoint a spokesperson in each group. Ask the students to work in their groups

　　and explain the point of view of each person or group and say whose point of view

　　they agree with. Ask the spokespersons to summarize the views of each group. Depending

　　on the degree of interest aroused, you could let this turn into an open class

　　discussion, exploiting any contrasting views and opinions, by asking questions

　　such as, “Why do you think that?”, and feeding in questions at strategic points.

　　Step 4

　　Alternatively, write all or some of the above questions on cards and distribute

　　a pack of question cards to each group. They discuss one question at a time, placing

　　the “used” cards at the bottom of the pack. If a question doesn’t interest them,

　　it can go straight to the bottom of the pack. They should be prepared to summarize

　　their discussion to the rest of the class.

　　Step 5

　　Pick up the theme of a “tourist

　　licence” and ask learners to devise a “test” that potential tourists would have

　　to pass to visit their own country or a developing country. This could take the

　　form of general knowledge questions, hypothetical questions (What would you do

　　if...?）. The test that each group devises could then be tried out in a role play

　　situation, where members of different groups “interview” one another.