Three Low Prep Ideas to Liven Up Your Class

Keeping Learners Awake (and Actually Learning)

Let’s be honest—no one learns much when they’re half asleep. And at lower levels especially, learning a language can be hard work. It’s tiring, it takes concentration, and it’s easy for learners to zone out if things get too repetitive.

So how do we keep them engaged and involved without exhausting ourselves in the process?

There are a few simple things that really help:

• a bit of puzzling to get the brain working,
• a touch of friendly competition (think Bake Off, not battle royale), and
• a sense of pace—some moments of high energy to keep the lesson feeling alive.

Here are three easy activities that bring those elements in. They’re quick to set up, require very little preparation, and they work just as well online as they do face to face.

1. Kim’s Game (Vocabulary Memory Challenge)

This is a twist on the classic memory game and it’s great for revisiting vocabulary.

• Show your learners a list of words (ones you’ve taught recently).
• Give them a couple of minutes to look at it.
• Then hide the list, and in pairs—or in breakout rooms—they try to reconstruct it from memory.

If you’re working online, they could type their list into the chat box or use a shared Google Doc. It’s good for spelling practice, too.

You can make it a bit more challenging by giving points for each correct sentence they make with one of the words.

2. First Letter Questions

This one’s simple, fun, and gets learners interacting.

• Ask everyone to write a personal question they’d like to ask a classmate (something low-stakes like “Do you like bananas?”).
• They show only the first letter of each word: D Y L B ?
• Their partner has to guess what the question is and answer it.

Once they’ve done that, they can swap and repeat with someone else.

It’s a bit of a puzzle, it’s engaging, and it gets people talking. Works really well in breakout rooms too, especially if you put learners in small groups.

3. Fast Five

This is great for adding a bit of energy.

• Choose a simple category—something like animals, food, things in the house.
• In pairs, give learners 30 seconds to write down five things in that category.

Here’s the twist: their list has to be different from everyone else’s.

If two teams write the same word, both have to cross it out. Points go to unique answers.

It works brilliantly in a physical classroom, but it’s just as easy online using breakout rooms and a shared Google Doc.

So there you are—three straightforward activities that keep learners thinking, participating and (hopefully) enjoying the process.

Try them out and let me know how they go—I always love hearing what works in other classrooms.