THE HOT SEAT GAME

This activity was created by Rebecca White, assistant at collège Nicolas Appert, Châlons en Champagne, from October 2004 to April 2005

This is a good activity for getting students going in the morning. It is also excellent for revising vocabulary.

• First, split your class into different teams (two is best).
• Sit the students facing the board.
• Then take an empty chair - one for each team - and put it at the front of the class, facing the team members. These chairs are the "hot seats".
• Then get one member from each team to come up and sit in that chair, so they are facing their team-mates and have their back to the board.
• As the teacher, have a list of vocabulary items that you want to use in this game.
• take the first word from that list and write it clearly on the board.
• The aim of the game is for the students in the teams to describe that word, using synonyms,antonyms, definitions, etc. to their team mate who is in the hot seat - that person can't see the word!
• The student in the hot seat listens to their team mates and tries to guess the word.
• The first hot seat student to say the word wins a point for their team.
• Then change the students over, with a new member of each team taking their place in their team's hot seat.
• Then write the next word....

This is a very lively activity and can be adapted to different class sizes.

The British Council website for assistants has lots of games like these.