Introduction

This activity teaches students zoo animals in a playful manner.

Target group and Time

The target group is ideally young and in an early stage of learning English since it is a rather playful activity that still requires some basic understanding of English. It should take around 10-15 minutes.

Learning objectives

The students will learn new vocabulary (animals and their features and environment), it will promote their activity and kinaesthetic memory as well as their movement.

Instructions to set up the activity

The activity requires pictures of zoo animals (for sustainability the teacher can paint them on scrap paper). Furthermore, the teacher needs to prepare questions related to the animals. It is important to hold up the correct pictures while asking the questions. The questions are answered by the students imitating the correct animal. For example, if the teacher asks: Which of these two animals has orange fur? While holding up a picture of an elephant and a tiger the students would all roar like a tiger. At the end the teacher will state the correct animal and the students will repeat the name of the animal. The questions should not be too hard for the participants to answer, or it won’t be fun. It should definitely be introduced properly so there won’t be misunderstandings.

Letting it run

The students shouldn’t feel overwhelming pressure of being in the spotlight on their own. A possible difficulty might be that students will not know the answer or how to imitate certain animals for which case the teacher or assistants will have to be prepared to help out.