Towards Paraphrasing: Description Of Games

Lesson Plan

Towards Paraphrasing Learning to paraphrase is an important and useful skill for second language learners to acquire, especially those taking academic courses. However it is not an easy one to acquire. The following games would be used to work on developing this skill in a fun way. The games would be most effective if they followed a lesson or some “scaffolding” exercises on synonyms. To this end I have included synomyns for “weary” complete with definitions. I have also included a sample exercise sheet on synomyms. 1. Memory Game: Using pairs of synonyms from scaffolding exercises, write each word separately on 3 by 5 recipe cards. Divide the class into groups of 4 or 5 and give each group a deck of approx. 8 pairs. Instruct the groups to shuffle the cards and place them face down in rows and columns. The first member of the group turns cards face up on the table. If the words are synonyms, the group member holds onto the pair and takes another turn. If the words turned up are not synonyms then the cards are turned back down and the next member of the group takes a turn. 2. Paraphrasing Races: a) The class is divided up into teams of 3 or 4. Each team is given a word and must come up with as many synonyms as possible in one minute. The winning team is the one which has come up with the most synonyms. b) The class is divided up into teams of 3 or 4. Each team is given a sentence and must come up with as many ways of paraphrasing the sentence as possible in 3 minutes. Quotations and proverbs work well. The team that has come up with the most ways of paraphrasing the sentence wins.

3. Password: The class is divided into teams of 3 or 4. All members of the team are given the word except one. These members give definitions, synonyms or describe the word to the remaining member who must then guess the word.