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Fishbowl is a fun team game for a larger group of people (ten to twenty). The object of the game is for team members to guess a word by using one of three ways - by giving a description, by acting out the word, or saying only a single describing word. Each method lasts for one round with each round having specific rules. The game is called "Fishbowl" because slips of paper with the words on them are placed in a fishbowl or other container.

The group of players are divided into two teams - Team A and Team B. Team A goes first in Round 1, Team B in Round 2, and the team with the lowest score goes first in Round 3. Teams attempt to get their team to guess as many words as possible in one minute. Points are scored based on how many words are guessed correctly. A round lasts until all the words have been used. Each team member has one minute to try to have as many words guessed as possible. After each round, the slips of paper go back in the bowl for the next round. Each round becomes more difficult, but it is hoped team members will remember the words from the previous round. At the end of all three rounds, points are totaled and the team with the most points wins the game.
You will need the following materials to play the game of Fishbowl:

Paper

Pens or pencils

Fishbowl, basket, or similar container

Timer (one that makes a noise when the time is up)

How to Play Fishbowl

Fishbowl begins by forming two even-numbered teams of players - Team A and Team B. If you have an odd number of players, have someone sit out for each round or let them be the score keeper, time keeper, and referee, making sure all the rules are followed by the players.

Have everyone sit in a semicircle with the two teams facing each other. Provide three slips of paper for each player and have them write a word or phrase on each. Instruct them to choose a word or phrase which can be described and names a person, place, or thing. For example, they might choose "butterfly" or "hot dog." The slips of paper are folded and placed in the container - the fishbowl, basket, or bucket.

A game time is defined as the time it takes to complete all of the rounds. Each round continues until all the slips of paper have been used. Team members alternatively take turns choosing slips of paper and trying to get their teammates to guess the words correctly within one minute.

Each player should try to remember the words they see on the slips of paper as doing so may help in subsequent rounds. The team with the most total points for all the rounds played wins the game.

Make sure you explain the rules before playing and repeat them before each round. Players who violate the rules are eliminated from the game.

Fishbowl Game Rules

Each round has set directions and rules which must be followed by all players. It is suggested you go over the rules before game begins and then repeat them as each round starts.

Team A selects a team member to go first. Team B chooses a volunteer to set the timer for one minute and call time if the timer is silent. The player from Team A grabs a piece of paper from the container and tries to get their teammates to guess the word using only words and sentences. Motions are not allowed. When a word is guessed, the player grabs another slip from the bucket and continues, attempting to get their team members to say as many of the words as possible during the one-minute round. If their team is stuck on a word, they may say "pass," but only once during the one-minute round. The paper with the skipped word is put back into the container, a new word is drawn, and play continues.

When the timer goes off, Team A totals the number of slips of paper of correctly guessed words. Then it is Team B's turn. One of B team's members serves as the timekeeper. The process of drawing words and having team members guess for one minute is repeated.

If, at any point, all of the slips of paper have been used, the round is over. The winner of the round is the team with the most points (slips of paper).
At the end of the first round, when both Team A and Team B have taken turns, all of the words are put back into the container for the second round.

Play continues in Round 2 with Team B going first. In this round, only actions may be used. No words or phrases are allowed. Team members must try to remember words from the previous round. When all of the words are used, the points for each team are tallied. Then all of the slips of paper are put back into the container for Round 3.

Round 3 is the most difficult, as players can only say a one-word hint. No actions are allowed, so it is important for team members to remember words from Round 1 and 2.
If you wish, you can make the game longer with these bonus rounds:
Each player must use sound effects to encourage their team to guess the word.

Each player acts out a word under a light blanket or bedsheet. They may not talk, but only move. The result provides amusing and humorous actions.

Combine round four and five with no words or actions. The player may use only sound effects under the bedsheet.
Fish Bowl combines favorite games of Taboo, Charades, and Password into a simple team game perfect for any occasion. Play it as a family, in the classroom, at camp, or at a party.

Players learn teamwork, critical thinking, and problem solving, making it a perfect educational family game.

Teachers may find it works well for vocabulary words.

Campers get to know each other quickly playing Fishbowl.

The rounds get more frantic and fun as the game progresses, making Fishbowl a perfect party game.

Whatever the age or group composition, you will find the game of Fishbowl is a perfect choice for an enjoyable time. Play on!

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Fishbowl Game - Rules, Instructions & Fishbowl Game Ideas

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Fishbowl is a fun team game for a larger group of people (ten to twenty). The object of the game is for team members to guess a word by using one of three ways - by giving a description, by acting out the word, or saying only a single describing word.

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10 Commandments for Motivating Language Learners - Teaching English with Oxford

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Tim Ward, a freelance teacher trainer based in Bulgaria, introduces us to 10 simple steps to help increase motivation among language learners. Motivation’s one of those ideas like justice or world peace: we all know it’s a good thing but it’s not quite so clear how to get there. For adult learners and younger kids […]

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https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/news-and-events/seminars/motivating-unmotivated

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As the world’s English experts, there will be no surprise that we are passionate about the English language. We are also passionate about people who teach English.

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pronounce politician in american english

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pronunciation of politician in british english

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Pronunciation of politician - how to pronounce politician correctly.

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A free online Talking English Pronunciation Dictionary - pronunciation of politician. How to pronounce politician in American & How to say politician in British accent?

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The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea

In a beautiful pea-green boat,

They took some honey, and plenty of money,

Wrapped up in a five-pound note.

The Owl looked up to the stars above,

And sang to a small guitar,

"O lovely Pussy! O Pussy, my love,

What a beautiful Pussy you are,

What a beautiful Pussy you are!"

Pussy said to the Owl, "You elegant fowl!

How charmingly sweet you sing!

O let us be married! too long we have tarried:

But what shall we do for a ring?"

They sailed away, for a year and a day,

To the land where the Bong-Tree grows

And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood

With a ring at the end of his nose,

With a ring at the end of his nose.

"Dear Pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling

Your ring?" Said the Piggy, "I will."

So they took it away, and were married next day

By the Turkey who lives on the hill.

They dined on mince, and slices of quince,

Which they ate with a runcible spoon;

And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,

They danced by the light of the moon,

They danced by the light of the moon.

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The Owl and the Pussy-Cat by Edward Lear | Poetry Foundation

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The nationwide collapse in reading scores among American youth has lately captured the attention - if not the concern - of headline writers, educators and government bureaucrats.

The Department of Education's most recent survey, released in June, was certainly sensational: it found that text comprehension skills of 13-year-olds had declined an average of four points since the Covid-affected school year of 2019-2020, and more alarmingly that the average drop was seven points compared with the 2012 figure. The results for the worst-performing students fell below the reading skill level recorded in 1971, when the first national study was conducted.

Unsurprisingly, the blame for this dismal news has been assigned by politicians to the easiest, more obvious targets - Covid-19 and the resultant lockdown. Remote learning was bad for students, according to Biden administration officials, so the pandemic must be the chief villain. Conservatives don't disagree, but they prefer to blame the teachers' unions for encouraging their members to teach remotely - for them a greater villain than Covid is the president of the American Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten, a powerful Democrat who lobbied successfully to prolong school shutdowns.

Neither the bureaucrats nor the critics of the teachers' union are wrong, of course. Common sense tells us that a child alone in her bedroom, staring at the image of a teacher on a computer screen (with a smartphone close at hand but hidden from the teacher's view), is not fully focused on learning.

But while everyone bemoans the lockdown, there's been curiously little discussion in this debate about the physical object most children use to read, which, starting long before the arrival of Covid, has increasingly been an illuminated screen displaying pixelated type instead of a printed or photocopied text. What if the principal culprit behind the fall of middle-school literacy is neither a virus, nor a union leader, nor "remote learning"?

Fourth grade is when a crucial shift occurs from what another researcher describes as 'learning to read' to 'reading to learn'

Until recently there has been no scientific answer to this urgent question, but a soon-to-be published, groundbreaking study from neuroscientists at Columbia University's Teachers College has come down decisively on the matter: for "deeper reading" there is a clear advantage to reading a text on paper, rather than on a screen, where "shallow reading was observed".

Using a sample of 59 children aged 10 to 12, a team led by Dr Karen Froud asked its subjects to read original texts in both formats while wearing hair nets filled with electrodes that permitted the researchers to analyze variations in the children's brain responses. Performed in a laboratory at Teachers College with strict controls, the study used an entirely new method of word association in which the children "performed single-word semantic judgment tasks" after reading the passages.

Vital to the usefulness of the study was the age of the participants - a three-year period that is "critical in reading development" - since fourth grade is when a crucial shift occurs from what another researcher describes as "learning to read" to "reading to learn".

link to reclaim your brain home page

Froud and her team are cautious in their conclusions and reluctant to make hard recommendations for classroom protocol and curriculum. Nevertheless, the researchers state: "We do think that these study outcomes warrant adding our voices ... in suggesting that we should not yet throw away printed books, since we were able to observe in our participant sample an advantage for depth of processing when reading from print."

I would go even further than Froud in delineating what's at stake. For more than a decade, social scientists, including the Norwegian scholar Anne Mangen, have been reporting on the superiority of reading comprehension and retention on paper. As Froud's team says in its article: "Reading both expository and complex texts from paper seems to be consistently associated with deeper comprehension and learning" across the full range of social scientific literature.

But the work of Mangen and others hasn't influenced local school boards, such as Houston's, which keep throwing out printed books and closing libraries in favor of digital teaching programs and Google Chromebooks. Drunk on the magical realism and exaggerated promises of the "digital revolution", school districts around the country are eagerly converting to computerized test-taking and screen-reading programs at the precise moment when rigorous scientific research is showing that the old-fashioned paper method is better for teaching children how to read.

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Indeed, for the tech boosters, Covid really wasn't all bad for public-school education: "As much as the pandemic was an awful time period," says Todd Winch, the Levittown, Long Island, school superintendent, "one silver lining was it pushed us forward to quickly add tech supports." Newsday enthusiastically reports: "Island schools are going all-in on high tech, with teachers saying they are using computer programs such as Google Classroom, I-Ready, and Canvas to deliver tests and assignments and to grade papers."

Terrific, especially for Google, which was slated to sell 600 Chromebooks to the Jericho school district, and which since 2020 has sold nearly $14bn worth of the cheap laptops to K-12 schools and universities.

If only Winch and his colleagues had attended the Teachers College symposium that presented the Froud study last September. The star panelist was the nation's leading expert on reading and the brain, John Gabrieli, an MIT neuroscientist who is skeptical about the promises of big tech and its salesmen: "I am impressed how educational technology has had no effect on scale, on reading outcomes, on reading difficulties, on equity issues," he told the New York audience.

"How is it that none of it has lifted, on any scale, reading? ... It's like people just say, 'Here is a product. If you can get it into a thousand classrooms, we'll make a bunch of money.' And that's OK; that's our system. We just have to evaluate which technology is helping people, and then promote that technology over the marketing of technology that has made no difference on behalf of students ... It's all been product and not purpose."

I'll only take issue with the notion that it's "OK" to rob kids of their full intellectual potential in the service of sales - before they even get started understanding what it means to think, let alone read.

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A groundbreaking study shows kids learn better on paper, not screens. Now what?

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For 'deeper reading' among children aged 10-12, paper trumps screens. What does it mean when schools are going digital?

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Explore our policy recommendations for breaking down language barriers
in schools, adult education, and the criminal justice system.

View our policy work

The Great Ideas pages are a collection of different strategies that any teacher could use in their classrooms to support learners who use EAL.

Many of the teaching resources on this website refer to various tried and tested approaches and strategies which are recommended for EAL learners.

In this section of the website the rationale behind these methodologies and why they are called 'Great Ideas' are explained.

The majority of these approaches can be used with everyone in the class, but they are particularly important for EAL learners because they provide a rich context, additional support, opportunities for collaborative learning and exploratory talk, and all the important features of good practice in meeting the educational needs of EAL learners.

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EAL Strategies and Great Ideas - The Bell Foundation

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EAL Strategies and Great Ideas The Great Ideas pages are a collection of different strategies that any teacher could use in their classrooms to support learners who use EAL. Many of the teaching resources on this website refer to various tried and tested approaches and strategies which are recommended for EAL learners.

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This is the third and final resource in the set. This resource pack provides scaffolding that supports learners to explain and compare, in writing, the differences between the suffragettes and suffragists so that they can write a short essay.

The pack includes: a Venn diagram revision exercise; a model essay, with tasks to highlight features of writing used to compare and contrast; a writing frame to support learners to write a short comparative essay.

Resource downloads

On the right hand side of this page are a number of documents that you can download for free. Please note that the Teaching Notes and Resources can be found in the pdf document (the first item on the list), whilst the PowerPoint document(s) include(s) presentation(s) which you can display on your interactive board in your classroom.

Licence information

© The Bell Educational Trust Limited. This resource is free to use for educational purposes.

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Suffragettes and Suffragists - writing - The Bell Foundation

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This is the third and final resource in the set. This resource pack provides scaffolding that supports learners to explain and compare, in writing, the differences between the suffragettes and suffragists so that they can write a short essay.

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Teaching EAL Learners in History - The Bell Foundation

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This page explores some of the linguistic challenges EAL learners face in history lessons.

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Teaching EAL Learners in Maths - The Bell Foundation

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Teaching EAL Learners in Maths EAL learners who are New to English and have had a good previous education often find it easier to demonstrate their ability in maths than in other subjects. A lot of maths notation may be familiar because it is used in other languages, and some mathematical topics are very visual, … Continued

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How many hot dogs did this hot dog lover eat on the first day of her binge?

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The Nrich Maths Project Cambridge,England. Mathematics resources for children,parents and teachers to enrich learning. Problems,children's solutions,interactivities,games,articles.

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In my work as a teacher trainer I have been surprised at how often experienced teachers are reluctant to tackle pronunciation issues in class. I can think of at least two reasons why pronunciation tends to be neglected: firstly, the lack of clear guidelines and rules available in course books, and secondly the fact that isolated exercises once a month do not seem to have much of an effect. This is not surprising, however; like all other areas of language teaching, pronunciation needs constant attention for it to have a lasting effect on students, which means integrating it into daily classroom procedures. I find that addressing issues regularly during the language feedback or group correction stage of a lesson helps to focus learners' attention on its importance and leads to more positive experiences.

Using student talk to teach pronunciation

Using student talk to teach pronunciation
Pronunciation work can be kept simple and employ exercises which are both accessible and enjoyable for students, whatever their level. Whenever students do a freer speaking activity, the main aim is usually for them
to develop their spoken fluency in the language. However, the activity also serves to work on students' accuracy through the feedback we give them on their use of language.

When my students do such a group or pair work activity at any level I listen in and take notes which are divided into three areas of language: pronunciation, grammar and lexis. Within the latter, as well as unknown lexis I will also include areas such as register, function, set phrases...and within the former I will include notes on any area of pronunciation that leads to miscommunication. This includes diphthongs, vowel sounds (including weak forms), consonant sounds, word stress and sentence stress. All of these areas can be dealt with quickly and efficiently by having some simple exercises ready which require nothing more than the board and a basic knowledge of the phonemic chart.

If learners are introduced to the phonemic chart one phoneme at a time, it can be introduced from beginner level and students are quick to appreciate its value. A rule for when 'ea' is pronounced /e/ (head) and when it is pronounced /i:/ (bead) will not necessarily aid production, whereas the activities I propose here will. Once your students get used to the exercises, pronunciation work becomes even more efficient and, dare I say it, effective.

I hear a pre-intermediate learner say: 'I suppose (pronounced with stress on first syllable) I will see her tonight'. The listener doesn't understand because of the mispronunciation and asks the other student to repeat until finally they write it down and we see what the word was.

After the activity, on the board I put a column with two bubbles to represent word stress, the first small, the second much larger. I write 'suppose' under the bubbles and drill it before asking students to think of other two-syllable words with second-syllable stress.

After the activity, on the board I draw a column with the heading /e/. In this column I write the word 'dead' and have students repeat it. I then ask for examples of words which rhyme with this, which students find easy ('red', 'bed', etc.).

I do not write these, however. I then ask for words which rhyme and have the same vowel spelling, i.e. 'ea'. I put students in pairs or groups to think of words, giving myself some thinking time, too. In this case, depending on the level I will get 'head', 'bread', 'read', 'lead',... and we end up with an extendable list of words with the same spelling and sound.

I make a column with /ai/, drill 'find' and my students give me 'fight', 'bike', 'buy', 'eye','my', etc. for the sound.

I accept these without writing them and then encourage students to think of other words spelt like 'find'. I get 'mind' and 'kind'.

I make a column with a schwa, and drill 'vegetable', marking the word stress.

With an elementary class there is a case for simply teaching this point rather than eliciting known words, so I point out the number of syllables and the stress on the beginning of the word, explaining that this makes the final syllable weak and not pronounced as the word 'table'.

The activity is simply a choral drill, but of the whole sentence and maintaining an English rhythm. 'He me I have a holiday'.

The trick here is not to over-exaggerate on the stressed words, but keep the stress and rhythm natural. Think in terms of modelling a rhythm, rather than a stress pattern. Using gesture like the conductor of an orchestra or tapping on the board to show the rhythm is especially helpful for students who cannot hear it easily.

I add to the list 'comfortable' and 'presentable' as further examples, but avoid adding more so as not to overwhelm students at this level.

For the second example I point out that the stress is on the second syllable. I can think of objections teachers have made to my suggesting this, such as students' confusion at the lack of a steadfast rule or the non-uniformity of the examples, for example, but to cater to this merely serves to reinforce students' belief that a language always obeys a strict set of rules. In my experience this approach is not a useful one. The only way to learn these fundamental pronunciation points is to notice them, note them down and practise them regularly.

There may be only one or two for any given pattern. If I have thought of any other words myself I add them to the column, ensuring that they are not obscure words or too high for this particular level (in this case I might choose to introduce 'bind' and 'grind', but probably not 'rind' or 'hind').

It is the cognitive work of trying to think of similar words, writing them down and their organisation into columns that helps learners retain sounds and spellings, rather than their simply revising the lists. This is why all students should be encouraged to copy the list into their notebooks.

If the classroom allows it, it's also a great idea to have students pin posters with sound columns up on the wall and add to them whenever a new item comes up for that sound, particularly if it is a strange or different spelling.

I get 'outside', 'today', 'below' and 'behind', which I accept as correct before asking for verbs only. I then get 'accept', 'believe', 'forget'....and these go in the same column.

If a student asks for rules during this exercise, in this case 'Do all 2-syllable verbs have this stress pattern?', for example, I either ask them to think of examples that contradict their rule to give myself time to consider it or I tell them we will look at rules for this the following lesson. As a general rule I find that this procedure encourages learner autonomy by having learners form their own hypotheses which are then confirmed or disproved by the teacher in the following lesson.

Word stress
Here is a simple exercise I repeat regularly for work on word stress and individual sounds.

Vowel sounds
I hear a pre-intermediate learner say: 'Not now because he is did (dead)'.

Diphthongs
I hear an intermediate learner say: 'I didn't find (pronounced / f i: n d /) it anywhere'.

Weak forms
I hear an elementary learner say: 'I will buy vegetables (pronouncing 'table' at the end)'. I note that this is also an opportunity to work on word stress.

Sentence stress
I use fluency drills to work on sentence stress. I hear an intermediate learner say: 'He told me I couldn't have
a holiday' ( bold words are stressed). This causes confusion due to the stress being placed on the wrong words
in the sentence, i.e. the pronouns, or grammar words, as opposed to the content words.

Admittedly, this latter exercise on sentence stress does seem to take longer to have an effect, but if highlighted early on and practised relatively often, students do seem to internalise how English stress differs from their own language and helps overcome what in later stages of learning becomes a fossilised way of speaking. Sentence stress causes more communication problems for a fluent speaker than any number of grammatical errors.

Conclusion
One of the beauties of using student speech for pronunciation work is that it directly addresses students' problems. I have attempted to provide a couple of very simple exercises here to help teachers integrate pronunciation into their classes on a regular basis. Regular work in this area helps learners to develop their own hypotheses and gut-feeling for English pronunciation, something experts and researchers have long emphasised as an essential skill of a good language learner.

Barney Griffiths, Teacher trainer, Teacher, Materials writer, Spain

This article was first published in 2004

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In my work as a teacher trainer I have been surprised at how often experienced teachers are reluctant to tackle pronunciation issues in class. I can think of at least two reasons why pronunciation tends to be neglected: firstly, the lack of clear guidelines and rules available in course books, and secondly the fact that isolated exercises once a month do not seem to have much of an effect.