Sentence Race is a fast-paced, exciting game that gives students a chance to think quickly in English as they try to earn points by building well-formed sentences using Word Bricks. This game can be played for a specified amount of time or  until one team reaches a target number of points. The first team to reach the goal wins the game. Teams of 3-4 students work best.

 Word Strings provides students with practice forming phrases and sentences, using vo­cabulary words from a Picture This card as a starting point. This game works best in groups.

This section presents three stand-alone English language-learning activities related to birds.

1. “Wild Goose Chase,” for beginner and intermediate students, will energize the classroom and allow students to practice teamwork and prepositions of location.

2. “A Bird Parable,” for upper intermediate and advanced students, encourages students to practice critical and creative thinking skills, explore inter-relationships between animals and people, and write a parable.

3. “Birds Are People, Too,” for intermediate to advanced students, lets students practice writing creative definitions and teaches them bird/people vocabulary.

Integration of the four language skills can be enhanced by focusing on back translating—translating an English text into the students’ first language and then back into English. This article describes a three-step process for using back translation in reading classes as a way to help students identify gaps in their English competence.