Use it! Activity ideas for fast-finishers

by Dan Vincent

Dan Vincent is a teacher and materials writer, who has worked in the UK, Japan, Ukraine and Spain, with a teaching career spanning over 20 years. He was one of the founders of the Global English Training (GET) Program of the international NGO Peace Boat, has studied materials development for endangered languages, and is co-author of a new teens course for Cambridge University Press. He lives in Spain and works for the British Council Madrid.

What are fast-finisher activities? Anyone who has taught young learners will be familiar with that all-too-common classroom cry of ‘Finished!’ Inevitably, there are always going to be students who complete activities early, especially activities which don’t require the entire class to be kept in step. Keeping these students occupied is crucial for good classroom management, especially with a mixed-ability class, but it has to be done in a meaningful way. This is where fast finisher activities come in. These are easy-to-prepare, easy-to-set activities that a teacher can give students to do while the rest of the class are still completing the main activity.

What makes a good fast-finisher activity?

It’s important to bear in mind that those students who finish before others often want something

more challenging to get on with than simply another exercise to work through. Ideally, therefore, fast-finisher activities should be stimulating extras rather than add-ons that keep students occupied. They also need to be self-explanatory so that students can get on with them by themselves without the need for supervision. For the same reason, it’s best if they don’t require much feedback or are self-checking, otherwise you run the risk of students feeling their extra efforts have gone to waste.

LET’S LOOK AT A FEW IDEAS FOR ACTIVITIES:

Fish Out Your Own Fast-Finisher

This means having a set of fast finisher activities for each unit of the coursebook you are using (you don’t have to prepare every unit at once!). Each activity is written on a piece of card and the cards for each unit are kept in a bag. When a student needs something to do, they come to the front, fish out one of the cards (hence the name) and do that activity. When they’ve finished, they write their name on the back of the card so they don’t repeat the activity another day, and return it to the bag. If you use activities that are related to previous units, it’s a great opportunity for review and recycling. For example, for a unit on travel you might have a card with ten items of unit vocabulary written on it, the task being to come up with a travel story that includes all ten. Or you might have a vocabulary treasure hunt, with clues such as “Find a verb on page 57 that means to write something on a blog.” Choose the words carefully, and you can even turn this into a puzzle whereby the first letters of the words spell out another related word.

Gridgrams

This is a flexible way to practice vocabulary and spelling. You have a four-by-four grid of sixteen random letters, out of which you have to make as many words as possible in a set time. They can be set as a competition when more than one student finishes early. You can prepare word grids ahead of lessons, write one up on the board, or even have students prepare their own and then swap. In place of letters, you can also write topic vocabulary (and even include some target grammar in a few of the squares), with students then challenged to come up with as many sentences as possible that contain a set number of the items in the grid.

EXAMPLE GRIDGRAM:

A simple gridgram. How many words can you make from these letters in two minutes?

h d a r

n e u m

w b t i

o s e l

English journals

These are not student notebooks, but separate books that can be kept in class. When a student needs something to do, they simply write in their journal. Of course, some guidance is needed as to what they should write, but students should also be allowed some choice. Prepare a set of level-appropriate writing prompts on cards for students to choose from. These can range from simple topics such as ‘Describe a member of your family’ to fun essay titles such as ‘Reggaeton is the best music ever: discuss’ or story prompts such as ‘Write the dialogue between two objects in the classroom that are trying to escape’. Unlike other fastfinisher activities, you will need to read and comment on what the students write, even if you don’t make thorough corrections, but this doesn’t need to be done in class; journals can be read after class, or even just a few times a term. Well, those are some ideas for you to try out in class. See what works and what doesn’t with your own students, but most of all, the next time a student’s hand shoots up with the familiar cry of “Finished!”, make sure it’s not left waving.