Going beyond drilling with throwing and bouncing balls<\/strong><\/p>\n Another obvious activity that could be considered one step above drilling is brainstorming as a ball goes back and forth, e.g. \u201cbanana\u201d, \u201capple\u201d, \u201cgrape\u201d etc if the topic is fruit. The same thing can be done for grammar by brainstorming things like past participles (\u201cbeen\u201d, \u201cseen\u201d, \u201cwatched\u201d etc) and uncountable nouns. You can also do the same thing for pronunciation, brainstorming words with \u201ciz\u201d ending (\u201cpasses\u201d, \u201cchurches\u201d etc), words with long vowel sounds (\u201carch\u201d etc), single syllable words (\u201cfan\u201d, \u201cbar\u201d etc), words stressed on the first syllable (\u201cpower\u201d, \u201cwaterfall\u201d, etc), and so on.<\/span><\/p>\n Target practice games for practicing English<\/strong><\/p>\n Target practice in the classroom can be played with students aiming balls at the places that the teacher or a student says or writes up on the whiteboard. If you don\u2019t have enough balls for one per student or don\u2019t want lots of things flying around the classroom at the same time, students can use paper (screwed up into balls or made into paper aeroplanes) or one person from each team can throw, with their teammates helping them work out where to do so. To add extra language, you can let students try again if they can describe where their ball actually ended up (\u201cIt\u2019s in front of the box\u201d \u201cThat\u2019s right. Try to throw it behind the box again then.\u201d).\u00a0<\/span>You can also play the opposite game of one person throwing and the other students competing to be first to correctly shout out where the ball has ended up.<\/p>\n![\"playing-ball-line-drawing-md\"](\"http:\/\/englishbookgeorgia.com\/blogebg\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/playing-ball-line-drawing-md.png\")
<\/a>The simplest use of a ball is for students to throw and catch it while drilling something like months of the year or pairs of infinitive and irregular past forms of verbs. This can be done with all three of the ways mentioned in the introduction above \u2013 one student on their own, two or more students cooperating, or a more competitive version with more challenging throws or things said to catch the other people out. You could also have one or two people throwing and catching while everyone else chants, perhaps as teams.\u00a0Other sequences which students can drill include\u00a0Days of the week,\u00a0Numbers,\u00a0Times and\u00a0Dates, <\/span>Adjectives and adverbs,<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>I me my mine, you you your yours, etc.<\/span><\/p>\n