We had print outs of all their key vocabulary this week, and they placed some of the vocabulary on the chairs. They were given some time to learn their vocabulary, ie. look and flip to see what it means.There were enough chairs for the number of students, minus one.
As the music played, they walked around in a clockwise direction. I observed as they walked around they were looking and revising the vocabulary, pausing at some difficult words. When the music stopped, as my class was small, all the students needed to read out their word in target language and tell me what it means. The student that did not have a chair needed to make a sentence using the vocabulary. This ensured that no student was sitting out, and incentivised those who were prone to purposely "getting out", so they didn't have to engage in any learning.
I think in addition, students who didn't know the meaning of their word would also be required to make it into a sentence would also help students put the vocabulary in context for themselves. As this particular group were in Year 10, we were able switch out words and add lots of new vocabulary.
It's simple, and easy to prepare for. The kids felt they had ownership over their vocabulary because they created it themselves. I tried it with the Year 9s and they loved it too.
We will have to see how much they retained from the activity next week, whether or not this was effective. Either way, it's a great way to break up the lesson and still keep the kids "learning".