Do you have students who have problems writing in English? Mad Libs are a fun way to get them to enjoy writing and have fun while doing it. It is a very simple idea and it won't be long before your students can produce their own Mad Libs. Each of my Mad Libs is one A4 page long. The texts are along the lines of 'There was a ___ man and he met ___ women, one of whom had a ___ in her bag.' Before reading the text, I ask my students for, in this case, an adjective, a number and a noun. Try to encourage your students to be creative. If you ask for an adjective, don't accept 'big' or 'red' (unless they are beginners). How about 'hairy' 'obnoxious' or 'lugubrious'?

Once I have modelled how mad libs work, I hand out the texts to my students who can then create their own stories in groups. They can either use the same system that I used, with one student playing the role of teacher, or, for the lower levels, they can simply choose a word to go into each gap.

 

Here are some of my mad libs that you can download and use with your class. They are in PDF format so you'll need Acrobat Reader to be able to read or print them.