Thanks for compiling and including the two lists for DELTA and CELTA. The titles by Penny Ur in the Cambridge Handbooks for Language Teachers are excellent, especially Discussions that Work, and in the same series, Friederike Klippel's Keep Talking: communicative fluency activities for language teaching.

From the books I've used the NASA Survival game; Tell us about (a board game - you will need plastic counters and dice)) Managing a zoo; Picture differences; and Explain yourself. With all of these exercises the teacher's role is as monitor and mentor( grammar use and pronunciation), with very little teacher-talk. The key is thorough preparation of the learning materials, establishing the focus. and keeping your lesson objectives in mind.

"Tell us about" is an icebreaker type game where the studuent throws the dice, moves to the square and then has to talk about the topic wriiten in that square to the small group - fashion; ambitions; TV or movies they like and why; scary situations etc. It's very good for groups that are from different curriculum areas and so don't know each other. Every so often there is a "Free Question". If they land on that square they can ask another member of the group or the teacher. It also emphasises taking your turn, listening while others speak and framing questions. Be careful with this as some of the guys will ask very personal questions of the girls or the teacher, so you have to have some ground rules.

These activities work really well for oral lessons (high school and university level) and students get so engaged I have to remind them to take a break. They often tell me that they don't need a break and want to complete the task. In fact, the lesson will just whizz by, and provided you have done your prep and sit-in on each group, it's fairly relaxed for the teacher. (For teachers who have 'been out late' the night before, these activities are 'lifesavers').

Explain yourself is great fun. Students are put into strange situations and have to explain what happened to their group members and then to the class. All students participate - there are no passengers. Some of the reasons and rationale given by students can be hilarious and I'm often amazed at their creativity. Two examples of the situations:

You are walking along the main road at 3 p.m. in your bathing costume( swimsuit): Explain yourself!

This one can be quite risque but lots of laughs and some weird and wonderful answers.

You are sitting on top of your neighbour's roof at 1 in the morning: Explain yourself!

Expect - abduction by aliens; escaping from your neighbour's husband/boyfriend; watching the stars with a romantic partner; escaping from a fire; cooling off etc. You can do some role-play here by getting a student to act as a police officer. Interesting that one student said something about bribes and corruption!

It's actually quite helpful to have a small hand-held whiteboard you can use for these group activities.