Games for high level classes

[tyr]

My school is high level and I'm told to teach the kids pretty solidly intermediate stuff. This means most of my classes are very dull affairs, there just seems to be no way to get any of the usual game activities to work for learning more than bare basic vocabulary. And the students are nowhere near native level so that sort of game is out too. They:re just stuck in the middling level of too good for simple stuff but not up to even simple native stuff.
Does anyone have any experience in high level high schools?
How do you make classes fun?

[Jax]

One of my classes recently had a Thanksgiving movie project. It was a hit! The students and teachers all loved it. I found a simple English script (simple sentences so they could focus on other stuff) and they made props to go with their parts and even did different voices. We filmed it and put the whole thing together. Having a projects is very motivational for my classes because after all their hard work, they have a finished copy that they can show off to their friends and other teachers. So if you have an opportunity and the time to make a movie with your students, I highly recommend it.

I also use a lot of games involving competitions... racing to the board to write stuff, giving points against other teams... stuff like that.

Some of my classes use a lot of TV and movies and then we have discussions and projects about them. One class just finished an entire unit on Glee.

My students also do a lot of writing. Sometimes I ask their JTEs for difficult grammar points that they're learning and give them extra assignments in my classes about those. So when we watched Glee, for example, I asked them to write a short essay on the topic in the episode using their new grammar points. Another class had to use the new grammar in blank comic strips.

I'm not sure what else you're looking for? What kind of classes do you teach? Most of mine are ALT fun time or have a set theme I can't change (like the life English classes that learn speech making and debates). I don't even have OC1 this year. XD

[Namisuke]

You can take a look at the students' textbooks and use the grammar from there. You might be able to make games out of points like "I have never ~," "If I were ~, I would/could ~," etc. You can also try more large-scale projects, such as pamphlet writing (which you can send to someone abroad), pen-pals, poster projects, story-writing, etc.