Linking words refresher exercise

My students are preparing for their presentations and I wanted to refresh their knowledge of various linking words, also known as connectors or transitional words and phrases. Usually, these appear in the books as a list or table sorted by type of connection. I decided to make it more interactive by having them sort these linking words, put them into gapped sentences and create an exercise with them.

Step 1
I selected three linking words from each of nine categories and printed them out on individual cards. I gave these to the students with the task of putting the words together that served a similar purpose. I told them there were nine categories with three words per category, and I offered some help where needed. After the grouping was finished, we did a quick overview of the type of connection these words create, like contrast, addition, condition, or conclusion.

Step 2
Now they had to place these 27 linking words correctly into 27 authentic English sentences I had printed out on one A4 page each. I simply put the pages around the room and had students walk around with one or two words per person, trying to find the correct spaces for them. During the exercise, I reminded them to first identify the connection necessary in that sentence and then determine if their word might fit. They were also able to collaborate, ask for help, and correct each other, so it doubled as a good high-level communication exercise. After filling all the slots, I would go around and identify the misplaced ones for a second round. After the second round, I would check again and discuss the ones that were still misplaced with the whole class. Generally, this step was considered quite challenging because the sentences were native level from authentic sources such as newspapers or magazines. To find these, I had used the corpus at www.americancorpus.org.

Step 3
The final step was for them to write one sentence themselves with a linking word left out. Students then read out these sentence with a blank and the whole class would come up with possible fillers.

Conclusion
Obviously, my students are at a high level and don't need to be taught about linking words as such. There was some confusion about higher level connectors like moreover, but overall they knew the words, their purpose, and were able to identify the logical connection between the sentence parts. It served its primary purpose as a refresher on this topic, but also fulfilled the secondary goal of getting the students to engage in meaningful English conversation, involving discussion and collaboration.