About Chris
Pages by Chris:
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Body Parts by Chris
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Donut Prediction Game
Somewhat similar to the donut game, but with a twist!
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Hit and Blow
Game very similar to the Mastermind we have used before that can be used for vocab, answer, question, or all of the above.
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Self-Introduction Teacher Quiz
In lieu of the traditional introduction of teachers where teachers show pictures and talk at the students, teachers prepare a simple quiz to let the students practice the language they learned in previous years while learning about their teachers for the year. Especially good if the ALT is the same as the previous year.
Comments by Chris:
- Asleep/Awake(Copied from the other version of this game) I played a somewhat different variation of this yesterday. I used whiteboards instead of worksheets. Each student woke up and saw a word and then wrote it on the white board. At the end of the words, Ts then called out what number should be the scribe to write the sentence after the group unscrambled it. If the scrambled sentence was a question, then students needed to answer the question. I then awarded points for the fastest group, 5 for the first to finish, then 4, 3, 2, 1, 1 (I had 6 groups). There was no time limit, and, each group always got points. I was hesitant to award points this way, but aside from the one class that had groups made with the top 4 students in the entire grade, and then all the other groups had the lower 15-16 students in the grade, the point spread was only 3-4 points between the top and lowest scores. This particular class was JHSG3, and, it was a review of all the English they've studied this year and some of previous years, like 3rd person singular needing an -S on the end of verbs which is a common mistake. At the end of each question, after we'd read the unscrambled sentence together, I pointed out common mistakes students make with each grammar. Many students told me after the lesson that it was helpful to share all the answers like that so that they could all see that they all make the same mistakes regardless of English ability and also remember the things they need to be careful of.
- Asleep/Awake PowerpointI played a somewhat different variation of this yesterday. I used whiteboards instead of worksheets. Each student woke up and saw a word and then wrote it on the white board. At the end of the words, Ts then called out what number should be the scribe to write the sentence after the group unscrambled it. If the scrambled sentence was a question, then students needed to answer the question. I then awarded points for the fastest group, 5 for the first to finish, then 4, 3, 2, 1, 1 (I had 6 groups). There was no time limit, and, each group always got points. I was hesitant to award points this way, but aside from the one class that had groups made with the top 4 students in the entire grade, and then all the other groups had the lower 15-16 students in the grade, the point spread was only 3-4 points between the top and lowest scores. This particular class was JHSG3, and, it was a review of all the English they've studied this year and some of previous years, like 3rd person singular needing an -S on the end of verbs which is a common mistake. At the end of each question, after we'd read the unscrambled sentence together, I pointed out common mistakes students make with each grammar. Many students told me after the lesson that it was helpful to share all the answers like that so that they could all see that they all make the same mistakes regardless of English ability and also remember the things they need to be careful of.
- Zombie Virus GameI tried this game with my ESG4 students. They love the regular zombie game and ask me for it almost every single class, though we have only played it maybe 5 times in 2 years. It's important to find a good ration of zombies to humans. If there are to many zombies and not enough doctors, it's too quick to just completely overrun the humans, but of course all the zombies also disappear if you have too many doctors. I had 2 doctors, 4 zombies, and 5 normal humans. It wasn't too bad for a class of only 11. Also, the first time I played this, I was not careful in thinking about what each group should say, and it was difficult for the students. Please don't be like me and be more careful choosing the language the zombies and doctors should say. I recommend trying to find something that you can reuse every time you play this game for the younger grades. So, basically, don't make mistakes like I did, and your kids should love this game. Mine did even with my mistakes!
- Red Riding HoodThis sounds like a fun idea. Similar to the Mt. Fuji climbing game someone else posted last year. Gonna try it out :) I have small classes, so I may do it as Students vs. Teachers :)
- Table FlipTried this with my last lesson with ES4 before the break to practice stationary words. Was a big hit! Took a little bit of time to prepare, but was a lot of fun for them! Thanks for sharing!
- Tug of WarI played this today for the first time with ESG4. They loved it quite a lot. I changed it to using dice instead of RPS, and, I tried a second variation using two students each rolling a die vs the teacher rolling. It was pretty fun for the students, and in the end, we finished in a draw, which made it even better for the students. I also drew stick figures of a few students pulling a hastily drawn rope vs two hastily drawn stick figures of the teachers. It worked incredibly well, and the students asked to play this again next week. I think if you have a bigger class, starting off with one die per row of students or and one each for the teacher could be a fun way to let all the students have a turn rolling the dice and also help finish up the game quickly. I only have 10 students in that class, so, I can experiment with many different variations easily.