Recommended level: Junior high grade 3

Balloon Pop

Description

Draw a cluster of balloons on the board – nothing fancy, as long as they’re distinct oval shapes with string coming down. Put the flashcards on the board and split them in to two distinct categories: -1 and +1. Set the timer. Point at the flashcards, say the English and have the students repeat. Go between the two categories. When the timer beeps, have the JTE/HRT erase or add a balloon depending on what category the last flashcard was in. The goal of the game is to have at least one balloon left! 

Notes

If you want, you can quickly draw a house (like UP!) or whatever character (Anpanman) or animal you sketch up very quickly and attach them to the bottom of the strings. Give the students something to invest in.

At the start of the game, tell the JTE/HRT briefly that they need balloons. When the first round is done, have the JTE react. If they’re -1, make a show of erasing one balloon. “Oh no!” or make a worried face. If they’re +1, have them cheer or react. Or you can react on their behalf!

Asleep/Awake Powerpoint

Also known as:

  • Asleep/Awake

Description

Rules are the same for playing the Asleep/Awake game.

Prepare the slides with individual words from a target sentence. Arrange students into groups of 5. Determine who will be Player 1, 2, etc.

All students put their heads down and ‘go to sleep.’ One by one they wake up and note their sentence part on their sheet then go back to sleep. When all students have finished, everyone ‘wakes up’ and shares their words. They then work together to complete the sentence and write it on their sheet. I usually walk around with a stamp and stamp their sentence when it’s correct. Repeat for each round of sentences.

A variation for Elementary School can be done with spelling instead of making sentences. Same rules apply but each player receives a letter. After about a minute of thinking time, I then give them a hint e.g. “It’s a food” or “Picture dictionary page 24”.

Similar Games

Lucky Group

Description

The class is broken into groups, and each group is given a number. The teacher puts number cards (as many as there are groups) face down on the board in a random order. One flashcard for the target English’s vocabulary is put on top of each number card.

A timer is set, and the teacher randomly picks one of the vocabulary cards to model the target English. Students repeat them and this continues until time is up. The teacher then reveals which group number was under the last card that was called, and that group wins one point. This continues for as many rounds as needed.

Notes

Even though the cards are being placed face down, the teacher can cheat and have some kind of mark small by each card, to rig the results and keep things more even!

Number Match

Description

A warmup game! It’s pretty simple. You have the flashcards on the board. Ask the JTE to choose a number from 15 – 20. Write the number on the board. Set the timer, say the target English while pointing to the respective flashcard. When the timer beeps, roll the dice. Write the number rolled underneath the first flashcard. Do another round. When the timer beeps, roll the dice and write the number rolled under the second flashcard. Do another round. When the timer beeps, roll the dice and write the number rolled under the third flashcard. 

The goal is for all the rolls to add up to the number the JTE said at the start! 

For example, if the JTE said 20 and the first roll was 6, the second roll was 4, the third roll was 5 and the fourth roll was 6 – that makes 21. So under the fourth flashcard, you would write the rolled number – in this case, 6 – but cross it out. We can’t use it because it is too much. 

Continue on with the game. If the fifth roll is 3, write it under the fifth flashcard but cross it out, it still adds up to too much and so we can’t use it. We need to roll a 1 before we reach the end of the flashcards. If we do roll a 1, great! We were lucky. If we don’t end up rolling a 1 before the game ends, oh well – we can try again next time!

Notes

Students don’t need to produce anything – even if they don’t know numbers yet, they’re not being expected to use them at all aside from looking at them/acknowledging them and as we’re using numerals, the language itself doesn’t matter.

You need to keep up with the math, so keep the numbers low or ask the JTE to track them on the board. This way the students can also visualize it.

If you choose a number between 15 – 20, you’re not going to match the JTE’s number in the first two rounds and you’re unlikely to match it in the third. We set the time, so we can get a lot of repetition from the students in this game even if we do make a match.

Warmup Dice

Description

The teacher places large flashcards for each of the vocabulary being practiced on the board. Under each card, the teacher writes ‘3’. They then write the sum total to the side (for example, if there are 5 cards, the total would be 3 times 5, 15). This is the class’s current score.

The teacher then sets the timer for around 30 seconds. The teacher calls out the vocabulary/grammar and the students repeat. Once the timer goes off, the teacher rolls the dice (or gives the dice to a random student to roll). The number under the last flashcard called is replaced with whatever number was rolled. The current score is updated to reflect the change. This continues for as many rounds as needed.

Notes

To make the game more interesting, the total score can be awarded a certain ‘star value’. For example, assuming the initial score is 15, a ‘1 star’ result could be 10 points or fewer, a ‘2 star’ result could be between 11 and 20, and a ‘3 star’ result could be 21 points or more.

Showing the students these ranges from the start could be used to increase the excitement of each dice roll. Having the initial score be the middle result increases the chance of a change, whether it’s an increase or decrease. The number of points needed to earn each star value will depend on how many flashcards are being used in the game, and what the starting number of points is.

Heads Up

Description

Students get into pairs and get a set of flashcards, and a timer is set for ~2 minutes. Student A holds the cards to face their pair. Student B asks the question, and A guesses what their own card is using the answer. They get 3 tries before they discard that card face up. If they guess correctly, they get one point, and go to the next flashcard. Students guess until the timer goes off. Pairs then switch and play again.

Notes

  • This game hasn’t been tested out yet. If you try it, please let me know how it went!
  • This could also be a good vocab review for a first game or warm up game, where students just guess the word instead of doing the question/answer.
  • The idea is it gets easier to guess the flashcard the more cards they get through, although it may result in students not using the full Q/A.

Example round:

A: *holds card facing away from them*
B: “What do you want?”
A: “I want a….book?”
B: “No! What do you want?”
A: “I want a…game!”
B: “Yes! 1 point.”

Similar Games

Super Castle Wars

Description

This follows the standard pattern for class review games in which the student split into groups, each group member is assigned a letter and is called upon to possibly answer a question following a peer check period. This PowerPoint has groups battling to destroy each other’s castles while repairing their own. You can adjust the rules to suit your needs. You can choose to assign points, add bonus points for having a complete castle, minus points for each castle part that is destroyed. It’s up to you. 

Battleship

Description

Using the worksheet, the students first draw their ‘battleships’ on the top half of the page. In the grid of squares, they shade out one row of 4, two rows of 3 and one row of 2. These can be horizontal or vertical, but not diagonal.

Next, making sure their partner can’t see their worksheet, they make sentences by combining the two parts of the sentences on the left and top axis of the grid. Each combination points to a particular space on the grid. If their answer matches a space taken up by a ‘battleship’ on their partner’s worksheet, their partner says ‘hit’. The student can mark that space on the bottom half of the page with a circle. If their answer matches an unused space, their partner says ‘miss’, and they can mark it with a cross.

The students take turns until all the first player is able to hit all the spaces their partner chose. If you print the worksheet as double-sided, they can draw their battleships in new places and play a second game if time allows.

Notes

Students may not know or understand ‘hit’ or ‘miss’, so saying ‘yes’ or ‘no’ (or anything more appropriate to the target English) may be more appropriate.

Squares

Description

Students make pairs and receive a worksheet that has a table with one half of a sentence down the columns, and the second half across the rows.

The goal is for a student to draw a square or rectangle between the points on the worksheet. Students say the two sentences for each point on the grid they chose and then can draw a line between them.

The student who draws a line that closes a square can sign inside of it, and this is worth one point. If a student creates multiple squares in one turn they can get multiple points.

Mastermind

Description

Students make a sentence by picking 1 option from 3 different sections, then try to guess their partner’s sentence.

Their partner tells them how many parts (out of 3) they got right.

The students must piece together the sentence by process of elimination – the sooner they guess it correctly, the more points they get. Once both students have finished their sentences they can make a new sentence (either with the same partner or in new pairs).