Materials: Small cards

Element Game

Description

Firstly, explain the strengths and weaknesses of each element. Water beats fire, fire beats earth, earth beats water. Air beats water, fire and earth. Pollution beats air, but water, fire and earth can all beat pollution.

Give each student three random element cards. The students stand up and find a partner, then practice the target English. The students then both pick one element card from their hand. Instead of saying “rock, paper, scissors,“ they count down “3..2..1.. Show!” Whoever has the winning card takes their partner’s card.

In case of a tie, both students place their cards somewhere (like on a desk or chair) and continue to the next round until there’s a winner. The winner collects all the cards.

If a student runs out of cards, they ask the teachers for two more cards. The student with the most cards at the end wins the game.

Notes

  • Make sure they count down “3…2…1…Show!” or any other chant you would like in English. If not, there is a chance for students to just say “せーの” if the English is not emphasized.
  • Print enough cards so you will have spares for the losing students.

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Gacha Basket!

Description

In this team game, students will take turns pantomiming a vocabulary verb for the other members to guess. This game’s purpose is for students to effectively say sentences such as “She can swim” and “They can’t play kendama” on their own.

Put at least as many gacha as there are members in each team. For example, if there are 4 members, there should be four gacha in the basket. Each gacha will have two cards inside: the verb vocabulary card, and the point card. Sandwich these cards together, backside facing outwards, to keep the cards a mystery. Bend the card slightly into a U shape to fit into the gacha. Place the gacha in the container.

Each group gets a set of cards, face down, on their desk to make their sentence. For example if the target English is can/can’t, they would get a set of pronoun cards and modal can/can’t cards.

Player 1 turns over the cards and opens one mystery gacha. They secretly peek at the action verb, then pantomime/gesture it (without saying the word themselves) for the remaining players to guess as a team. For example, if the two cards on their desk are ‘she’ and ‘can’t’, and the gacha card is ‘swim’, player 1 pantomimes someone who CAN’T swim. The correct answer would be “She can’t swim!” The players must say the whole sentence for the game to be effective English practice. If the remaining three players can guess correctly within 3 tries, they will win the number of points within the gacha ball.

Notes

  • This game can be played as a group, as a pair, or as a class! When in groups or pairs, the students will work together to accumulate points and compete against all other teams. When this game is played as a class, the class will simply see how many points they can accumulate together, and there will be no opponent. Even without an opponent, it can still be a rewarding game.
  • In a group setting, the members janken to decide the first player to the last. As a pair, two students janken and the winner goes first. As a class, the teacher will volunteer as the first player as an ice breaker, then volunteers can come and participate in the front of the class as they like.
  • Pass out the group point sheet after the game demonstration is performed. If played as a class, points can be recorded on the board instead.
  • The points should not be checked until the end of class both to save time, and to keep the excitement and wonder in the class high.
  • A variation of the rules is the group looks at the gacha card instead, and pantomimes for the current player to guess the correct sentence. This could be decided by what card is drawn on the desk, for example. An example could be if the ‘they’ card is picked, the group pantomimes to the current player, otherwise the current player pantomimes to the group.

Lucky Star Game

Description

Students make groups or pairs. Each group/pair is given the two sets of cards. After shuffling both sets of cards, the students play rock, paper, scissors. A Lucky Star card is picked to indicate the number of stars needed to win the round. The winner picks a card first then the other students choose a card going in clockwise order. In the same order, the students read their cards using the target English without revealing their cards. Once they’ve all finished, they reveal their cards and the card with the matching number of stars is the winner.

Alternatively, you could choose to pick the Lucky Star card after all students have revealed their cards, so it keeps the winner a mystery till the end of the round.

Notes

The Lucky Star Game Cards powerpoint can be edited to make your game cards. Then export it as a pdf to print.

Protect the Cheese

Description

Follow the instructions on the 2nd slide to choose the target word for the game. Zooming the slide out makes it easier to adjust.

Students guess one of the letters for the hidden word. If the guess is correct, click the corresponding circle to reveal the letter. If the guess is incorrect, note it on the blackboard and then click on a piece of cheese to play the animation. If all letters are correctly guessed and the class can read out the word, click the ‘W’ button to play the winner screen. If they lose all their pieces of cheese before figuring out the word, reveal the answer and click the ‘L’ button to play the losing screen. 

The game can be run any way the teacher sees fit. However, to avoid students not engaging, or having only a handful of students volunteering, here is a potential way to run the activity.

1. Arrange class into groups. Give each group a mini card of the target vocab for the unit. Place large flashcards of the same target words on the blackboard.

2. Start a timer and have students repeat each of the vocab. When the timer ends, the group with the mini card for the last called vocab can peer check and choose a letter to guess.

3. Repeat until the class figure out the hidden word or lose all their cheese. 

Students can’t call out the answer until all letters have been revealed. The team that guesses the final hidden letter can then attempt to read out the answer.

Notes

  • You can use any length word you want. Just copy/paste the circles to add more letters.
  • If students guess a letter that appears more than once in the word (eg. dOctOr), I usually only reveal one of them each turn.

Zombie Virus Game

Description

For this game, there are humans, zombies, and doctors. The teacher will choose select students to start off as zombies or doctors (how many depends on the size of your class). Small cards can be given to each student to let them know what they are.

When the game starts, students go around and play each other in rock, paper, scissors. The loser asks the question and the winner answers OR if your target language consists only of a statement, just have the winner say the statement.

Depending on what the student is (human, zombie, or doctor), they respond with different answers if they win rock, paper, scissors. Make sure students whisper their answers in the other student’s ear so they don’t reveal what they are to surrounding students. Zombies turn humans into zombies and doctors turn zombies back into humans, but only if they are the winner of rock, paper, scissors. If a human wins, nothing happens. At the end of the game, if more than half the class are humans, humans win! However, if more than half are zombies, zombies win!!

Notes

This game has never been played. If you do try it out, please leave a comment!

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Damsel in Distress

Description

Students are in groups. Each group gets a game board, a set of quest cards, a set of small flashcards and a die. Student’s place their ohajiki at the stairs of the castle. The set of small flashcards is shuffled and placed in a pile face down. The quest cards are shuffled and placed face down in the spaces on the game board.

The group asks the first player the question. The first player then rolls the die and moves their ohajiki to the number on the board. They then take the top card from the set of small flashcards and answer the question using the target English. Once the student has said the answer, they turn over the quest card associated to the number they rolled. Each round has certain rules for certain cards:

Round 1: If the quest card is the key, potion, shield or sword, nothing happens. The card remains face up and the next player has their turn. If the quest card is the dragon, all quest cards are shuffled and reset. All players are moved back to the stairs and the game continues. If the quest card is the princess, the player that found the princess gets 1 point. All quest cards are shuffled and reset. Players are moved back to the stairs.

Round 2: In round 2 there are 3 dragon defeating cards. If the potion, shield or sword is found BEFORE the dragon is, then the dragon card has no effect if found. If the dragon is found before the potion, shield or sword, then the quest cards are shuffled and reset. 

Round 3: In round 2 the key must be found BEFORE the princess. Once a player finds the key, any player who finds the princess after gets the point. Once the princess is found, the quest cards are shuffled and reset. Players are moved back to the stairs. The rule about the dragon, shield, potion and sword remains the same as round 2. 

The player at the end of the game with the most points is the winner!

Notes

I played this game with my 5 graders for ‘what do you want’ ‘ want~’ and it worked pretty well. We only did the rules for round 1 (but we did 2 rounds of it) but I plan to play it again sometime this year with a rule escalation. 

I have also made a 2nd version of the cards in case you don’t plan to use the key rule (I have replaced the potion card also). I added a ‘nothing’ card in which nothing happens when that card is revealed. There is 2 per set. 

This game was designed for question and answer lessons, but should also work for answer only lessons too.

Hit and Blow

Description

Students play in pairs. Each student gets a matching set of vocabulary cards (i.e. dog, cat, chicken, lion, panda, koala and kangaroo), and each pair gets one set of 5 set of X cards.

Ss do RPS. The winner is the 1st Master. Master chooses 5 cards and an order, and places them face down on the desk in a line.

One by one, Master points to a card and asks the target dialogue, for example, “What’s this?”. The other student picks one of their own cards and places it next to the indicated card, saying, for example, “It’s a ____.”

After Master has asked all 5 cards, they will then indicate if the answers are correct.

If the card is one the Master has chosen and in the same position as the Master, the Master will turn that card over. If the card is one the Master chose, but in a different position, the Master will do nothing. If the card is not one the Master chose, they will put down an X card next to the other student’s card.

The other student can then change their card position or which cards they had selected from the initial set of cards to try and guess the correct cards and order. The student has 3 chances (including the first round) to guess the correct cards and their correct order.

After 3 chances, the other student gets 1 point for every upside-down card, and 2 points for every card face-up. No points for any cards with an X.

Then students switch roles.

Depending on students grade level and difficulty of vocabulary, adjust the number of cards in the original set, but, in general I’ve been using 7 cards in the initial set.

Notes

The demo is very important for the students to understand this game. When working on it, even ESG3 could understand quickly when they saw a good demo.

– The X cards, for ease of understanding, should be placed next to the cards chosen by the other student, not the master to indicate that the card chosen by the other student is incorrect.

– Can be used for only vocab, question or answer. 

– Definitely demo this game in your meeting with your TT beforehand. 

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The Rugby Game

Description

Players: 1v1 or 2v2

Each group receives a game board, a deck of red mini cards and a deck of green mini cards. Students decide who will be the red team and who will be the green team.

The red team starts at the ‘start’ line and green team starts at the ‘goal’ line. Both decks are shuffled and placed face-down in front of each team. The red team’s goal is to make it to the ‘goal’ line while the green team are trying to stop them.

Start a timer for 3-4 minutes.

The red team draws the top card of their deck and places it on the field while repeating the target English on the card. They can place their card anywhere on the starting line. The green team then draws the top card of their deck and places it anywhere on their starting line while repeating the target English.

Players repeat their turns, placing cards on the field. Cards can only be placed either on the starting line or where an arrow from a previously placed card is pointing.

If a team wants to take over an occupied square, both teams play janken. The winner places their card on the space and the loser card is returned to the bottom of the deck.

If the red team reaches the goal line, they receive 6 points and all cards are shuffled into the deck. Play then repeats until the timer ends. If the red team has not made it to the goal line when the timer ends but have placed a card on either the 2 point or 4 point line, they receive that many points. The red team then adds up their total points.

Teams then switch starting positions. Green team is now attempts to score while the red team tries to stop them. A new timer is set for round 2. After the timer ends, both teams compare points to determine the winner.

Notes

The images on the cards can be changed to match the target english for the unit. 

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The Unlucky Donut Game

Description

This game can be played 2v2 in teams.

1. Each group receives a deck of mini cards that contains 3 donut bomb cards and one dice. The cards are shuffled and arranged on the desk in a circle shape.

2. Team 1 rolls the dice. They then flip over cards into the center of the circle up to the number they rolled (minimum 1). They do not have to flip over every card, they can stop at any time. Everyone repeats the target English on each card that is flipped over. If they have not flipped over a bomb card, the team keeps the cards they have flipped over.

3. If a donut bomb card is flipped over, the turn immediately ends. The team does not receive any cards. All cards flipped over are returned to the circle and the bomb card is removed from play.

4. Team 2 then take their turn. Turns repeat until all cards have been collected. The team with the most cards wins 1 point. All cards are then shuffled and the game is reset for round 2.

Notes

  • The cards in the attached file can be edited for any target English. ‘Right click’ + ‘change picture’ is the easiest method.
  • Feel free to make any changes to the rules. Variations are welcome.

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Shut the Box

Description

This game can be played 1v1 or 2v2. 

Each group receives a game board, 12 mini cards and two dice. The mini cards are shuffled and placed face-up in the spaces on the game board. Repeating cards are ok if you have less than 12 target English terms. Students then decide which pair will go first.

Team 1 rolls both dice and adds the two numbers together (e.g. 3 + 5 = 8). They then flip as many cards on the board face-down as possible adding up to their total (e.g. 8 = card 5 & 3 or card 7 & 1 or card 4, 3 & 1 etc.) Students repeat the target English for each card as they flip it over. Team 1 then takes a second turn rolling both dice and flipping over cards. Team 1’s round ends when they can no longer flip over any cards. Team 1 then count how many cards they managed to flip over. 

The cards are then shuffled and returned face up on the board. Team 2 roll the dice and take their turns. Once team 2 can no longer flip over any cards, both teams compare how many cards they flipped over and the team with the most cards wins 1 point. Both teams can continue playing until the teacher calls ‘finished.’ Pairs can then shuffle around the room if time allows for more rounds.

Notes

  • This game can be played 1v1 but playing 2v2 allows for more peer support. 

    A potential variation is to have one team trying to flip cards face-up while the other team tries to flip cards face-down. That way teams can alternate their turns. Feel free to try any variations to the rules.