Time: 15 minutes

Unlucky Number

Description

The students make groups and get a small whiteboard and marker. They pick 3 ‘unlucky’ numbers within the range being practiced and write them on their whiteboard. Every group starts with 5 points. The teacher then sets a timer and the students repeat them within a time limit. When the timer goes off, if they picked the last number called as ‘unlucky’, they lose one point.

For later rounds, the number of ‘unlucky’ numbers the students have to pick can increase. Another option (perhaps for the final round) is for the students to pick unlucky numbers for another group.

Notes

This game is designed to practice numbers. It can also be used to practice ordinal numbers, dates, or anything else sequential.

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Touch Game

Description

The teacher puts up flashcards on the board, where all the students can see them. The students make groups and put an ohajiki (or eraser, etc.) between them. The teacher calls out the target English and the students repeat. When the teacher touches one of the cards, all the students try to grab their ohajiki. The first student to grab the it wins one point.

Notes

  • It’s best to always gesture towards each card as you call it regardless of if you intend to touch it or not, so the students can associate what you’re saying with the flashcard.
  • Make sure to stand to the side of the flashcards when gesturing towards/touching the cards so all of the students can see clearly!
  • Students who grab the ohajiki at the same time should play janken to decide who gets it.

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Lucky Wheel

Description

You can use the wheel however you want for different activities. Here are some examples:

“Me too!”

  • Everyone starts with 5 points.
  • Call out a phrase that the class has been practicing e.g. I like green/I like PE/I can play tennis. Something that they can form their own opinion about. Everyone then repeats the phrase.
  • Then, all students who agree with the sentence i.e. They like green/PE etc. Stand up.
  • Spin the wheel and all students standing receive the result. You can choose what the treasure chest and skull mean (e.g. +10 points/lose all points)
  • Students sit down and repeat with the next sentence.

“Me too! – Writing Edition” (this version is similar and can be geared towards JHS as a main activity.)

Hand out the sentence sheet to each student. Give them 5 minutes to complete the sentence with their own unique answer. You can change the topic of the sentence to whatever you’re studying as long as it can be a unique answer.

  • All students start with 5 points.
  • Randomly select a student to stand up and share their sentence. E.g. During winter vacation, I tried omikuji.
  • All students who also did the same thing during winter vacation stand up. It does not have to be the same as what they’ve written, they just have to have also done that activity.
  • Spin the wheel and all students standing receive the points from the wheel.
  • Students sit down and a new student is chosen to share.

Present/Past Connect 4

Description

This is the classic game of connect four. There are two team colors, red and blue. It’s up to you how you want to divide the class. You can split the class in 1/2 and within each half make groups or do something different. On the connect four board are present tense verbs such as write, read, sit, teach etc. you choose a team to “answer” and they choose a verb. They then announce the past tense of that verb. If it’s correct, you click on the verb to reveal the answer – you then choose which team claims that spot and choose the color. The goal is for teams to get as many rows of four as they can! 

Notes

Don’t use this as is. The vocabulary needs to be chosen for the class and their level/what they’ve studied. It’s easy to edit. You can add other things, too. For example, you can write a Japanese word and the students need to translate it correctly.

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”.

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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.

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.”

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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.