February 7th, 2008
1:27 am
Have the kids in groups, they have to think if they want to answer the question or pass. The can’t elect who to get rid of though, and each team has their own prize pot.
Write a column of words. Two teams, one person at a time runs up to the board and write the opposite of the word. The fastest team wins.
Cold
Boy
Fast
Kind
Good
Wet
Easy
Strong
Dark
Left
Up
Big
Negative
Skinny
Clever
Interesting
Early
Another game would be to have each of these word and it’s opposites written on a card, give each kid a card, and they have to go around to find their opposite.
Two teams, one person at a time come up to the table. I read a sentence, they have to snap up the last word that goes with the sentence. For example, I say “How are you? I’m fine thank…” they have to snap “you.”.
First teach them, Morikawa sensei has a penThen teach she is wearing a yellow shirt, blue hat, red trousers.Give the children a scanned copy of the image on the front cover of the One World 1 text book with a name label for all the people in the picture. I’ll describe a person like “she’s wearing a red dress, she has a map” and the kids have to guess who I’m talking about.
Separate the class into teams, one person has to start by saying “I like _____, better than _____”, the next person in the team then has to say “Shota (or whoever the name of the person) likes _____ better than ____”, then say “I like ____, better than ____”, and next person say the same thing. Time how long it takes them, the fastest team wins!How are you? I’m fine thank you.I’m hungry, me too.How old are you? I’m 15.What time is it? It’s 3.30.Good morning.Where is the post office?How many brothers do you have?What’s your name?1+1 is 2.I live in Chippubetsu.I’m going to Sapporo dome to watch baseball.The weather today is cold.My favourite subject is English.December the 25th is Christmas.Sapporo is the biggest city in Hokkaido.
Two teams, one team throws a ball to the other team, whoever in has the ball has to say a word (in a category specified earlier, such as animals) and throw the ball back. The team that has the ball when the time is up looses.
Have the kids throw a ball to the person they want to ask the question. It’s easier to first set the question “what _____ do you like?”
Get people to tangle themselves together then try to untangle themselves!
Make each column a team, one student at a time goes up to the front of the class where there a pile of scrambled cards. They then have to use the cards to spell the requested word. 2 points for the fastest, 1 for the rest who spelled the word correctly.
Divide the board into two, on each half write some heading on the top, such as sports, animals, food, countries, e.t.c.. To make it more fun you can also have “others…”Words to spellpleasenicerightthank youmusiclistenstadiumMondaylovetodayplayerquiet
Place a number of flashcard letters in front of the Ss. Give them a few moments to memorize the letters and then tell them to close their eyes. Take away one of the flashcards and then tell the Ss to open their eyes again. The first S to guess the missing letter flashcard can win that flashcard (for 1 point) and take away a flash card in the next round.
A good activity for first years to let them see what words they have remembered.Split the class into teams according to their lines, and split the board into thecorresponding number of groups. The first student in each group comes forward anddraws a picture of a word they know in English. Then the second student, then thethird, etc etc. Give them a time limit and get each group to draw as many pictures asthey can in that time. At the end of the time go through each group of pictures andpoint to a picture asking, “What is this?” The student who drew the picture shouldshout out the word. If they say the correct English the picture counts as 1 point.The team with the most points at the end are the winners.
Split the class into groups and give each group a piece of paper. On the paper havethem write 4 headings e.g. sports, countries, food and in town. Next choose 2students. One will say the alphabet silently in their head and the other will wait sometime then say stop. Whatever letter they stop at becomes the letter for the game.Each group has to them come up with a word in each category beginning with the letter.E.g. Sport Country Food In townS soccer Scotland sausage school
Split the class into groups. Write a sentence on the board, e.g. Name a city in Japan.Or name an animal that lives in the zoo. Explain each team has to think of one word inthe category. Go around each group asking them to say their word. Any group whosays an original word (no other group saying the same word) gets 5 points. Groups whosay a word that another group says get 2 points for being able to think of a word.Name a city in JapanName an animal that lives in the zooA school subjectA type of drinkFoodA famous person who isn’t JapaneseA job
Criss cross for ichi nensei as they aren’t able to answer as many questions as the othergrades. Teach “What ____ do you like?” filling the gap with eg sport, food, drink etc.Then choose a row to stand up. Ask many “what ___ do you like” questions and play asnormal criss cross.
They need to learn how to greet people.”How’s it going?”"I’m good”, “I’m OK”, “I’m hungry”, “I’m tired”, “I’m happy”, “I’m sleepy”Get them all to stand up and practice with one another.
Split the class into groups according to their rows from front to back. Give the frontmember of each group 6 pieces of paper with the numbers 1-6 on them. Explain byexamples that English syllables and Japanese ones are different e.g. lion in English has2 syllables but in katakana Japanese is 4 ra i o n. For first years write the words onthe board but for second and third years just say the words. Next, write/say a word.The first person in each team tries to guess how many syllables there are in the wordthen holds the piece of paper with that number written on it. If they are correct theypass the numbers to the next student behind them. If they are incorrect they have 1more chance before passing to the next student. The winners are the first team toget to the back person and have them answer correctly.
Split the class into their work groups. Around the class place 5 strips of paper withsentences from the textbook written on them. Within each group assign one student tobe the writer and the others decide what order they will run in. The first studentgoes to one piece of paper, reads it and runs back to report to the scribe. If theyforget part of it they must run back. Then the second person goes to another piece ofpaper and does the same thing. Once they have them all done they try to figure outwhat order they go in. Check to make sure they have the sentences in order by askingeach group to read it out.
Split the class into their workgroups and within each group have them decide who willbe number 1,2,3,4 and 5. Next tell them to close their eyes and put their head down ontheir desks. Then call out number 1 and only the number 1s should lift their head.Write a word on the board that they must remember. Then tell them to go back tosleep. Next show the number 2s a word then number 3s etc etc. Once everyone has aword tell them all to lift their heads. They must share their words with the rest ofthe group and try to make the sentence. Once they know the answer they must writeit on the board.
Make each row of students 1 team. Split the board into 6 spaces. Have the firststudent from each group come to the board. Tell them they have 1 minute to think ofas many words as they can that start with the letter you say. After the minute, awardpoints to each team according to how many words they wrote. Tell them they get 2points for a correctly spelled word and 1 point if they try for a word but spell it slightlywrong – as long as its understandable what word they were trying to write. Then thesecond person in each team has their minute with a different letter. Continue until allstudents have had 1 turn.
Draw a grid of 16 squares on the board. Have the students choose 4 vowels and 12consonants and write 1 in each square. Then tell the students they have 3 minutes tomake as many words as possible using the letters on the board. After 3 minutes have 1person from each group write all their words on the board then count up which team hasthe most words. To make it more difficult you could do it like real boggle where theletters have to connect to an adjacent or diagonal square in the grid.
Make up a word search containing words the students know or are studying. Have thestudents work in pairs but go against the other person. Give them 5 minutes to find asmany of the words as they can. After the 5 mins the student with the most words inthe pair is the winner. Then check how many words the whole class managed to findand find out which student in the class found the most words.
Birthday Bingo: 1st gradersFirst have the students write their birthday in full form, like 21st August 1980. Thenhave them condense it to number form, like 21.08.80. After this have each studentwrite their birthday in the number form on the board. Hand out a bingo grid with asmany squares as you want to use but must be less than the number of birthdays beingwritten on the board. The students then pick random birthdays from the board andfill up their grid. Next you and the teacher take turns reading out a birthday in thefull form (21st August 1980) and the kids must listen and figure out the month and daynumber and score off the date if they put it in their grid.
Split the class into groups and have one student from each group come to the front.Say a word and they must write the word spelled correctly on the board. The firststudent to spell the word correctly gets a point for their team and then move onto thesecond student in each group. They can try as many times as they want to spell itcorrectly so encourage them to keep trying. If none of the kids can spell it ok, thencount down some time and then tell them the answer. Move onto the next students.
Split the class into groups of about 4 students. Give each group a set of alphabetcards jumbled up. You can have some groups race against other groups or have allgroups race at the same time. The aim is for each group to un-jumble the alphabetcards and put the alphabet in the correct order.
Have each line form a team. Tell them a word that they must spell out on the board.The first kid from each team runs to the board and writes the first letter of the word,then in relay style the second kid writes the second letter etc. Each team gets onepoint if they spell it correctly and the fastest team gets 5 points. Do again with asecond and third word starting with the second then the third kids in each row.
A combination of brainstorm rummy and my word. Split the class into groups. Givethem a category e.g. animals and give them 1 minute to write down as many words in thatcategory as they can. While they are writing their words you write down 1 word onlyand keep it hidden. After 1 minute, randomly choose a group to start. They must say1 word from their list and they get one point. The next group go and say a word fromtheir list but they cannot say a word that has already been said. The round endseither when all teams have used up all the words on their list or when a team says theword that you had kept secret. When they say the secret word they get 5 points fortheir team.
Have two teams, one person from each team gets to call out the cards. Consonant or vowel letter.They have 30 seconds to make a word, the team with the longest words is the winning team.
Make a 5×5 matrix containing three types of cells. Questions, English to Japanese and Japanese to English. Split the class into two teams, janken to see who go first. The first team to have four in the row is the winner.Questions:1: Which do you like better, cola of tea?2: How do you say teacher in Japanese?3: How do you say 電車 in English?4: Where did you go yesterday?5: How do you say mountain in Japanese?6: What’s your name?7: Are you a boy or a girl?8: Who is your favourite singer?9: Which do you like better? Ramen or Udon?10: Do you have a pet?11: How do you say すばらしい in English?12: Have you been to Yokohama?13: Do you have any brothers and sisers?14: Have you been to Sapporo?15: How do you say 大丈夫 in English?16: How are you today?17: When is your birthday?18: What food do you like?19: What did you eat for breakfast this morning?20: How do you come to school?21: What sports do you like?22: What is the weather like today?23: What do you want to be in the future?24: What time do you get back home from school?25: How old are you?
Best for small classes like an elective or eikaiwa class. Split the class into 2 groups.Give each group a grid of about 25 squares each with an irregular verb written in them.Have the group janken to decide which one starts. The first group choose a verb, e.g.ride and must say the past tense and the past participle so ride, rode, ridden. If theyanswer correctly they get that square. Then the next group go. The first group togain 4 squares in a row is the winner. Assign a symbol for each group and draw a blankgrid on the board. Draw in the groups symbol in the square they choose as you go alongto keep track of how many squares each group has gained.
Draw an X + O’s grid on the board and fill each square with a letterof a word that has an opposite. Split the class into 2 groups and have 1 person fromeach group janken to decide who goes first. Also assign either X or O to each group.The first group to go chooses a letter, e.g. D. You then say the opposite word “light”and they must then answer “dark”. If they answer correctly they get an X or an O intheir box. The letter in the box is a clue to the word, the first letter of the word.Once more example – the team chooses I and you say outside so they must say inside.If a team cannot think of the answer let the other team try to steal the square. Thefirst team to win is the team with 3 in a row in any direction. To make the game lastlonger you could have a grid 4 x 4 or 5 x 5 but each letter must only be in the grid onceor you wont know which square they want to choose.Variation to the game: Use categories such as Fruits and Animals, so if a student chooses a square with P, I say it’s an animal, the student then has to say and animal that begins with P, such as penguin.
Used in the elective class for a small group of students. Have 2 teams e.g. girls v boys.The first girl chooses a card with an English word (verb, adjective, noun, etc) and acts itout. If the other girls guess correctly they get a point. If wrong the boys can guess.Give each student a chance to act out a word.Time: 40 seconds, no correct answers the other team gets to have one guess.
Dog
Happy
Heavy
Fast
Cooking
Delicious
Speak
See
Sleep
Love
Swim
Meet
Teach
Make
Study
Sing
Running
Drink