Shoot 'em Up

Stick the FCs on the walls around the classroom, just like with the This, That game. The students gather in the centre of the room. The teacher calls out one of the FCs. The first student to point to that FC wins a point for their team.
　You’ll need a quick scoring system for this game in order to keep the pace going. See Association Drill and Hit for examples.
　As you’re playing, you can optionally encourage the students to make gun shapes with their thumb and fingers so that rather than just pointing to the FCs, they are shooting them. It is also fun to name the student who was first to shoot the FC each time, thus offering encouragement, etc.
　As a follow up to Shoot ’em Up, I often get the students to go round in pairs, pointing to each FC on the wall, asking and answering target language questions. For example if the FCs are for colours, the students could be going round in pairs saying, “What colour is it? “It’s [blue].” If the FCs are for food, they could be asking, “Do you like [Lasagne]?” “Yes, I do.” Or if the FCs are for animals (plurals), they could be asking each other, “What are they?” “They are [giraffes].”

Conveyer Belt

This is a good game for getting the whole class involved. It practises the Q&A as well as the FC vocabulary.

Flashcards are placed on the floor in a line along the centre of the classroom, as shown below.

WHITEBOARD

                                                   TA            FC              TB

                  #1s             FC             #1s

                  #2s             FC             #2s  

                  #3s             FC             #3s

                  #4s             FC             #4s

                  #5s             FC             #5s

                  #6s             FC             #6s

                                                                     FC

The teacher gives the each of the #1 students a ball – let us say a small red ball to team A and a small blue ball to team B. (Actually the ball can be any object but it is nice for the students to take a hold of something fun and to choose the colour of their team’s object).

The #1s of each team passes their ball to the #2 student next to them. As they do so they ask the target language (TL) question. Let us say that the TL question is, “What colour is it?” and the FCs are colours. The #1s passes the ball to the #2s and says, “What colour is it?” The #2s takes the ball, and rather than answering the question they simply pass the ball on to the #3s while again asking, “What colour is it?” The ball continues along the line with each student saying the TL question as they pass the ball along. When the ball reaches the last student in the line (in the above diagram this would be the #6s), this student simply passes the ball back to the [#5s] and the ball goes back down the line in the opposite direction towards the #1s again (and when it reaches the #1s it goes back again).

So for each team you have a ball being passed up and down the line with the TL question being repeated by each student as they pass the ball along.

Finally the teacher shouts out one of the FCs (e.g. “Red!”). The student from each team who is holding a ball now jumps out of their chair and rushes to slap the [Red] FC. The first student to slap the FC and shout out the TL answer (e.g. “It’s Red!”) is the winner and is awarded points for their team.

The game then starts up again: “What colour is it, what colour is it, what colour is it, what colour is it, what colour is it …” Teacher shouts, “Purple!” and the two students holding a ball dive onto the floor, slap the purple FC and shout, “It’s purple!”

Although it takes a while to explain here in words, this game is really easy to set up and is a quick, fast paced activity. You can go through five or six rounds of passing the ball and slapping the FC until finally tallying up the scores to see which team is the overall winner. Either that or allow the first student to hit the FC to ‘collect’ that FC for their team. The team that has collected the most FCs by the end is the overall winner – and having less and less FCs on the floor each time can add to the excitement.

There are a few other ways of adjusting the game to make it slightly different. Optionally the teacher can turn to face the whiteboard so they cannot see who is holding the ball (adds to the fun and randomness). Also, rather than naming an FC for them to slap, the teacher can just shout, “Go!” and the students themselves can decide which FC to slap – maybe the Team A student decides to slap the blue FC, saying, “It’s blue!” while the Team B student goes for the orange FC, saying, “It’s orange.” When playing this version you can note down on a piece of paper how many points each [colour] is worth, then reward points at the end in an exciting round up: “So,” the teacher says, once all the FCs have been collected. “The [orange] FC was worth fifty points … which team collected the orange FC?” “The [yellow] FC was worth a hundred points … which team collected the orange FC?”

Of course this game is not only limited to “What colour is it?” and colours FCs. It can be played with whatever TL Q&A and FC vocabulary you happen to be teaching at the time.

For example:

“What are you doing?” with activities FCs

“What did you do yesterday? with past activities FCs

“What do you have?” with objects FCs

“What is it?” with animals FCs

“What can you do?” with that unit’s FCs

“Is it a …?” with the relevant FCs

“Can you …?” with abilities FCs

 … and the list goes on.

As a final note, if you are worried about kids clashing heads as they dive on to the floor to slap the FCs, you can instruct them to slap the floor next to the FC on their team’s side of the classroom – if required you can mark out a space by drawing boxes or dots next to each FC.

Loser Stays On

A set of flashcards are put in a line along the floor. One student from each team stands either side of the first FC of the line. The game must begin with the two #1 students playing first.

WHITEBOARD

                                TA                                                           TB

                                FC                          

#2s                           FC                           #2s

#3s                           FC                           #3s

#4s                           FC                           #4s

#5s                           FC                           #5s

#6s                           FC                           #6s

                                                        #1s   FC   #1s

Saying each flashcard in turn, the two #1 students progress to the end of the line. I.e. they slowly say the FCs together (each time saying aloud the FC they are standing next to) as they move to the final FC nearest the whiteboard.

Once they reach the final FC they do a paper scissors stone. The winning student can sit down while the losing #1s must go back and play again against the other team’s #2s. Again a paper scissors stone once they reach the end of the line and the winner returns to their seat while the loser has to go back and do it again, competing against the next student from the opposing team. The first team to have all its members play and win is the winner. The game can then be played again with the #6s playing first.

This is a good review game, and a great way to get the students to say all of the target FCs individually. They have a little help from the student they are competing with (often the two students will say the FCs in unison). If a student mispronounces one of the FCs you can make them say it again, helping them with pronunciation.

Guess Who?

So unfortunately I’m going to have to take this post down because TEFL Flashcard Games for Young Learners will soon be published on the kindle. I’m all for free sharing but rules are rules and if I leave it up here it’s a breach of contract.

In time I may decide to post a few new games that are not included in the book. But as for now, well, thanks for reading, and if you found the blog useful and would like to read more then you don’t have long to wait. Details of the kindle release to follow shortly …

UPDATE: TEFL Flashcard Games for Young Learners is now available. Click here for the link.

Fruit Salad with FCs

So unfortunately I’m going to have to take this post down because TEFL Flashcard Games for Young Learners will soon be published on the kindle. I’m all for free sharing but rules are rules and if I leave it up here it’s a breach of contract.

In time I may decide to post a few new games that are not included in the book. But as for now, well, thanks for reading, and if you found the blog useful and would like to read more then you don’t have long to wait. Details of the kindle release to follow shortly …

UPDATE: TEFL Flashcard Games for Young Learners is now available. Click here for the link.

This, That

So unfortunately I’m going to have to take this post down because TEFL Flashcard Games for Young Learners will soon be published on the kindle. I’m all for free sharing but rules are rules and if I leave it up here it’s a breach of contract.

In time I may decide to post a few new games that are not included in the book. But as for now, well, thanks for reading, and if you found the blog useful and would like to read more then you don’t have long to wait. Details of the kindle release to follow shortly …

UPDATE: TEFL Flashcard Games for Young Learners is now available. Click here for the link.

Random Card

So unfortunately I’m going to have to take this post down because TEFL Flashcard Games for Young Learners will soon be published on the kindle. I’m all for free sharing but rules are rules and if I leave it up here it’s a breach of contract.

In time I may decide to post a few new games that are not included in the book. But as for now, well, thanks for reading, and if you found the blog useful and would like to read more then you don’t have long to wait. Details of the kindle release to follow shortly …

UPDATE: TEFL Flashcard Games for Young Learners is now available. Click here for the link.

The Basic Drill

So unfortunately I’m going to have to take this post down because TEFL Flashcard Games for Young Learners will soon be published on the kindle. I’m all for free sharing but rules are rules and if I leave it up here it’s a breach of contract.

In time I may decide to post a few new games that are not included in the book. But as for now, well, thanks for reading, and if you found the blog useful and would like to read more then you don’t have long to wait. Details of the kindle release to follow shortly …

UPDATE: TEFL Flashcard Games for Young Learners is now available. Click here for the link.

Introduction

A flashcard is a laminated card with a picture of a vocabulary item. For example a picture of a cat. The teacher points to the picture and says, “Cat.” The student understands what the sound “cat” means and associates it with the picture. Flashcards usually have the picture with the word written underneath.

Ninety-nine percent of TEFL teaching for young learners involves flashcards (FCs). Even if you prefer to draw your own pictures on the whiteboard, you are still following the same basic principle. From lower levels (“cat”) to higher (“travel around the world”) flashcards are used. Often for higher levels the flashcard picture must be explained and concept checked before the repetition of the vocabulary item commences.

Students will have textbooks to fill in during class time, homework to do; and grammatical structures, spelling, free speaking practice and many other areas of the language learning will be taught within a lesson. This blog, however, aims to solely deal with the teaching of picture flashcards as vocabulary items. It is aimed at new TEFL teachers but can also serve as a handy reference for experienced language instructors in search of some fresh ideas.

The activities in this blog will be ordered so that they are progressively more challenging. Primary drills are used for the first time the students come into contact with the vocabulary (look, listen and repeat); then things become more student centred: we test how well they can remember the FCs (matching games), work on individual pronunciation, and finally the students are given the chance to use the new vocabulary in language context.

Although this blog is wholly concerned with different ways of teaching flashcards, there are techniques discussed that can be applied to other areas of language teaching.