Other Flashcard Games

 Other Flashcard Games

Here are some more flashcard games, this time explained in less detail. These are a bit hit and miss, some work better than others.

Winner 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. Then, saying each flashcard in turn, they progress to the end of the line. Once there, they do a “paper, scissors, stone”. The losing student returns to their seat. The winning student can play again against a different student from the opposing team.

Loser Stays On

By reversing the above game you have an excellent activity that involves all the students and can be played for points.

For this version the game must begin with the two #1 students. They slowly say the FCs together as they progress to the end of the line of FCs. When they reach the end and 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 they play a “paper, scissors, stone” once they reach the end and the winner sits down 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 students play and win is the winner. The game can then be played again with the #6 students playing first.

Last Man Standing

The teacher blindly hands out one FC to each student. The teacher knows what these FCs are but does not know which student has what FC. The students now all stand up in front of their chairs. The teacher calls out the FCs one by one. When an FC is called out, the student holding that FC must sit down. The last student standing is the winner and receives points for their team.

Hot Seat

A student is chosen to come and sit in a chair with their back to the whiteboard. A random FC (but one they have already learnt) is selected and attached to the whiteboard behind them. The student asks questions to the class to help them guess what the FC is. They can ask any question other than, “What is the FC?” The ‘hot seat’ student is also allowed to ask for hints (thinking of questions to ask the class is sometimes difficult so if this is not really working, you can just get the hot seat student to say, “Hint,” and point to students in the class to help them – most students will be raising their hands, keen to give the hot seat student a hint). When the hot seat student finally guesses what the FC is, another student takes a turn in the hot seat.

(In fact, when using ‘hints’, this game becomes more than a little similar to Taboo Games Version 3.)

Chain Drill

Similar to Pass the FCs but not played for points. The students sit in a circle on the floor. One student is given an FC to pass to the student on their [left] who in turn passes it on. Just like with Pass the FCs, as the FC is passed on, the student asks the desired target language question (e.g., if the FC is of a cat, the student may say, “Do you like cats?” or “What is it?”). As the FC is received, the student receiving the FC must answer appropriately (e.g., “Yes, I do/No, I don’t” or “It is a cat”). Once you have one FC going round the circle you can feed in more FCs. You can even have FCs going round in different directions to add to the fun.

If you would like to play for points, one idea is to have two FCs going round, when the teacher says, “Stop!” the two students holding an FC must race to the whiteboard to write down a sentence using the FC that they have. (The teacher cleverly says, “Stop!” at a time when one student from each team is holding an FC.)

Rotating Students

The flashcards are put in a line along the centre of the classroom. There should be one FC for each pair of students. The team A students stand on one side of the FCs (let us say on the left side of the line) while the team B students stand the other side (the right side). The students face each other.

The teacher selects the left side to be the ‘question side’ while the right is the ‘answer side’. All the team A students now ask an appropriate question of the team B students facing them. For example, if the FCs are for colours, the team A student standing by the red FC would ask, “Is it red?” with the team B student responding with, “Yes, it is.” The team A student standing by the green FC would ask, “Is it green?” with the team B student responding with, “Yes, it is.” The teacher then shouts out a command such as, “Move along!” and all the students move to the FC on their left. Thus, the students as a whole will be rotating around the FCs. They will have a new partner to ask or answer to and a different FC. Gradually, as the rotating continues, all the team A students will finish up on the ‘answer side’ with all the team B students facing them on the ‘question side’.

For this game you can use FCs of the same topic with the same Q&A or, for higher levels, you can mix the FC topic and Q&A.

Racetrack

A long line of FCs are put along the centre of the classroom floor. Two students are selected to play, for example the two #5 students. “Paper, scissors, stone” to see who can go first. The #5s from [team A] wins. They throw a dice. It lands on a six. They move along six FCs, saying each FC as they step on (or by) it. Now it is the turn of the #5s from [team B]. They throw a four. They move along four FCs, saying each FC as they go. The first student to reach the end of the ‘racetrack’ is the winner and receives points for their team. A different pair of students is selected to play and the fun begins again. If a student does not pronounce an FC well enough, you can try making them go back one space. You can also make extra FCs just for this game such as go back one space, go forward two spaces, do ten star jumps, advance to the finish line, etc.

Mingling FCs

Let us say that the question being taught in class is: “What did you do yesterday?” and the FCs are for various past activities. For this game you need an FC for every student – if two students have the same FC then this is ok. In this game the students mingle around the classroom holding their FCs, asking other students, “What did you do yesterday?” and giving the response prompted by the FC they are holding.

This ‘mingling’ style game can be used for pretty much all FCs that have a Q&A connected to them. Even for something simple like ‘colours’ the students could be mingling around asking each other, “What colour do you have? “I have ...”

FC Shootout

Two students come to the front. They stand back to back. The teacher hands them each an FC to hold visibly in front of them. Each student does not know what the other student has. When the teacher shouts, “Go!” the two students spin around to face each other. The first student to name the other student’s FC is the winner. If they both shout out correctly at the same time then you can call it even, get them to do a “paper, scissors, stone” or give them another go. The game is then repeated with a different pair of students, and so on until everyone has had a go.

Bobbing Students

You need to make two copies of the FCs. Hand out one set to the students (one FC per student). The other set is for the teacher to show and call out (the teacher could alternatively just write the FC vocabulary items on the whiteboard).

This game is a ‘fun drill’. The teacher points to an FC (or written vocabulary item) on the whiteboard and the class say it together. Next the student who is holding that FC must stand up and say it again. They then sit down and the teacher calls out another FC which the whole class repeat. The student holding that FC stands up and repeats that FC again. And so on.… Once you have got into a rhythm, you will accomplish a fun drill with individual students bobbing up and down, repeating the FC vocabulary that is being drilled.

Take a Guess

This is a version of Hunt the Flashcard in which the dynamic is much more focussed on the two teams (rather than two students representing their teams) being pitted against each other.

The FCs are handed out to each student, just like in Hunt the Flashcard. In this version the students are not allowed to look at which FCs the members of the opposing team are holding (being allowed to look at the FCs your own team are holding is optional). All the students remain in their seats. One at a time they take a guess as to which FC an opposing team member is holding. A student from team [A] goes first; then a student from team [B]; then a student from team A again. When a correct guess is made, that student is awarded points. Total scores are tallied up at the end and the winning team receives an award.

As with Hunt the Flashcard, this game works well for Q&A practice. For example, if the FCs are for food, a student from one team may point to a student from the other team and ask, “Do you have lasagne? / Are you eating lasagne? / Would you like some lasagne? / Were you eating lasagne at two o’clock yesterday afternoon?” etc., it all depends on which Q&A that you would like them to be practising.

Spin the Bottle

The students sit in a circle on the floor. They each have an FC. Only their own FC is known to them – i.e., they do not know what FCs the other students have. A bottle (or marker pen) is spun in the middle of the circle. It points to a student, and this student must now point to another student and make a guess as to which FC they are holding. They can use the target language Q&A to make this guess. If they guess correctly, they receive the FC from that student. Following this they can have another turn at pointing and guessing what another student has. If they guess wrong, the bottle/pen is spun again and another student takes a turn.

For this game you will need to write down all the FCs (or stick an extra set of copies of the FCs) on the whiteboard. That is, the students need to know what FCs they have to choose from, otherwise guessing will be near to impossible.

Once all the FCs have been won by other students, the student (or team) with the most FCs is the winner. Note that if the game is taking too long, you can stop at any time and declare the student/team who has won the most FCs to be the winner.

Hot and Cold

In the children’s game, ‘Hot and Cold’ an item is hidden – for example an Easter Egg – and the child must then try to find it, receiving hints from the person who hid it as to whether they are close or far away from the item. If they are far away, looking in the wrong place, they receive the hint of, “Cold!” When they get closer, they receive the hint of, “Warmer!” and when they are really close to the item, they receive the hint of, “Hot!” Possibly a mother has hidden an Easter egg under the kitchen sink. The child goes to the kitchen and looks around, tries the fridge but the mother says, “Cold.” The child walks around the kitchen looking in various places, when they are near the sink the mother says, “Warmer.” The child knows that the egg is somewhere in this area. They walk to the sink and the mother says, “Hot.” They look in the sink but it’s not there. However, they know that the egg is close by because the mother is still saying, “Hot.” The child decides to try the cupboard under the sink and there is the egg.

So the above game can be used in the classroom too. One student goes out of the room. The teacher hides a flashcard somewhere in the classroom. The student is called back in to search for the FC. Rather than saying, “Cold, warmer, hot,” the whole class say the vocabulary item on the FC at varying degrees of volume. If the student is far away, the class say the FC vocabulary item quietly. When the student gets nearer, the class say the FC vocabulary item louder. When the student is really close, the class are shouting out the FC vocabulary item at the top of their voices. Once the student has found the FC, another student can take a turn to go outside while a different FC is hidden.

In this game you are not limited to having the students say the vocabulary item alone. They can all be saying a sentence that includes the vocabulary item, saying this sentence over and over again at varying degrees of loudness. If the search is going on for a long time, the teacher can allow the search to continue but get the class to change the sentence slightly, making use of the time to put the sentence in the past, change it to the third person, etc.

Slap

This works better with small classes. All the FCs are put on the floor face up. The students sit around these FCs. Each student should be able to reach any of the FCs. The teacher describes one of the FCs to the students (they describe it using hints, they do not name it). The first student to slap their hand on the correct FC can collect it. The team who have collected the most FCs at the end are the winners. (If a student decides to slap all the FCs in the hope of getting lucky, you can simply tell them not to be silly and they will understand.)

Quick-fire Review

The teacher stands at the front holding a bunch of flashcards. They quickly reveal the top FC. The first student to say what it is wins their team a point (or a progression along the scoring system). The teacher quickly flips over the next FC. The first student to say what it is can once again receive a point for their team. The teacher flips over the next card. …

Scramble

This game is similar to Fruit Salad. One student comes to the centre of the classroom and the teacher takes away their chair (or turns it around to face the wall). The teacher holds up an FC for the student to say. The student says this FC, and once they have done so, the whole class get up out of their seats and run to find a different chair to sit on. After this ‘mad scramble’ to find a new seat, one student will again be left standing. It is now this student’s turn to say the FC that the teacher is holding up. The student says this FC and the scramble begins again.

To give an example of how this game can work well with saying the FC vocabulary in a sentence, let us say that the FCs are for school subjects. The teacher holds up an FC for [Maths]. The student in the centre of the classroom (without a chair) says, “I like maths.” The other students then point to the student and say, “He/she likes maths.” Then they all change their chairs until again a student is left standing in the middle. The teacher holds up an FC for [Music]. This student says, “I don’t like music,” and then the other students point to him/her and say, “He/she doesn’t like music,” before the whole ‘scramble’ to find a new seat begins.

The kinds of sentences that the students make can optionally come from the teacher’s instructions. For example, the teacher says to the student in the middle, “Give me a past sentence,” while holding up an FC for them to make a past sentence with.

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].”

Memorising Orders

A simple concept really. Let's image you're practising months. Standing at the whiteboard, you say January, then point to the student on your right and encourage them to say February. Then to the next student who says March, etc. You go round the class with each student saying a month until one pauses for too long, mispronounces or says the wrong month. When this happens you run back to the whiteboard and award a point (or a progression along the scoring system) to the opposing team.

You begin again, this time you may choose to start with a different student, you go through the months with each student saying the next month until someone makes a mistake.

So this is the game. And now you've played it you might want to try it with different vocabulary. For one of your lower level classes you could try it with days of the week for example. Or for morning, afternoon, evening, night.

How do you use this game with flashcards? Easy. Simply stick a set of flashcards on the board, drill them a couple of times, then play the game going round the class with each student saying the next flashcard in the order you've given them.

Finally remove the flashcards from the whiteboard and carry on playing the game. Students are remembering the FC vocabulary and challenging themselves to remember the order.

Red, Green, Yellow, Blue, White, Purple, Black. (close your eyes, can you remember the order?)

Mountain, Mount Everest, Mount Fuji, River, The Yellow River, The Mekong River, The Jin Mao Tower, Taipei 101 (recently I played the game with these FCs, going round the class with each student having to remember and say the next FC in the order).

Whiteboard Dialogues

 Whiteboard Dialogues

Board Dialogues work in much the same way as Board Stories. The teacher starts the dialogue off, asks the students for help, etc. Once finished it is read out by the class as one. Then team A can be [Person 1] and team B can be [Person 2]. Roles can be reversed. Finally pick two students to read in front of the class – and as a final task you can get the whole class into pairs to role play the dialogue.

Let us say that the FCs / target language are/is for weather:

Person 1: It is [sunny] today, what can we do?

Person 2: We can go to the park!

Person 1: I don’t want to go to the park. It’s too [hot].

Person 2: But it’s a little [windy]. I think we’ll be ok. We can wear hats and sunglasses.

Person 1: I hate the park. Let’s go to the beach. We can go swimming.

Person 2: Oh, no! Look out the window. It’s [raining].

Person 1: Don’t worry. I think the [rain] will stop. I want to go to the beach.

Person 2: Oh, no! Look, it’s [snowing].

Person 1: It’s ok. We can make a snowman on the beach.

Person 2: I don’t want to go outside with you. I want to stay at home and play computer games.

An option that can be used with both dialogues and board stories is to draw little pictures in place of some of the words. This makes the board story or dialogue visually more accessible.

In the above dialogue, which words can be replaced with pictures?

Whiteboard Stories

Whiteboard Stories

Board Stories

Let us say for example that the flashcards / target vocaulary is for adverbs:

Carefully, Carelessly, Quickly, Slowly, Loudly, Quietly, Badly, Well, Hard

Tom always does homework [carelessly]. “You should write your homework [carefully]!” says Mum. Tom always talks [slowly]. “O ... kay,” says Tom. Tom is a naughty student. He shouts [loudly] in the corridor. In class he whispers [quietly] to his friends and doesn’t work [hard]. His teachers are always angry. “Are you listening to me?” ask his teachers. “Paaaarrrr ... don?” says Tom. But Tom likes P.E. because he can run very [quickly] and play sports very [well].

(If you do not manage to include every FC in the story, then this is ok. It is also ok to use an FC more than once.)

The above board story (i.e., a story written on the whiteboard) can be produced by the teacher with help from the students. The teacher usually begins the story and then asks the students for ideas (“Hands up! What can the next sentence be?”) Usually the more often you do board stories, the better the students get at helping. With a competent class you may even call students to the front to write the next sentence. Another option is to have the students writing such stories on paper in groups.

Once the story has been written up on the board, you can stick the FCs over the FC words. This will drill home the fact that you are using the FC vocabulary items within a language context. This is not compulsory of course – depending on the size of your FCs, it is not always convenient.

Have the students read the board story after you. The whole class can read as one. Then you can have different students reading each sentence. You can also ask for volunteer students to read the whole thing individually in front of the class.

Here is another example of a board story with simpler FCs. Let us say that the FCs are for rooms:

Mum is in the [kitchen]. She is eating a sandwich. Dad is in the [living room]. He is watching TV. Baby is in the [bedroom]. It is playing. Mum likes the [kitchen]. She can cook and eat. Mum doesn’t like the [garage]. It is dirty. Dad likes the [living room]. He can watch TV there. But the TV is small. Dad wants a big TV. Baby has a toy snake. The snake is green. The snake is in the [bathroom]. The dog is in the [bathroom] too. The dog’s name is Bobo. Bobo is eating the toy snake. “Yummy!” says Bobo. “I like eating Baby’s toys.”

Let us say that the above story is being taught to a class who have not learnt present continuous yet. This is ok. The students are being exposed to natural grammar structures, they are repeating the sentences, and even if they do not yet know the grammatical rules behind them, this is not necessarily a bad thing. (When the students help, the teacher may at times receive a sentence with grammar mistakes but will write the sentence up correctly.)

Note: A whiteboard story does not always have to be about the target language. You can write any simple story you like on the board, get everyone to read it after you, get them to read it as a class, get individuals to read it aloud, get them to read in pairs one sentence each), etc ... Whiteboard stories are excellent for word recognition, and any appropriate story is fine.

Taboo Games

 Taboo Games

By ‘Taboo Games’ I do not mean games that you should not play. Rather, I am talking about games that are based on the popular game of Taboo, i.e., games in which you must describe a word without actually saying that word. For example: “It’s a popular pet that likes to sleep, eats fish, has big eyes and pointed ears and doesn’t like dogs ...”

There are various set-ups for playing this kind of game.

Version 1: Teacher/Student to Class Taboo

The teacher describes a flashcard vocabulary item to the class. The first student to name the FC can receive points for their team (or progress along whatever scoring system is being used). This game can also be used without FCs – the teacher describes any word to the class, the first student to say what this word is can receive points for their team.

Students can take turns to act as the teacher. They can either describe the FCs that you give them or the words (written down on small pieces of paper) that you give them.

Version 2: Student to Team Taboo

When the students act as the teacher, they can either be describing the vocabulary for the whole class to guess, or, to make things more competitive, they can have one minute to describe a bunch of words/FCs to their team only. Once finished, a student from the other team can come up to describe words/FCs for one minute to their team. Possibly lots of students can take a turn; scores are tallied up at the end and the team who have guessed the most words overall are the winners.

Version 3: Backs to the Whiteboard

This version is often known as ‘Backs to the Whiteboard’.

A student is picked to come to the front. They stand facing away from the whiteboard, towards the class (or you could provide a chair for them to sit on).

The teacher now sticks an FC (or writes a word) on the board behind them. Students have to describe this word to the student – they can all vocally jump in together; but if everyone starts talking at the same time or one student is dominating, you can get them to put their hands up, giving their descriptions of the word one at a time. When they are successful and the student says the word, another student is picked to go up and be the one with their ‘back to the whiteboard’.

This game is not usually played for points; just for fun.

Version 4: Backs to the Whiteboard Relay

So, how to play ‘Backs to the Whiteboard’ for points?

One idea is to get the two #1 students to the front to play first. The teacher holds up the FC (or writes the word) behind them and the rest of the students proceed with their descriptions.

The first of the #1 students to say the word can sit down and is replaced by the #2s from their team. The games starts up again when the teacher holds up a different FC (or writes a new word) behind the two students. The first of these students to say the word can sit down and is replaced by the next student from their team.

The first team of students to have had all their members successfully take a turn are the winners.

One problem with this game is that the possibility is there for one student to be stuck in front of the whiteboard for a long time. Let us say for example that the #1s from team A is finding this game difficult. They are beaten by team B’s #1s; beaten again by team B’s #2s; beaten again by team B’s #3s ... the rest of their team are getting frustrated. …

To overcome this problem you could have a rule that every student can only be in front of the whiteboard for two rounds: e.g., in the above example, team A’s #1s is beaten by team B’s #1s so team B’s #1s goes back to their seat and is replaced by team B’s #2s. Then in the next round, when team A’s #1s loses to team B’s #2s, both of these students now return to their seats and are replaced by team A’s #2s and team B’s #3s.

Another problem, as previously mentioned, is that with all the class shouting descriptions at the same time, it can be a little chaotic. If your class gets like this, you can set a rule that students must have their hands up: then you select them one at a time. It is a good idea to not allow one student too much time here, instead it is better to keep it snappy, picking one student, then another, then another. So if one student is taking too long to offer a description or is hogging attention by offering a lengthy description of the word, then just pick another student to take their turn at trying to describe the word.

A final problem worth mentioning is that students can use body language and miming actions to get across their meaning. If your class are doing too much of this, you can try blindfolding the two students who are in front of the whiteboard.

Version 5: Backs to the Whiteboard – Multiple Words

For one more version of ‘Backs to the Whiteboard’, get two students to the front, let us say the #4s from team A and the #2s from team B. These two students sit or stand with their backs to the whiteboard just like with Version 4. However there is no changeover of students in this version, so it is similar to Version 3 also.

In Version 5, the teacher sticks a number of FCs (or writes a number of vocabulary items) on the whiteboard. A good number to start with is six words behind the team A student and six words behind the team B student.

Whiteboard

Team A                                          Team B

phone                                          camera

awful                                          grumpy

bank                                          hospital

paraglide                                          passport

shower                                          bedroom

moon                                          curtain

Once the game is set up and ready, the students from team A must make their representative team member (the one with their back to the whiteboard) say the six words from the team A section. The students from team B must do the same for their team member; make them say the words from the team B section. The first student to say all of their words is the winner and receives points for their team. The game can then be repeated with different students taking a turn – either mix up the vocabulary or introduce different words each time.

As with Version 3, you can sometimes get a problem when all the students shout at once. To overcome this you can have each team form a line facing their representative team member. The first student of each line says one sentence/prompt to try to help their team member guess the word. They then go to the back of the line and the next student tries again with a different sentence/prompt to help their team member guess the word.

Students can also complain that the other team’s words were easier. To avoid this you can try writing words of a similar topic or difficulty next to each other (as shown in the above diagram). If they still complain, remind them who the teacher is.

Version 6: Duelling Taboo

A taboo ‘duelling game’ where two students come to the front and compete to be the first to name which word the teacher is describing – see Dueling Sentences.

Version 7: Teacher to Team Taboo

The teacher stands at the front with a huge, mixed up pile of FCs in their hand. The FCs are faced to the teacher so the students cannot see them. The teacher calls the [team A] students to come and stand in front of them. They then choose one team B student to come and be the scorer (to mark one point on the whiteboard for each correctly guessed FC). Next they pick another student from team B to be the timer (to look at their watch or the clock and say, “Go!”, and after one minute say, “Stop!”)

Now the game commences: the teacher spends one minute describing the FCs in the pile to the [team A] students. After one minute the timer says, “Stop”, and the class look to the scorer by the whiteboard to see how many points [team A] have gained.

The teams then swap over; a scorer and timer from [team A] are chosen and the game starts up again.

Version 8: Team to Teacher Taboo

This is exactly the same as Version 7 except this time the teacher turns the flashcards so that only the students can see them. Therefore in this game each team takes a turn at spending one minute describing the FCs to the teacher. Points are tallied up by the scorer for each time the teacher correctly guesses an FC.

It is good to play Version 7 first and then, once the students have got used to the game, you can switch to Version 8.

Also note that you can experiment with the time used to play the game – giving them ‘one minute’ is just an example.

Version 9: Pair Taboo

Not really a flashcard game, but another great activity is to write down a list of words on a piece of paper, write down a different list of words on another piece of paper; make copies of these; get students into pairs and have them taking turns to describe a word from their list to their partner (who will have a different list).

When a student’s partner says the word, this can be crossed off and it is now the partner’s turn to describe one of their words, etc.

A Note on Taboo Games

Taboo games are often used to practise relative clauses (‘A place where ...’, ‘A thing which ...’, ‘A person who ...’). However, with kids it is often (but not always!) best to focus on fluency rather than accuracy. For instance, if their sentences are enthusiastic but contain grammatical errors (e.g., “A cat like to eat what?”) then this can be overlooked. Taboo games work well at getting students to open up with the language, to use whatever words and phrases they can, and to be constantly correcting grammatical errors may have a detrimental effect. With fluency activities you do not want to stilt their enthusiasm or they will end up speaking too slowly and carefully; they may even give up altogether. A better option would be to note down common mistakes and work on these later. (This viewpoint is of course debatable – some teachers place a greater importance upon ‘accuracy right from the start’ to avoid fossilisation.)

Animal Game

 Animal Game

This is a version of the popular classroom game Twenty Questions. In Twenty Questions, the students have twenty yes/no questions to use up in order to guess what thing the teacher is thinking of. The teacher can only say, “Yes”, “No”, “Sometimes”, or “I don’t know”.

For example:

Is it big? – No.

Is there one in this room? – No.

Can you find it in a house? – Yes.

Can you find it in the bathroom? – Sometimes.

Is it soft? – No.

Is it hard? – Yes.

Does it have something in it? – Sometimes.

Can you pick it up? – Yes.

Is it useful? – Yes.

Do you use it every day? – Yes.

Can you break it? – Yes.

Is it dangerous? – No.

Is it hot? – Sometimes.

Is it cold? – Sometimes.

Do you have one? – Yes.

Do I have one? – Yes.

Can you see it in a school? – Yes.

Can you see it in a kitchen? – Yes.

Do you use it to eat? – No ... not eat.

Do you use it to drink? – Yes.

Is it a...? – Sorry, you’ve run out of questions!

Twenty Questions is ok for some classes but it is a little difficult. With the Animal Game the students know you are thinking of an animal so there are fewer options.

It is possible to start the Animal Game off with lower levels. Then, as the students build up their vocabulary you feed them questions of greater complexity. I also allow them to ask, “What colour is it?” which is an especially useful question for lower levels; and for the same reason I am not always so strict with the rule of the question having to be a yes/no question. For example if a student asks, “Where does it live?” or “What does it eat?” I may tell them. Also, to give them a clue I might show them exactly how big it is when they ask, “Is it big/small?”

The Animal Game is also scored in a different way:

Draw a ladder on the board (usually with about ten to fifteen rungs). Put two board magnets – one for each team – on the bottom rung of the ladder (if you do not have magnets, then just draw two big dots to take the role of the magnets). Students raise their hands to ask questions in order to guess which animal flashcard the teacher has (if you do not have the FC for the animal you are thinking of, you can sketch it on a piece of paper). When a student asks a question, their board magnet can progress up one rung of the ladder, whether the answer is yes or no. If they take a guess, however, they cannot move up. This places a greater risk on taking a guess – otherwise you may get students simply asking, “Is it a dog? Is it a cat? Is it a lion? etc. However, if a student takes a guess and is correct, their board magnet can shoot to the top of the ladder and their team is the winner.

To run through an example: the game begins with the [#3s] from team A asking, “Is it big?” The teacher’s reply is, “No, it isn’t.” Despite the answer being to the negative, the team A board magnet goes up one rung of the ladder. Next a Team B student is chosen to ask a question. “What colour is it?” they ask. “It’s white and black,” replies the teacher, moving the team B magnet up one rung of the ladder. The [#2s] from team A is now raising their hand enthusiastically. “Is it a zebra?” they ask. “Good, but no,” says the teacher. This time the board magnet cannot progress up one rung of the ladder. Instead it stays where it is. “Can it fly?” asks the [#4s] from team B, eager to get their team in the lead. “No, it can’t,” says the teacher. The team B magnet moves up one rung of the ladder, above the team A magnet. And so the game continues ... the first magnet to get to the top is the winner. Teams can thus win by asking the most questions or by taking a risk and guessing correctly. When the correct guess has been made, you can reveal the FC (or picture you have drawn) and show it to the class.

You will have to randomly choose which team can go first of course, because that team will have a slight advantage. Spin a marker pen on the floor and the team that it ends up pointing to can go first. Alternatively you could flip a coin, or get a student from each team to do a “paper, scissors, stone”.

As already stated, this game works well if you start it off by feeding your class with simple questions to use. Then after a while you can teach them more difficult questions to ask. To encourage them to ask more complex and imaginative questions, you can let a team move up two rungs of the ladder if one of their members asks a ‘good question’. After you have been playing for a while, students can take turns in being the teacher.

Typical questions in order of difficulty:

What colour is it?

Is it big?

Is it small?

Is it pretty?

Is it ugly?

Can it swim?

Can it fly?

Can it jump?

Can it climb a tree?

How many legs does it have?

How many eyes does it have?

How many ears does it have?

Does it live in a house?

Does it live in the sea?

Does it live in the forest?

Where does it live?

Does it eat meat or vegetables?

Can it be a pet?

Is it noisy or quiet?

Is it strong?

Is it dangerous?

Is it cute?

Can we see it in a zoo?

Can we see it in [Taiwan]?

Can people eat it?

Can it eat people?

Duelling Sentences

 Duelling Sentences

Two students come to the front; one from each team. The teacher shows them a flashcard and they compete to be the first to make a sentence with this piece of vocabulary. The first student to successfully make a sentence is the winner. This game works well as a ‘best of three’ mini-battle, i.e., the teacher shows them three FCs one at a time; after this, the students return to their seats and a new pair come up for their ‘sentence duel’.

Let us say that the #3 students are called up. The teacher shows them an FC for [bottle].

“I have a bottle of water!” says the #3s from team A.

1 – 0 to team A.

The teacher shows an FC for [cup].

Two sentences (one from each student) immediately come out: “There is a cup on the table!” and “Would you like a cup of tea?”

2 – 1 to team A.

The teacher finally shows an FC for [glass].

“Sorry, I have broken the glass!” says the #3s from team A quickly.

3 – 1 to team A.

The two #3 students now return to their seats and a different pair is called up.

Finally, once all the students have taken a turn, the points are tallied up and the team with the most points is the winner.

This game works for all levels. For lower levels the sentences can be simple, such as “It is a bottle” or “I like bottles”. However, the game does work better when the students are of a level when they have more language to draw from.

You can of course play this game without FCs. The teacher simply says a word, any word, and the students compete to make a sentence with this word. You can mix in a variety of vocabulary for review:

“Bigger.” – “An elephant is bigger than an ant.”

“Sofa.” – “What colour is your sofa?”

“Computer.” – “I like to play computer games.”

“Hospital.” – “I went to the hospital yesterday.”

If the students create sentences with slight imperfections, it is up to you as the teacher to decide whether to allow it. Often it will depend on the level and ability of your class. For example, with my intensive classes (that attend the school almost every day) I will be stricter on not allowing small mistakes; but with my part-time classes (two evenings a week) the students are less practised and need more positive encouragement.

Other duelling games

The sentence duel is a kind of ‘shoot-off’ with words. ‘Get two students to the front to compete in who can say something first’. And with this basic game structure, you may come up with other workable ideas.

Taboo – the teacher describes a word and the first of the two students to say this word is the winner, e.g., “It’s tall, has leaves, a monkey likes to climb it.” – “Tree!”

Mixed Sentence Game – the teacher says a jumbled up sentence and the first of the two students to say this sentence in the right order is the winner, e.g., “Morning he every brushes teeth his.” – “He brushes his teeth every morning!”

Auxiliary game – the teacher asks the two students a yes/no question and the first student to answer with the correct auxiliary is the winner, e.g., “Do you like swimming?” – “Yes, I do!”

“Did you go swimming yesterday?” – “No, I didn’t.”

“Are you a student?” – “Yes, I am!”

Mallet’s Mallet – a game based on part of a popular British TV show from the Eighties.

The original game used word association, e.g., the teacher starts off the game with, “Tree”. The [team B #4s] says, “Climb”, the [team A #4s] says, “Mountain”, the [team B #4s] says, “Walk”, the [team A #4s] says, “Drive”, etc. When a student is stuck for what to say, the teacher can do a countdown: “5, 4, 3, 2, 1 ...” and if they still haven’t said anything, they are out and the other student is the winner. Also, if a student says a word that has already been said, they immediately lose the game.

This game can be played in other ways too, e.g., the teacher starts off the game with, “Ok, colours, go!” The [team B #2s] says, “Red”, the [team A #2s] says, “Green”, the [team B #2s] says, “Orange”, the [team A #2s] says, “Purple”, etc. When a student is stuck for what to say, or if they repeat a [colour] that has already been said, they are the loser. This game can be used for colours, animals, food, verbs, adjectives, and the list goes on. …

Make a Sentence – Finally to get back to sentences and FCs again the teacher could hold up an FC (e.g., an FC for ‘book’) and the two students take turns to make a sentence from the FC. The student who finally becomes stuck for something to say is the loser:

Team A’s #1s: “It is a book.”

Team B’s #1s: “I like books.”

Team A’s #1s: “There are books in my bag.”

Team B’s #1s: “There is a book on the desk.”

Team A’s #1s: “I can read an English book.”

Team B’s #1s: “…?”

Teacher: “5, 4, 3, 2,1 ... sorry ... 1 – 0 to team A.”

The teacher shows the next FC (or introduces the next word), and the game continues ... all the students take a turn; points are tallied up at the end.

Ask a Question, Say a Sentence

 Ask a Question, Say a Sentence

Extremely simple.

If you ever feel like doing something really simple, just stick the FCs on the whiteboard; “Hands up!” pick a student; “Tell me a sentence/question using this FC”; points awarded for a successfully produced sentence/question. …

You can also write questions on the whiteboard and get the students to ask you the questions, then put them in pairs, getting them to ask each other ...