Dangerous Card

 Dangerous Card

This is a great game that is easy to set up, offers variety, and is exciting for the students. It is less effective than Jump from a ‘learning’ point of view but works well enough in keeping the stronger students occupied while the weaker students are still in need of some extra exposure to the FC vocabulary.

Flashcards are scattered over the floor as in the below example:

WHITEBOARD

Team A                                     Team B

#1s       FC                             #1s

#2s                     FC             #2s

#3s                          FC         #3s

#4s     FC                              #4s

#5s                 FC                  #5s

#6s                         FC         #6s

It is now explained that students must each choose an FC to stand on. There can be more than one student on an FC; in fact they can all stand on the same FC if they so wish.

The teacher now calls out one of the FCs (e.g., Japan) and explains that the student or students standing on the [Japan] FC are now dead because that FC has just exploded (or to be more PC you could simply tell them that they are out). The teacher then shouts, “Change,” and the students change around to stand on a different FC. The teacher chooses a new FC to shout out (e.g., Brazil) and it is ‘game over’ for the student(s) unlucky enough to be standing on the [Brazil] FC.

Now, checking that the students have understood the game, the teacher turns to face the whiteboard (or puts on a blindfold) so that they cannot see who is on what FC. The students move around again and the game continues (“[USA], change, [France], change, [Italy], change, [Italy], change ...”) until only one student is left. This student is the winner and is thus awarded points for their team (sometimes more than one student can be the winner if the remaining live students are all from the same team).

Because you cannot see, you will need to get the students to help you by shouting, “Nobody!” if you call out an FC that nobody is standing on. This provides you with the option of responding with a, “Freeze!” command so you can go through the FCs until you successfully call out an FC that is occupied by a student. Then once again you shout, “Change!”

There are times when turning to face the whiteboard (or blindfolding yourself) can be disadvantageous because you cannot tell if any students are cheating: although usually when a student does decide to cheat, their classmates will soon tell you.

For some more rowdy classes that you need to keep an eye on, it is better to use a version where you write the FC vocabulary on the whiteboard and assign numbers to each piece of vocabulary. A dice is then rolled to determine which FC explodes.

Four Corners

Another version of this game is Four Corners. In this activity four FCs are stuck to the wall, one in each corner of the classroom. The teacher stands facing the whiteboard (or alternatively stands in the middle with a blindfold) while the students decide on which corner they will run to. The teacher calls out and points to one of the four FCs. The students standing in the corner where that FC has been placed must sit down. Students can take turns at being the teacher.