This, That

 This, That

This activity developed from very a simple game used to teach the words ‘this’ and ‘that.’

The students gather together in the centre of the room and follow the teacher’s actions. The teacher points to the floor and says, “This!” and the students all mirror this action, shouting, “This!” too. Then the teacher points away and shouts, “That!” with the students again copying the teacher’s movement and word. Once again the teacher points to the floor and says, “This!” The students do the same. The teacher points away again and shouts, “That!” and the students do this too.

This animated chant continues repeatedly until suddenly the teacher shouts, “Sit down!” and the students all plonk themselves down on the floor as quickly as they can. The last student to sit down is out and has to go back to their chair. Finally, the last team standing is the winning team.

Once you have done this a few times you will be able to incorporate other vocabulary into the chant. The teacher points to the door and shouts, “Door!” The students point to the door and shout, “Door!” The teacher points to the whiteboard and shouts, “Whiteboard!” and the students do the same. The teacher points to the “Floor!” the “Wall,” the “Fan,” the “Poster,” the “Window,” etc., etc., each time pointing and naming the object with the students pointing and repeating. The teacher suddenly shouts, “Sit down!” and the last to sit down is out.

After you have been playing this game for a while you will be able to use it to drill flashcards. Simply stick flashcards around the classroom – maybe one on the door, one on the whiteboard and some in various places around the walls – and play the game again, this time pointing and saying the flashcards too.

The only problem with this game is that the students who are early to be called out will be sitting on their chairs watching their classmates having fun and may get restless. This can be overcome by allowing them to join the teacher, standing next to or behind the teacher with the live students in front. They could alternatively help the teacher in deciding who was last to sit down, or even take turns to be the teacher themselves.

Also, rather than wait for all the students of one team to die, you can make it so that after the first four or five students have been called out, the team with the most members left standing is the winner.

There is of course another small problem in that the students can get sore bums; although this never seems to hamper their enthusiasm for another round of the game.