Job Discussion Forums

[JimDunlop2]

I wonder if I could run this past some of you to get a little bit of advice. In the eikaiwa where I teach we have a curriculum that we follow (read: textbook) but anything beyond that is up to us which is kind of nice. The general format is pretty standard: about 5 minutes meet&greet, 10 minutes review, 15 minutes lesson on new materials, 15 minutes related game or activity, 5 minutes goodbyes, etc. Not exactly rocket science, right?

But here's my question to you all. As the year wears on, I'm faced by an increased number of classes where less and less students show up, so the team games I used to play (or at least in pairs) are now difficult or impossible.

I would appreciate any suggestions you might have for games/activities (that can be adapted to different situations) that are appropriate specifically to small and/or odd-numbered class sizes: eg. 1, 2 or 3 students.... Age ranges are 6 to 12. The level of most of the students is pretty basic. Most of them cannot read in English although they DO know their alphabet and a certain degree of phonics. Their spelling skills are varied, as are their other overall skills -- it's hard to make an overall statement.

Many of our teachers use "Uno" for such days when a team game is planned for the lesson but only 1 kid shows up, but that gets kind of tiresome after a while, and the kids start to get bored too I'm sure. Not to mention, it's not very educational...

Cheers,

JD

[Lynn]

Have you tried the slap game? It take up about 10 minutes, but do NOT drag it out any longer. Always leave them with, "Teacher, teacher play again!"

Put all your flash card on the board or on the table. Call out one, for example, "Cat" and the child to slap the "Cat" card first gets to keep it. Then have one student do the calling out.

You can also try "shinkeisuijaku" (concentration/memory match). But you must make sure the child says the name of the card when he turns if over; otherwise it's not educational at all. When I played, if the child didn't say the name of the card in English, I wouldn't let him/her keep the card.

[easyasabc]

[shmooj]

Slap can be varied in hundreds of ways. Ones I've found work well:

runaround slap: play music > stop tape > all freeze > shout word
long distance slap: in a larger room kids have to touch a wall when you shout > then they run to the table and slap > put words outside teh classroom, under chairs, in someone's bag, under the carpet, stuck to the wall etc
chip chuck slap: give each kid a pile of poker chips/tiddleywinks and call a card > they have to throw the chips until one hits the card > this is hilarious, time consuming and messy but they love it
bean bag slap: as above with bean bags and cards on floor
flyswats: use flyswats instead of hands to slap
Variations: instead of a calling a word use these variations:

> describe objects gradually in more and more detail
> put the object in the middle of a native speaker speed sentence to see if they can spot it
> describe what you would do with objects
> compare the object with something using comparatives and "like"
> draw a bit of the object on the board
> write an anagram on the board
> whisper the word/say it loudly/quickly/sloooooowly etc
> ask a question such as "Do you like skiing?" and they hit skiing as well as have to answer the question

Can't you tell i've used this game once or twice in Japan....

[Lynn]