Korean Job Discussion Forums

[matthews_world]

I've been playing the same games for 2 years now. I'm looking for a few more.

The games I play:

Bingo - great for beginners. Use vocab words in the book and have the students draw their own game board and insert the words where they want.

Hangman - ESL staple. Use the book. Pick a student to lead the game.

Chair game - Circle chairs for every student minus one. The student in the center say phrases like: "I like pizza," "I'm wearing shoes," "I'm a boy." If that phrase applies to the other students, then those students must switch chairs. The person in the middle must change also.

Traffice Jam - same as Chair Game. I designate a word to each student - i.e. colors. Student in the center says 2 or 3 colors different to their own. Students must change chairs. When the center student says "Traffic jam!," all the students change chairs.

Pictionary - 2 students compete to draw English objects. Students guess the picture.

Word Factory - give students a letter of the alphabet or a catagory such as sports. The student must write on a piece of paper words beginning with that letter or under that category. Give a max. number of words for time considerations. The students read their words and receive a point if the other students do not think of that word.

Categories - perhaps given another name, students draw a grid. On the left side the teacher thinks of categories such as "countries, first names, food, animals" etc. Pick three letters, such as A, B, C. Students must think of an original word that fits the category and starts with the designated letter. Example "countries: American, Brazil, Canada." Students share an answer 1 by 1. Points can be given for either different answers or same answers.


Anyway, there are a few of mine. I realize I can read the Cafe Idea Cookbook but I hope you guys can make a list of what works for you.

Anybody buy ESL board games to use in class? I've seen "Word Up" mentioned on this board. I suppose others could be used as well.

[ajuma]

"Connect the Word" game. Students are familiar with this game because they've played it in Korean. First, figure out a way to choose a random word. Maybe you choose "house". house-elephant-tiger-rug-....etc. The last letter of the word starts the next word, and you give 1 point for each word. Make it challenging by chosing either a) long word game (high score wins) or b) short word game (low score wins). Long word is great (be sure to check your dictionary for all of the longest "y" words! and decide if you're going to allow place names (Yugoslavia!) , but short word game is also good (after x-ray, the shortest word that most students know is xylophone!!)

[just because]

Word Blitz - pick random words from their book, usually when they have near finished it and see how many letters it has.
Example: FOOD (4)
Do this on the whiteboard _ _O _

Get them to guess it, nobody gets it:
_OO_

Somebody will get it.

Food = 4points so give the kid who guesses it right 4 points. Goes down really well.


Also, remember Boggle
Draw a grid with random letters 4 * 4 and get them to make as many words as the can from the letters.

[tomato]

Hello, Matthews World!

I hope that this page on my Website will help you:

http://eslideas.hypermart.net/games.html

[Grotto]

one of my all time personal fav's is

Two chairs.

Put two chairs at the front of the class facing away from the board.
divide the class into two teams. One student from each team sits in the chairs facing thier teammates.

Rules...no Korean! If a student speaks Korean give the other team a point. No saying the word outright..again point for other team.

Depending on the level of the students you can use flashcards, words or sentences. All answers must be in the form of a sentence. Student must raise their hand when they think they know the answer.

Students love the game, good competition and great fun.

[Skippy]

I have two good regular games. Both Blackboard games all you need is chalk.

First is Phonic Bingo. This is good for early readers and for students who just do not get spelling. First draw a grid (I usually draw 4 lines down and 4 lines interscecting) of about 24 to 36. Then number the boxes. Then put down a word hangman style _ _ _ _ _. Split the class into two teams X and O (Generally Boys versus girls). Say the word - apple , smash, pickle, etc. Students raise their hand. You pick the fastest one me I go back and forth between x and o to keep it fair but you can go x person and x person again. The students says one letter so if apple the student say A. The student is correct he gets to choose a box. Then you continue. 3 X or 3 O is simply one bingo point. The team with the most 3 numbers combination wins. Kids learn to listen to english words and try to learn to spell phonetically.

My second is subject bingo. Draw a nine box grid. Split class into two teams X and O. In each box put a subject such as vegetable, fruit, hot food, vehicle, clothing, country, city(no korean), language, body part, verb, job, something big, somthing green, somthing you read, etc. Then write 9 and up letters beside the grid. Students raise hand you choose student and go back and forth. Student says a word that is related to the subject with a free corresponding letter. So if the is a T and the subject is clothing - T-Shirt. If a W and fruit as subject - Watermelon. Put an X over the subject.

Both Games take about 10 minutes but the subject bingo can end up with no WIN. You can take the subject bingo to a large grid but you need an S load of subject and about 25 minutes.

Skippy The Evil Twin

[Yangkho]

Recently my kids have been enjoying a version of go fish. It works best with groups of less than five.

I cut up some large index cards in four smaller parts and get fifty cards. Split them into two piles of 25, so you can make pairs. It's level-adjustable, but for the intermediates, I write short phrases like "eat ten pizzas", "run fast", "win this game". Again, two of each, so you only have 25 phrases, not 50.

Shuffle the cards up, and deal each student six cards. If anybody has any pairs, they have to put those down right away (I always make sure I have a pair the first time around, as it helps me explain the game). So, let's say I have a pair like this: "drink a lake"X2.

Obviously, the point is to collect pairs of cards. It's not a mindless card game, and that's where the question comes in. Write on the board a question, like "Can you...?". One that works with the words on the cards. "Can you 'drink a lake'?" (Others that work, but not as well, are "Do you want to...?", and later on, "Would you like to...?")

We either roll dice or play rock-scissors-paper to determine who will go first. He or she chooses anyone to ask for a card:

"Min-Hee. Can you "study all night"?"

If Min-hee has the card:

"Yes, I can. Here you are." She hands over the card and the student who asked for it, receives it and puts the pair down on the table. Min-Hee is next.

If Min-Hee doesn't have the card:

"No, I can't "study all night". Go fish!" And the student who asked her has to draw a card. Min-Hee then asks whomever she wants.

Obviously, good listeners in the game will know who has what. Joon Seok, for example, notices that Min Hee has asked somebody if they can "fly like a bird" (a card which he has in his hand), so as soon as Joon Seok has the chance (and somebody chooses him), he will ask Min-Hee for it, and she will give it up in a noisy display of protest. That's the aspect of the game that the kids like the most.

How does the game end. There are a few ways. Usually, when there isn't much time, after the first person drops all their cards, we count to see who has the most pairs. If we have plenty of time, we play until all cards have been used up. In the latter case, there is usually a clear winner.

Anyway, I've made four sets of these "go fish" cards, enough to be used by a class of fifteen kids split up into groups. They request it a lot.

[matthews_world]

I'm in the process of designing those go fish cards.

With my kindies, I'll include pictures of vocabulary. They'll ask: "Do you have a spoon?" etc.


Another game I found was a Scrabble type game to play with intermediate-level kids. Draw a 3x3 grid. Put one letter inside each square. Each letter must be different. Use at least 3 vowels. The students come up with 10 words using the 9 letters. Give each letter points. Example, an 'X' is worth more than an 'A.' Have them tally their scores.

[rapier]

After 2 years in this game I have a repertoire of over 150 different games/activities written down on paper, 90% of them my own ideas.. My hagwon make me conduct seminars to teach them to all the new teachers.

Its easy to come up with games, just look around the classroom and use your imagination.

[Sage Monkey]

[Lodix]

Speed reading is my favorite game. I pick or compile a sentence from the lesson/book and write it on the board (example: the winner wins the white wine. The wise man wants to win.). I make sure to include some words that the students find hard to pronounce (like 'probably'). One by one the students need to read the sentence and the key is that they try to read it FAST. I time how long it takes for all of them to read the sentence. The total time of the first round becomes the time to beat. My students love this game and they push eachother and themselves to read (faster) and to become more fluent.
Extra elements:
- promise them that they can finish class earlier or no homework if the manage to beat a certain time (when you are the one to register the time you make sure they never beat it ).
- split the class up in two or three teams and make them compete for the fastest time.
- add extra seconds to their total time for wrongly pronouncing or skipping words.
- start erasing words from the sentence (replace by .....) to train their memory. End the game with erasing the full sentence and let them try to do it all by memory.

[mindmetoo]

I like to play a game called compound word bingo. You give each student a blank bingo sheet with a random list of words underneath. Rain, coat, book, store, photo, copy, snow, man. Naturally all these words form compound words (and you should not list them in order of their compound). You get the students to write down their words on the card in whatever order they choose.

Then you give out pictures of the words. A picture of rain to match the rain word. A picture of a coat to match the coat word. Distribute these evenly, retaining one for yourself. Say you keep "coat". You call "coat". They cross off coat. The students then have to figure out who holds a picture/word that forms a compound word with coat. Ah "rain". That student plays rain. Everyone crosses off rain. Now the student who plays rain gets to play another picture card. He'll clearly play the picture/word that puts him closer to a bingo. Repeat until you get a bingo or two...

Then play again. Here the learning kicks in. The kids realize instead of putting rain in one box and coat in a box 4 away, it's best to put the two words together. More compounds they can remember, more they increase their chances of winning.

Winning should have a prize. Personally I like to get rid of a handful of bek won coins. 1000 won for the first pot, 500 won for the second pot...

The money prize is also a good way of keeping some control. Let's say the kids know next class is bingo class. You write 1000 won on the board. Every time some pecker acts bad, you take away 50 or 100 won. The kids realize pay day is getting smaller and smaller and they begin to police themselves. "You asshole you lost us 100 won!"

You can also do this with other related words... opposites, words that rhyme (man, can, ram), subjective/objective pronouns, big numbers and their written word equivalents (100,000/"one hundred thousand").

Another way to spice up reading activities is to get the kids to sing their reading portion. You give each kid scoring cards 1-10. When a kid sings his reading portion, the other kids hold up a score. Drop the highest lowest, and note it down. Highest score wins. You can make jokes here about losing out to the American gymnast and the judge's scoring mistake...