Archive for the 'Games' Category

Apr

Foods – Countable and Noncountable

Polaris Class is studying countable and uncountable nouns using foods. Their latest activity was to draw some foods on a table and the write sentences about them. For example… There is an apple on the table. There are three bananas on the table. There is some cheese on the table. I simply took the book activity and put it on the board. After cutting out various foods from flashcards each student came up and added one picture to the table on the board. They had to write a/an/some/number by the picture. When everyone had a turn, they had to write the sentences on the board. Then they repeated the exercise in their books on their own. repetition is the key to successful second language learning. By doing it as a group first, the class didn’t even realize they were doing it more than once.

Enjoy the pics!

posted by Kathryn in Activites,Fun things,Games,Maple Square,Pictures,Students,Teaching and have No Comments

Jan

Irregular Verbs

One of the things my advanced level students hate the most is irregular verbs. Well, actually all my students hate them. I don’t make them memorize them, but the Korean teachers do. They have a huge list of base/simple past/past participles that they have to memorize. In all fairness, I don’t think I’d do too well on one of their verb quizzes. Sky class had a bit of leftover time the other day so I decided to try to find a fun way to help them recall the verbs.

What you need: a list of irregular verbs (example pdf), a soft ball (or something soft that can be thrown back and forth) and a die.

What you do: Start by passing the ball to a random student. The teacher then rolls the die. If it comes up 1 or 2 they have to give the base form. If it comes up 3 or 4 they have to give the simple past. If it comes up 5 or 6 they have to give the past participle. The teacher calls out a verb and the student with the ball has to give the form dictated by the die. Obviously the teacher should say a form other than the one the student should give. If the student is wrong, then have the class figure out what the correct answer is. Then the student with the ball tosses it to another student and the game continues.

Simple, less. But much more fun than drilling.

I’ve also found that many students can go in one direction easily (eat – ate – eaten, for example), but given the past tense, they can’t get to the past participle without going through the all three. In other words, given ate, they’ll think ate – eat – ate – eaten. Part of the point of this game is to make the associate between word and form more solid.

If anyone tries this, please let me know how it goes. I think the throwing the ball around part is the most fun for the kids. In fact, I’ve found that doing any sort of drill this way makes it a lot more fun for the kids.

posted by Kathryn in Activites,Fun things,Games,Grammar,Teaching,Teaching Resources and have No Comments

Sep

Pre-Chuseok Party

Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving) is next week. Since we’re on vacation next week, we had our party today. Yay for parties!

The kids wore their hanbok (traditonal Korean clothing). We made songpyong (rice cakes stuffed with sesame seeds). We played yootnori (a game played with four sticks) and jaegi (kind of like hackysack). The kids did the ganggangsullae (a traditional dance).

The kids looked wonderful in their hanbok. The songpyong were delicious. I think a good time was had by all.

posted by Kathryn in Activites,Celebrations,Food and Drink,Fun things,Games,Holidays,Korean Vocabulary,Maple Square,Pictures,Staff,Students and have No Comments

Jul

Pre Summer Vacation Party

Yesterday was the last day before summer vacation. Yay! We had a bit of a party for the kids. We played two games. One was eat the onion ring snack off the rope and the other was eat the cream puff snack thing out of the plate, both sans hands. The kids had fun. The teachers had fun. All in all, it was a great way to spend a half hour or so in the morning.

Enjoy the pictures!!

posted by Kathryn in Activites,Fun things,Games,Maple Square,Pictures,Staff,Students and have No Comments

Apr

Hot Seat!

I’m a believer in using games to educate and reward. I have a class of first graders whose favorite game is a spelling bee. Who would have thunk it?

Hot Seat! comes courtesy of a coworker. It emphasizes speaking and vocabulary. It’s a simple game that uses nothing more than a marker/chalk, a chair and a word list.

I’ve played this both as a team game with points and a just general activity. Place a chair under the board. Have one student sit in the chair so they can’t see the board. Either the teacher or another student writes a word on the board. The students not on the “hot seat”. The rest of the students have to describe the word on the board for the other student to guess.

If you play in teams, put a limit on the time to give clues. I disallow sign language no matter what. Depending on the level of the class, the clues can be single words, phrases or full sentences. Sometimes it’s fun for higher level classes to be limited to one word at a time because they have to work cooperatively to give the clues.

When I teach domain specific knowledge, such as science, I use the chapter or unit vocabulary as the word list.

If you try it with your students, let me know how it goes!

posted by Kathryn in Activites,Fun things,Games,Language,Speaking,Teaching Resources,Vocabulary and have No Comments

Nov

What Is It?

This is from a couple years ago. It’s an activity that focuses on speaking, especially asking questions and basic vocabulary. The idea is to blindfold a student and then give them an object. Another student asks the first what he/she is holding. If the student can’t guess, the other students give clues. It’s a lot of fun.

posted by Kathryn in Activites,Games,Language,Pictures,Speaking,Students,Teaching and have Comment (1)

Sep

Rock Scissor Paper!

see more puppies

It’s amazing how popular “Rock Scissor Paper” is here in Korea. Here, it’s known as kai-bai-bo. It’s used for everything from picking teams, to settling disputes, to just having fun with the teacher (me).

posted by Kathryn in Activites,Fun things,Games,Korea,Korean Vocabulary,Students,Teaching and have Comment (1)