I’m new to the forum and I’ve currently just started working at a Joy Buxiban in Taiwan. The teachers here know a lot of cool games, but I’m on the look out for more… you know, those ‘stealth’ english games that secretly teach your kids the grammar material but which they request every time you walk in the classroom.
What are your favorite games? I’ll start off with one of mine.
Last man standing:
All the kids sit in a circle in their chairs. Teacher then shouts a question, which the kids repeat, followed by the command “Change seats.” Kids must then scramble to change seats as Teacher takes one too. This leaves one student stranded in the middle who must then answer the previous grammar question. Kids love this game as it involves the teacher (yes sometimes he gets ‘stranded’ in the middle too) and there’s never really a loser. I often play this game once a fortnight in the last 5 minutes of the lesson to finish on an energetic note. Variation: Kids can be asked to ‘shuffle’ one chair to their left or right if the classroom is small, or the class is particularly active.
Any more…???
You sound like you’re going to make a very good teacher Mr. Blobby.
The problem is there are just so many games, variations of games, and activities that it’s just going to take too long to list them. Plug ‘ESL games’ into google. I would also suspect that Joy have a handbook of games for new teachers, most of the big chains do, but they’ve forgotten to provide you with it. Give head office a call. If any of your co-teachers have been teaching for more than a few months they should easily be able to reel off a couple of dozen over a beer. Think about all the games you have played in your life and how you could tie them into a language point.
[quote=“bigal”]Then a kid falls over, breaks his arm and you get sued for not being in control of the class.
Games are for the playground not the classroom.[/quote]
So play games AND control the classroom! If you can’t get a bunch of elementary school kids to shut up and do as they’re told, then you got problems.
Um ‘last man standing’ is asking for trouble, though. The least of it is that it really damages chair legs, unless you have solid wooden chairs. They won’t like that.
I’ve never had a child get injured in the classroom. I took a sticky ball to the nuts once, but that was my own fault (‘Hit Teacher’ is a bloody stupid game).
Hi Mr Blobby. Love your work (if your username is based on the UK big pink character) Blobby Blobby!
Anyhow…
My favorite games (recently)
‘Answer game’. I say the answer, and the children put their hands up and ask the question. This is good because you can go really random or make it was easy or as hard as you like.
eg: "Ok - the ANSWER is ‘His shirt is blue’. What is the QUESTION?’
I make up a whole bunch of cards with single words on them like ‘car’, ‘house’, ice cream’. If the kids are higher level you can have stuff like ‘Mouse driving a car’, ‘a bottle on the table’ etc…
The kids take turns to take a card, then when I say ‘Go!’ they run from the back of the room to the board and draw what is on the card. The educational merit is dubious - but the kids LOVE this game. Even more so if you dissect their drawings or modify them to make them silly/funny.
I also have a snakes and ladders board that I painted myself. There are the regular snakes and ladders, but also question spaces, penalty spaces, a mouth icon which means they have to sing etc etc. This is a great time killer or warm up because you can tailor the questions etc to be based on the current work that they are doing.
For variety - I change the rules and say that snakes mean go up - and ladders mean go down. Or start from the last space and try to get to the start.
Thanks for the great responses guys. @tomthorne, thanks for the advice. I’ve searched around and found two great sites with ideas for esl class: geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/1979/games.html that I think everyone can get some mileage from!! @bigal, I agree to a large extent that games should be for the classroom, but the more I involve them, the more I like to use them, albeit in moderation. Of course every class is different, and each game should never be played for the sake of simple play… at least not all the time @Maitreya Bhuddha, Thanks for the input. I’ve never once had a problem with this game and I only play it with young classes or not overly active ones. Of course their are variations, where the kids simply change seats to the left or right which minimizes the chance of a kid going flying. Usually though the kids love this game and I find it a great way to get kids to ask and answer questions of each other! @tomthorne(2) - :no-no: @pubba, thanks for the great ideas. I like the idea of reverse snakes and ladders. I also wish [with some sigh of regret] that I had more time to involve songs in the classroom. The Joy syllabus is so insane with vocab lists and the like to cram down the kids throats in 40 mins, I’m always gasping for minutes whenever I can. @all - thanks for all the great comments. Whilst there are a plethora of buxiban games online, I’m still very interested in your tried and tested personal favorites…
Bigal may sound like Mr. Grumpy from Nofunland, but he/she does have a point if you have just started teaching or you don’t know the kids yet. It’s probably best to keep overly physical activities to a minimum. If you think about it, you’re not going to get fired for being boring, but if a kid loses his front teeth and boss has to hand out a whopping great red envelope to mum…
As for ‘Hit Teacher’, this is a game recommended by the esteemed HESS organisation. Basically, teacher stands in front of the whiteboard doing impressions of farmyard animals. First kid to shout out the name of the animal gets to throw a sticky ball at teacher. A direct hit earns the kid the reward of a some candy or a sugar rich drink.
[quote=“tomthorne”]
As for ‘Hit Teacher’, this is a game recommended by the esteemed HESS organisation. Basically, teacher stands in front of the whiteboard doing impressions of farmyard animals. First kid to shout out the name of the animal gets to throw a sticky ball at teacher. A direct hit earns the kid the reward of a some candy or a sugar rich drink.[/quote]
I know you were, and it’s very good advice. As you know, when one first starts teaching the big organisations always seem to push everything towards manic, manic, manic. More games, make it fun, keep children happy, nothing else matters. It can very rapidly get totally out of control, and very little language is spoken.
You’re not really Mr. Grumpy from Nofunland, I was just being Mr. Flippant from Dicksville.
[quote=“Buttercup”][quote=“tomthorne”]
As for ‘Hit Teacher’, this is a game recommended by the esteemed HESS organisation. Basically, teacher stands in front of the whiteboard doing impressions of farmyard animals. First kid to shout out the name of the animal gets to throw a sticky ball at teacher. A direct hit earns the kid the reward of a some candy or a sugar rich drink.[/quote]
Christ, they are Bad People.[/quote]
They’re scum, except for my friends who work there who are all lovely.
Hi there, @jimipresley, had a look for Bubble on the Floor game, though not really sure which website you mean…
Could you point me in the right direction?
No problem, Mr. Blobby. Also, I wanted to mention here that Geocities is closing its pages at the end of the month. I have now moved this page, along with some others, over here:
Brilliant! I’ve bookmarked the latter google site. Thanks a lot tatterdemalion. It seems a few of the sites on your list are also on Yahoo’s Geocity hit list!!
