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Games, Activities, and so on for First Year Students

*All activities are designed for use in conjunction with TOKYO SHOSEKI’s New Horizon English Course

Term One – (April to July)

Name of Game or  Activity

Description

Target Grammar or Vocabulary

"Hot Potato" Warm-Up Activity

Just a fun, quick game to review grammar and get the class going. Seems best suited to first year classes.

Any grammar you like

Are you from America? BINGO!

This is a simple BINGO game to practice asking and answering the target question (“Are you from ~?”). Students first choose a country to be “from” from the nine listed on their BINGO sheet. Then, in pairs, they ask each other as many variations as it takes (“Are you from France? Are you from Canada?”) to determine each other’s country of origin. When they[1] find out, they write their partner’s name in the appropriate space. They change partners to fill in the rest of the squares. Completing all nine squares is BINGO. Alternatively, once students fill in all the blanks, a one-line BINGO game can be played with the ALT calling students’ names out at random from the attendance book and having students cross off the appropriate names on their BINGO sheets. Small prizes can be awarded for BINGO..

“Are you from~?”

“Oh, my change!”

An activity to practice starting conversations with someone you don’t know, the reporting and the acknowledging of receipt of lost items, and several basic polite expressions in English. The expressions “Excuse me”, “Thank you”, and “You’re welcome” are practiced. Details of how to prepare and perform the activity are here.

“Excuse me.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

PICTIONARY!

An activity to practice identifying the names of objects. Good fun.

“Is that a〜？“

“Yes, it is.”

“No, it isn’t.”

Cardinal Number Relay

Another quick game that reviews the cardinal numbers

Cardinal numbers

(“one”, “two”,

“three”, etc.);

“~plus~”;”~minus~”

Name of Game or  Activity

Description

Days of the Week Card Game

This requires some preparation time, but it’s good practice of both the names and the sequence of the days of the week, and students absolutely love playing it. You can also modify it fairly easily for months, numbers, or even the alphabet if you like. It’s based on the card game Cheat, which the students know as “Doubt” (and which I learned in Canada under a somewhat ruder name). You have to print out the Card Game sheet and copy it onto coloured construction paper first (so the students can’t see the backs when the printouts have been cut into cards). Three printouts make a deck, and you need six decks to play (In other words, 3x6 = 18 printouts). If you laminate the sheets before cutting, the cards last a lot longer. Detailed instructions on how to play the game are on the Card Game Sheet.

Find someone who…

This sheet is in MS Word Format, so you can modify it as you like on a word processing program. It is a two-part activity. In the first part, the interview, students circulate the room, asking each other questions from the sheet. (For example, “Do you play volleyball?”) If the answer is “Yes, I do.”, the interviewing student writes the answering student’s name on the sheet. If it’s “No, I don’t.” then the interviewing asking student either asks another question or interviews a different student. Once a student gets three lines completed in any direction, s/he gets BINGO (and, if you like, a small prize)*. The ALT and JTE should participate in the interview activity. In the second part of the sheet, the presentation, the students must report to the ALT or JTE one thing they’ve learned about one of their friends, using third person singular subject-verb agreement. For example, if they have Murakami’s name under “walk to school”, they have to tell the ALT or JTE, “Murakami walks to school”.

*Note: to shorten the BINGO portion of the activity, just change the number at the top left on the sheet from “3” to “2” or “1” (to make two-line BINGO and one-line BINGO respectively).

“What time is it?” KARUTA

This is a KARUTA game to practice comprehension of times in English. The sheet has twelve clock cards on it, each depicting a different time. Six copies of if should be printed, and cut into six twelve-card sets. (Laminating before cutting will ensure your cards last beyond a couple of games). The class divides up and puts their desks together in six groups, and each group gets a set of twelve cards, which they distribute face up roughly in the center of their desks. The JTE asks the ALT “What time is it now?” and the ALT answers with one of the written answers on the answer portion of the sheet. The fastest student in each group to pick up that card and show it to the ALT or JTE gets to keep it. This sequence is repeated until all the answers have been given, and the student within each group with the most cards wins.