RELATIVE CLAUSE / RELATIVE PRONOUN PICTIONARY (The same game, with sentences to fit participial phrase practice is here.)

 

           This game repeatedly exposes students to the structure of relative clause modification of nouns, as in these sentences lifted from the text:

          

           Carson is the scientist who wrote Silent Spring. [relative clause “who wrote silent spring” modifying the noun “scientist”]

This is a book that she wrote last year. [relative clause “that she wrote last year” modifying the noun “book”]

 

The game involves students in listening to you and drawing what they hear, so it’s purely comprehension, rather than production. I like it though because students usually enjoy it so much they don’t realize that they’re learning English, which is a trick I think a good activity should be able to play.

 

HOW TO PLAY THE GAME:

 

           Divide the class into six groups. Distribute large sheets of paper to each group, one sheet per student (A3 size seems to be best). Using the sentences below (or your own if you like), describe a series of unique situations. As you describe each one, the students’ task is to draw as quickly-and-accurately as possible the situation you describe. When a student produces a drawing, they put up their hand, and you inspect it. If you recognize the drawing as depicting what you described, that student’s team gets a point. The team with the most points at the end wins.  For example, if you say “the man biting the dog is Tom Cruise”, you would expect a picture of Cruise biting a dog, not a dog biting him, not him biting into a hot dog, etc. I usually prepare a heap of situations, because once students get the hang of it they can go through them very fast. Feel free to use any of the below examples if you wish. Many of them may sound a bit silly, but the idea is to describe a unique situation, not necessarily one the students could easily guess from context, so that they are learning to recognize the meaning of the structure independent of context.

 

 

1)	King Kong is the monster who is fighting with PIKACHU.
2)	The mouse that enjoys its cheese is very small.
3)	MUSASHI is the SAMURAI who is on the bicycle.
4)	The girl who is playing the piano is beautiful.
5)	KOCHO-SENSEI is the teacher who is wearing a KIMONO.
6)	The girl who has a baseball cap on is really tall
7)	The SUMO who is eating ice cream is crying.
8)	HELLO KITTY is the cat who can do KARATE.
9)	The monster who is dancing is cute.
10)	The dog who is studying English has long ears.
11)	[JTE’s NAME] -SENSEI is the person who is doing RAKUGO.
12)	The fish that is sitting in the chair has big teeth.
13)	Ayumi Hamasaki is the girl who is in the KARAOKE box.
14)	President Koizumi is a man who washes the dishes.
15)	[ALT’s NAME] is the teacher who eats pizza.
16)	Razor Ramone, HG is the man who is swimming in the ocean.
17)	The rabbit who can ski looks happy.
18)	Winnie the Pooh is the bear who is running the EKIDEN..
19)	SANTA CLAUS is the man who is wearing sunglasses.
20)	The man who is playing the SHAMISEN has a big nose.
21)	Your homeroom teacher is the person who is on TV.
22)	The cat who is laughing likes his hamburger.
23)	CRAYON SHINCHAN is the boy who is playing in the tree.
24)	The boy who loves cola is Mark Brown.
25)	The woman who is playing the guitar is SAZAE-SAN.
26)	The Big Lizard which was caught in Harajuku speaks English.
27)	Doraemon is a robot who sings in the shower.
28)	The polar bear which is sitting in the ONSEN looks sad.
29)	Astroboy is the robot who reads comics.
30)	Godzilla is the monster who plays soccer.