The Details of the “Oh, my change!” activity.

 

First, the ALT prepares forty cards with depictions of lost items. For this, I have prepared a five-page ready-made sheet,which you can print and then either glue or photocopy onto stiff paper or cardboard and then cut into cards. Each student receives one card, with a different lost item on it. Then, the students get up from their desks and circulate around the room. They take successive partners. With each partner they first janken to decide who will be “A” (“Mark” in the textbook) and who will be “B” (an unnamed “woman” in the textbook.) Then, they perform the following dialogue:

 

 

 

In the two “~” spaces go the same one item on Student A’s lost item card. As “A” says line 3 of the dialogue, s/he hands his/her card over to “B”. Then, they switch places and do the dialogue again, this time with the former “B” handing over the card, so that at the end the students end up with each other’s cards. Then they find new partners and do it again with their newly acquired cards.

 

With good schools, at the end of the activity I get random students to present the dialogue (using the cards they currently have) with me in front of the rest of the class; with not so good schools, I circulate and do the activity with them myself, so that many students have to practice the activity with a native speaker anyway.

 

There are many unconventional “lost items” on the cards, including a train ticket from Kokura to Canada! (I have included the more unusual items because they tend to crack students up, especially if I encourage them to act out the weirder ones like “your elephant!” or “your airplane!”, which makes the activity a bit more fun.) If you don’t like one of the items listed, feel free to change it. Also, to assist pronunciation, KATAKANA (also look here!) equivalents are provided with all the items depicted on my ready-made sheet. If your JTE doesn’t like KATAKANA, or if your school is good enough that your first year’s don’t need it, just white it out before you copy it.