Teaching English While Running Around

[KagawaPAChris]

Hi everyone,

Do any of you ever face this kind of problem:
You are asked to teach elementary school students "easy to understand" English, while simultaneously teaching them a "fun game from your home country" in which they can "run around and/or use different parts of the body," and they are supposed to come away from it with 1. greater knowledge of English and 2. the feeling that they had a good time? Oh yeah, and this group of students numbers anywhere from 80 to 300 students?

I can't tell you how many requests like this I have received recently. And I am sick to death of trying to find ways to make janken interesting and (in my case) American. Also, the heads, shoulders, knees and toes activities have run their course.

Does anyone have some good ideas for activities for this kind of situation? Your input would be greatly appreciated.

Chris

[Musashi]

Wow, I couldn't even imagine teaching an effective lesson with 80 kids let alone 300.

All I can suggest is that you try and do dance or interactive type lessons for under 20mins.

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[word]

Do Simon Says first. Then go right into the Hokey Pokey. The Hokey Pokey is fantastic; teaches right/left, in/out, body parts, and makes the kids LOL like crazy (even older ES kids).

[Guiteau]

Do Simon Says first. Then go right into the Hokey Pokey. The Hokey Pokey is fantastic; teaches right/left, in/out, body parts, and makes the kids LOL like crazy (even older ES kids).

This is exactly what I was going to say. For 300 kids? This is your lesson.

[Musashi]

Only problem is that it's a warm up, not a lesson.

I used to teach 80 kindergarden kids in 1 shot, and my English lesson was 10mins.

Trying to do a 40 - 45 min lesson for that many kids is impractical.

Even Japanese teachers don't do such large lessons. If you ask them to lead the lesson once or twice, guaranteed they'll realize their kill 5 lessons with one stone is a bad idea.

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[Siyris]

You can also use bang bang clap with vocab words for each student --- break them down into smaller groups of ten each or so
You could try adapting a form of tag into an English activity
If you break them down (again) into groups of about 10-14 you could play a fly swatter game that lets them race to the board/wall/path of pictures/etc to slap the right vocab word with a fly swatter.

Another good game that one of the other ALTs in my area came up with is a water race game.... you have two teams, each team has a full bucket and an empty bucket of water that are a good 10 m apart (less or more is ok too). They also each have a cup with a small hole in the bottom and a racket (tennis, badminton, racquetball, etc). They have to run, fill up the cup, balance it on the racket, then come back to dump the water in the empty bucket. At the full bucket you have them say the word of a flashcard image/say the target sentence/ask the target question/etc. It is a game that needs to be played outside though....


hope that helps.

My first recommendation was going to be the Hokey Pokey as well though.

[chelsums]

If you keep switching the teams, this game could last awhile
http://genkienglish.net/harrypotter.htm

[Phillippa_MiePA]

If you have a large gym or sports hall you can stick up signs on each wall (Yes, no, sometimes, maybe etc.) and ask all the kids to stand in the middle. Ask them a question and get them to run to the part of the room representing their answer. Or you could put a rope in the middle, make one side true and one side false and ask them to guess the answer to a question. The people on the losing side are 'out'. Gradually whittle it down to the winner and give them a sticker or something.

I had 192 kids for one class, janken was used but when I realised how much space I had I wished I had done the above.

[Jeff_KyotoPA]

This might not work well with a huge number of students, but how about "Fruit Basket"? I think most of the students would be familiar with the game so you wouldn't have to explain how to play. Instead of using the names of fruit, you could have the students say things like "yellow socks" or other descriptions.

[pnksweater]

At an elementary school assembly I witnessed a pretty good large group game. There was a little rhyme at first that everyone repeated line by line, then a final word which changed with every round. The syllables of the final word were counted and students and teachers had to form groups with the same number of people. Groups sat down, everyone took turns doing a self introduction (in Japanese), and stood up when finished. The rhyme was repeated and new groups were formed.

I think this sort of game would be very easily adapted to English. You could do brief introductions. You could do simple phrases like, “I like (favorite food).”

I can’t remember the rhyme for the life of me… anyone else witnessed a similar Japanese game?

[isitatomic]

Chicken daaaaaaaaaaance!

[NiigataPAKatrina]

Are you and ALT or a CIR? If you are an ALT and teaching elementary school often, you need a variety of games that teach English.
If you are a CIR and just visiting the school once but have been asked to teach a game, I love Red Light, Green Light and Duck, Duck, Gooose for 1-3 grade students, with 4-6, I often play MASH (the fortune-telling game favored by American elementary school girls).

[Siyris]

One thing that I've done that has worked pretty well for practicing 'go' 'come' 'turn' 'right' 'left' 'over' and 'under' is doing human knots. it doesn't work as well with little kids (1-2 grade) but older kids love it. The other thing that I've found worked well is Simon Says, and What time is it Mr. Fox. Sharks and Minnows can also work well, though getting English into that is sometimes a bit harder.

If you have a large area like a gym, you can try playing a variation of Freeze tag, where in order to unfreeze someone, the kids have a short conversation "What do you like? -- I like apples."