Baseball

GRAMMAR: General Game     SUBMITTED BY: Patrick Bickford / Jacob Rashidi     DATE ADDED: May 25, 2010     EDITED BY: Fiona Steele

ÒÓ    èé   35-50 min.   4 votes: 4-star   If you're going to give this activity a low-rating, please post a useful comment to help make it better. SearchJHSActivity

Materials Needed:

• Baseball attachments: Patrick's (original) / Jacob's (see Variations area below)

Detailed Explanation:

1. After dividing the class into two teams, have one member from each team play
   Janken to decide which team bats first.
2. The team on offense chooses one student who is the batter. The batter chooses the type of hit they would like to try:
   • SINGLE: Yes/No questions.
   • DOUBLE: Spelling (either speaking or writing on the board).
   • TRIPLE: Charades (batter acts out a situation and their team must guess the scenario. Additionally, if the other team guesses the scenario first, it results in an out.)
   • HOMERUN: Describe an object. The student is given an object and they must create three sentences to describe the object.
3. The rules:
   • A correct answer allows the student to move to the respective base.
   • An incorrect answer will results in an out.
   • Other teammates may give hints to the batter in English, but not the answer.
   • Japanese being spoken automatically results in an out.
4. If the batter can’t understand/answer the question or if they make a mistake in the grammar, the other team has a chance to answer. If the other team answers correctly, it results in an out. If both teams answer incorrectly, the batter receives a strike; three strikes = 1 out.
5. If there is a student on 1st base and the next batter hits the ball, the student on 1st base moves to the next appropriate base.  For example, if there is a student on 1st base and the batter hits a triple, the student on 1st base's final destination is home plate, while the batter's is 3rd base.

Variations:

• Steal option: A runner (someone who has batted and is now on base one, two or three) may move to the next base by correctly answering a question both teams have failed to answer.
• Jacob's Variation:
• To prepare the attachment, there are 24 blanks on the first page. You can choose from the list of questions provided on page 2 and put them into the slots on page one, or you can write your own. Once completed, print out: 1.) a set of questions for each group of four students, a set of baseballs for each group, and 3.) a baseball diamond for each group.
• Have the students sit groups of four students. There are two students per side, so basically on 2-person team plays against another 2-person team.
• They start off playing Janken and the winning team can choose to be offense or defense first.
• Now, hand out the baseball diamond, baseballs and a set of questions to each group. The pitching team receives the questions. The questions remain facedown on the desk when a question is not being asked. The batting team receives the set of baseballs, which they are responsible to cutout before the game starts.
• Game starts by the batting team choosing a distance on the baseball diamond: 1B1, 2B3, HR2, etc. Let's say for example the batting team chooses 1B1. The pitching team asks the question from the 1B1 area: "Will you moonwalk for me now?" Only one student on the batting team can answer. There are 3 ways to answer the question:
• If the batter answers in a negative sentence (No, I can't.), the batter receives 1 strike (3 strikes is 1 out). Teams change sides after 1 out.
• If the batter answers affirmatively (Yes, I can.), they must follow up their answer by doing what was requested (a.k.a. stand up and moonwalk.)
• If the batter doesn't understand the question, they respond, "I don't know." This equals 1 out, and hence the teams switch sides
• I suggest demonstrating an example inning with the JTE before the students start their games.

 Teaching Suggestions:

• This game is not designed for classes with more than 20 students.
• The simplified rules to baseball:
  • The infield is in the shape of a diamond and consists of a 1st, 2nd, 3rd and home base.
  • The goal of the game is to get as many points as possible within 9 innings of play. Points are received when the offense hits a homerun or when the batter runs around the bases and touches home base.
  • Each inning has 3 outs. When a team receives 3 outs they switch to defense.
• This game can be played by drawing the baseball diamond on the chalkboard or using the classroom’s desks as actual bases. However, the desk option is not recommended for larger classes.

Comments:

• (Dec 7, 2011) Alex said:
  It's a good game, specially in Japan with billion baseball lover kids. I played this with my JHS kids today. it started slow, at first student didn't get what to do, but after like 3, 4 minutes, they start enjoying it and they didn't want to stop it anymore. and my JHT ask me to play the same game next week with my 3rd grader also. Thanks for posting, bang on.
• (Aug 3, 2010) Sonofobed said:
  Tried this game out and it was sweet. Some recommended optional rules. Limit how many singles can be hit. After 6 straight singles (three runs more or less) I declared that no one could use singles and more. It prompts the kids to try more difficult questions, and you won't run out of singles questions by the first inning.
  
  Also, if an inning is taking a while, you can shorten each side to 2 runs if needed.