Countries & Flags

GRAMMAR: General Game     SUBMITTED BY: Luke Highstead     BORROWED FROM / INSPIRED BY: Akemi Wellington-Oguri     DATE ADDED: Jul 05, 2008     EDITED BY: まだ

Ó    èë   35-50 min.   6 votes: 4.5-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:

• CountriesAndFlags worksheets: Colour copies are suggested. Number each flag on the reverse numerically starting with number one. Laminate if possible and cut them out, keeping in mind laminated sheets can be cut up really quickly using a ‘paper cutter’.

Detailed Explanation:

1. Teach the whole class how to pronounce the names of the countries and continents on the worksheet.
2. Have students make groups of 4-5. Each group gets one card (flag) and works out which country it is from the list given on the worksheet. Then one student comes up to the ALT and says: “This is the flag of France. France is in Europe.”
3. If either answer, country or continent, is wrong, tell them “no.” They must come back and try again. If both answers are correct, they write the answer on their worksheet next to the corresponding flag number and receive the next flag.
4. The first group to complete the worksheet correctly is the winner. Check the winning team’s worksheet to ensure honesty and accuracy.

Tips/Cautions:

• Give each group a number. Keep track of which set of flags belongs to each group.
• No matter how absurd it sounds, make sure every student speaks to the ALT.
• Go over pronunciation of difficult words after the activity for review purposes.

Comments:

• (Nov 9, 2011) englipatrick (mod) said:
  Ash, please send it.
• (Nov 8, 2011) Ash said: excellent game work suprisingly well. i gotta say though the res on the images is terrible, i made my own with decent quality pics, i can send it if you want thanks
• (July 13, 2011) englipatrick (mod) said: I redid the worksheets. It looks much slicker now.
  BTW, I don't like people copying pics straight from the internet and pasting them into a document and sending them into Englipedia.
• (July 13, 2011) Anonymous said: If you let the cursor hang over the pictures of the flags in word then the website where they were taken from shows up. The name of each flag's country is embedded in the website's address.
• (Mar 3, 2011) Anonymous said: My first years loved this game. Even kids who normally goof off and don't participate really got into it. I made a stack of flags for each group at the front desk, numbered them from 1-18 and had the students race each other to finish. They were screaming and running frantically trying to figure out the countries and continents.
  I would actually replace a couple familiar flags like Italy and the UK with South American flags or Mexico. Most kids in Japan know nothing about these countries. Took them 20 minutes once to figure out that they speak Spanish in Mexico so I think it would be a nice challenge and stump some of the super fast groups (there's always one with a kid that knows all these flags!)
• (Feb 24, 2011) Anonymous said: Really needs an answer sheet. I don't know all these flags.