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Talking with Foreigners GRAMMAR: General Game SUBMITTED BY: Raegina Taylor BORROWED FROM: JET Resource Materials & Teaching Handbook, 2006 DATE ADDED: Jun 19, 2007 EDITED BY: まだ | |
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35-50 min.
2 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  |
Brief Outline: Students use Japanese culture-based questions to stimulate conversation using different grammar points. This is not rehearsed or grammar specific, so students must think and culminate what they have learned and apply it to a conversational situation which they may come across in Japan.
Materials Needed:
Detailed Explanation: Have the students do a warm-up free-conversation activity. For example, an activity that consists of students asking each other on-the-fly questions and answers. Then, demonstrate with the JTE an example question/answer, like, “Do I have to take off my shoes in a restaurant?” Write some grammar points on the chalkboard so students can reference it when they answer questions – Because ~, I think ~, It is ~, etc. Make every second row of students foreigners. Explain this activity is a conversation task. Practice the vocabulary on the ‘Let’s Talk’ sheet attached below. This vocabulary will give the students the arsenal they need to answer the questions asked. Go through a couple examples with the students. ‘Take off my shoes’ and ‘Kiyomizu Temple‘ are two of my favorite examples. Practicing these example questions/answers should help the students when the activity starts. Give out the question cards to the foreigners. When the foreigners have a question answered, they give the question card to the ‘Japanese’ person sitting next to them. The ‘foreigners’ (they were the Japanese people) stand up and move forward a place. Repeat, swapping roles of asking and answering questions, while also changing conversation partners. Make sure the same row moves at all times, otherwise the students are not swapping partners or questions! Encourage students to say more than, “No, you don’t.” One suggestion is to create a rule that the answer must be at least two sentences.
Variations: I had my students fill out evaluation sheets on the activity. This might be a good way to see how the students perceive their conversation skills and the level of the activity, not to mention their ability to express themselves in English.
Tips/Cautions: Be aware that girls and boys do not want to talk to each other, so have some kind of system which ensures that they do talk to each other.
Comments: - Might I suggest telling your students who are forced to go out and reek havoc on the foreign population to first ask, "Do you live in Japan or are you just visiting?" Then, instruct them to only choose the real tourists.
- (Aug 24, 2011) K said: I agree with the first poster. While these questions aren't bad, per se, as a non-Japanese living in Japan, this sort of conversation does get very old, very fast. After awhile, it gets tiring when starting a conversation your partner assumes you know nothing about Japan. Ice-breaking questions don't have to always centre on your foreignness.
- (Feb 7, 2011) Something I'm Not said: >there are many foreigners who live in Japan as well and might not want to have this kind of conversation.
Only stick-in-the-mud, pompous, full-of-themselves foreigners get upset when people show interest in them and ask ice-breaking questions.
I dislike it when other foreigners in Japan complain about Japanese who ask them questions like "Do you like natto?"
They're the same foreigners who complain when Japanese people don't talk to them at all! There's no pleasing them. - (Aug 27, 2010) P said: I think this would be good for students living in touristy areas but it may also be important to point out the fact there are many foreigners who live in Japan as well and might not want to have this kind of conversation.
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