SUBMITTED BY: Patrick Bickford     BORROWED FROM / INSPIRED BY: Angela & Joyce

Cogs

DATE ADDED: Nov 13, 2007     EDITED BY: まだ

Ò     èé   05-15 min.     If you're going to give this activity a low-rating, please post a useful comment to help make it better. SearchJHSActivity

Detailed Explanation:

1. The cogs in a clock are very important. If one cog is out of place, the whole clock is broken. The students are cogs. ;)
2. The object of this game is to get from one side of the class to the other by having the students repeat the previous sound, phrase, word, action, etc.
3. Have each of the students sitting in the corners of the classroom standup and play Janken. The winner starts. They can say an English word, a sound or even do an action. Anything is fair game as long as it’s something that is visually noticeably different than their usual catatonic expressions.
4. The next student then copies the previous student and adds something of their own. This game is like a human Simon video game. If the students are good enough, the chain of words/sounds/actions can become really funny and complex.
5. If someone makes a mistake or can’t remember, the game resets from where the mistake was made.

Variations:

• If you receive too much flack from your JTE about the lack of English involved in this activity you can either do two things:
  • Change the rules so the students can only say words. However, they can choose any word their heart desires as long as no word is repeated twice. This is a good time to correct the students’ bad pronunciations.
  • Remind the JTE that approximately 70% of their class is conducted in Japanese, and while they might be explaining an English grammar point, it’s still Japanese. ;)

Teaching Suggestions:

• This activity doesn’t necessarily practice English, but it could help break the initial tension in some of those hard-to-teach classes.

Tips/Cautions:

• Students might have a tough time creating sounds. If this is an issue with your class, prompt the students with example sounds.