 Cogs
Brief Outline: Just like the cogs in a clock, students must work together to remember the previous students’ words, actions and/or sounds.  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.
Detailed Explanation: - The cogs in a clock are very important. If one cog is out of place, the whole clock is broken. The students are cogs. ;)
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- If someone makes a mistake or can’t remember, the game resets from where the mistake was made.
Variations & Options: - 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. ;)
Tips or Cautions: - Students might have a tough time creating sounds. If this is an issue with your class, prompt the students with example sounds.
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