Russell Stannard explores the internet to find games for large classes of children.
I often work in China and I am constantly looking for new ideas to use with large classes for children. Playground games are a great inspiration and I have found several websites which describe them. I then adapt the games for my language classes.
What’s the time, Mr Wolf?
This adaptation of the traditional game is great for practising the time and numbers and works well with low-level classes. Tell each of the children to write a number between 1 and 12 on a piece of paper. One student (the wolf) comes to the front and stands with their back to the class. The rest stand up, holding up their numbers. They all call out ‘What’s the time, Mr Wolf?’ and the wolf says a time, for example, ‘3 o’clock’. All the students with the number 3 sit down. The students then ask again ‘What’s the time, Mr Wolf?’ and the wolf says another time, for example ‘11 o’clock’; all the students holding 11 then sit down. This continues until there is only one number or one student left. You can vary this game and practise other times by allowing both o’clock and half past times.
Please, Mr Crocodile!
This game is useful for practising clothes vocabulary. Again, choose one student who comes to the front and faces away from the class. The others stand up and say ‘Please, Mr Crocodile, can I sit down?’ The crocodile answers by saying, for example, ‘Only if you have blue trousers’. All the students with blue trousers can then sit down. The students then ask again ‘Please, Mr Crocodile, can I sit down?’ The crocodile answers by saying something else, for example ‘Only if you have a white shirt’. The game continues like this until there are only a few students left.
Where’s the button?
I use this game to practise adjectives to do with heat. You will need to pre-teach the necessary vocabulary. Bring one student to the front, facing away from the rest of the class. The other students have to hide a button somewhere in the classroom. The student at the front then turns round and begins to walk around the classroom. The others have to say if he or she is getting nearer to the button or not. They call out words like freezing, very cold, cold, warm, hot, very hot as the student gets nearer and nearer. When he or she finds the button, they call out ‘Boiling hot’.
Red light/green light
This game was very successful when I tested it out in China. It is useful for practising the present continuous. One student is the ‘Traffic Light’ and stands at the front with their back to the rest of the class. The Traffic Light calls out ‘Green light’ and all the students have to start miming an activity (running, swimming, eating, etc). The Traffic Light then calls out ‘Red light’ and turns around quickly. The other students have to stop their mimes immediately; if the Traffic Light sees anyone still miming and can identify what action they are doing, then that student is out and has to sit down. So, for example, if the Traffic Light turns round and sees someone miming eating and says ‘Lee, you are eating’, then Lee is out and sits down. If the Traffic Light is wrong, then they rejoin the class and the person who was wrongly accused becomes the Traffic Light. Whoever is now the Traffic Light then turns round and calls out ‘Green light’ again and the students all start miming a different activity.
Cat and mouse
I have ended up doing many variations on this game, which I never played when I was young but read about on a site with children’s playground games. You need a big class sitting close to each other for it to work well (it is very successful in China where the students sit in rows). Two students come to the front. One is the ‘Cat Instructor’ and the other the ‘Mouse Instructor’ Give a picture of a cat to a student at the back of the class and a picture of a mouse to a student at the front. The cat has to chase the mouse around the class. The Cat Instructor gives instructions on where to move the cat, for example ‘Cat left’, ‘Cat right’, ‘Cat back’, ‘Cat forward’. The student who has the cat picture must listen and pass it to the correct student according to the instructions. The Mouse Instructor does the same, giving instructions about where the mouse should go to avoid getting near the cat. The result is that the two instructors are shouting out loads of instructions and the pictures are being passed around by the students. If the cat gets within one student of the mouse (ie behind, in front of or next to) then the mouse has been caught. You need to insist that the rest of the class is quiet so that all students can hear the instructions!
The above activities are a taster of some of the ways that I have adapted playground games. The games themselves in their original form, along with many others, can be found at two different websites. I am sure you will find lots of ways of adapting some of them to your own classes:
http://homepage.eircom.net/~seaghan/play/games.html
Just click on the name of any game that interests you and the instructions will come up on the right.
This very useful site has an incredible array of games that I have still not got through completely!
Here is a fun site you can use if you have computers in the classroom. The site makes ‘Wacky web stories’. Students simply fill in the answers to the questions and click on a button. The site then creates stories from their answers. Get the students to print out their answers or read them out to the class to find the best one – lots of fun and no preparation!
Russell Stannard is a senior lecturer in ICT and course leader for MSc Multimedia at the University of Westminster, UK. He has an extensive publishing background in ELT and is currently working with BBC Worldwide on various CD-ROMs, and with Macmillan Hong Kong on a primary course. He also teaches English and Spanish at Sutton Adult Education College, UK.
This article first appeared in English Teaching Professional, Issue 37, 2005