ESL Kids

More wacky ESL gaming goodness from Naruhodo-eigo.com

By Bill Ralens
Intro:
The Charades Race Game is a great game to play and it uses TPR. If you are familiar with the game Chinese Whispers also known as the Telephone game, the Charades Race Game should be easy to pick up.
Skill Used: Gesturing (TPR), Speaking
Level: Easy to difficult (depends on the vocabulary)
Ages: 6 and up 
Group size: 16 or more people. (This game might be ok with slightly fewer people.)
Setup:
Students form teams with 6 to 10 people in a team. Each team forms a line. Your lesson should include one gesture for each vocabulary word or phrase and the students should be familiar with the gestures and vocabulary.
How to Play:
In the Telephone Game, the teacher whispers something to the first person on each team. After the teacher yells, “Ready…go,” the first person whispers the “answer” to the second person, who then whispers the “answer” to the third person and so on. The last person on the team to hear the answer runs to repeat it back to the teacher. The Charades Race Game is very similar except that instead of whispering a word or phrase, the students gesture to each other with the last person on the team whispering the answer to the teacher. Because gestures are visual, it’s best to show the gestures out of view of the other students, say out in a hallway. It’s also a good idea if to have the students do “heads down” during game play. Also after one round is played the first person goes to the back of the line and the second student now becomes the first.
Scoring:
Because this is a team competition, scoring adds to the excitement. In our classroom, we score based on the number of teams. For example, if you have four teams, the fastest team gets four points, second fastest, three points, third fastest, two points, and last place, one point. For the younger students, the fastest team gets four points and all the other teams get three points.
End Notes:
The game starts when the teacher yells, “Ready…Go!” Through the students off a little by yelling, “Ready…Gorilla!” or “Ready Gohan!” (gohan means rice in Japanese). It’s also interesting if the teacher moves around the room so that the last student has to hunt a little to find the teacher.